Halloween Cookies

It's the day before Halloween, so I figured this might be a good time for cookies shaped like pumpkins and Frankensteins. They don't taste as good as I was hoping, but they're cute enough. The first batch had candy corn for eyes which was not my best idea seeing as how the candy completely melted in the oven. Although it is an appropriate time of year for eyeballs oozing out of their sockets, I decided to stick to m&ms and jelly beans after that.

A Trip to the Museum

Marbled Paper

Today we spent a nice afternoon at the MFA. We saw a demonstration of Turkish paper marbling which was amazing. They float the paint on top of water and do all kinds of swirly designs in it, kind of like when you make marble cake. Then they float the paper on top, make sure the edges are flat, and when they pick it up all the paint has been transferred to the paper like magic! And all that effort just makes one beautiful piece of paper. The other highlight of the day was their exhibit on Soviet Textiles from around 1930 which were designed to get people psyched about industrialization. Imagine shirts and pillowcases with tractors, gears, and factories on them. They're fabulous!

Soviet Fabric

Scrabble Seating

These scrabble benches are so great. If I had them in my house I'd have the rug be the board. When anyone wanted to make a really long word they'd have to carry a huge pile of pillows to the right place. Then once you'd covered the whole board with letters you could just lay down on top and go to sleep.

Apple Pie

Apples apples everywhere. What's a girl to do? So this afternoon I whipped up an apple pie! Okay I didn't exactly just whip it up, I don't really know how to do that. I got the recipe from Emeril and then I whipped it up. Okay okay I can't take all the credit. LZ helped too so I guess we whipped it up. How many more times do you think I will say whip it up? whip, whip, whip. Anyways - crumb topping and frozen pie crust, the only way to go. And I still have enough apples left for about five more pies! Anyone want a piece?

Apples Apples Everywhere!

On Sunday we went apple-picking. It was our first zipcar adventure! My zipcard was defective and wouldn't unlock the car so we got off to a rocky start but after a phone call to customer service, it was smooth sailing. We went to One Stack Orchard in Stow, MA. They have lots of apples to pick and an old cider press where they make unhomogenized cider. No hay rides, no corn mazes, just apple trees! After we picked more apples than we'll ever eat, we drove around admiring the foliage.

In other news, exactly one year ago yesterday LZ and I moved (back) to the US. It is a momentous occasion. Overall, it was a pretty good year.

Newburyport

This weekend we went to Newburyport, a small New Englandy town at the end of the commuter rail. They were having the Fall Harvest Festival so it was a good day to go. We saw the Yoyo Show and a scarecrow contest (see photos). We ate seafood chowder in bread bowls. Also, we thoroughly enjoyed watching people parallel park their boats.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

中秋节快乐！
Yesterday was the Chinese full moon festival. I hope everyone admired the full moon!

Today is Saturday and I've been monitoring TV all day. That's right, when your Harvard professor tells you to watch TV for homework it's not called watching, it's called monitoring. We learn very important things here.