Personally, I don’t see much of a resemblance. The face recognition technology still needs a wee bit of work. I hope we’re not really depending on this sort of thing for national security…
Recent
About ten years ago
About twenty years ago
We drove into Cambridge so that John could hand-deliver his manuscript to The MIT Press. I was still printing out the monster – almost 900 pages of it – at 3 a.m. the night (morning) before we left Atlanta. He went out to lunch with his editor (who was kind enough to lend me a good neighborhood map).
While John was doing that, I took Ben to the Boston Museum of Science (we used to call it the “Boston Science Museum” – did they change the order?). Wow. Just as wonderful as I remembered. Ben was enchanted. We took pictures of our shadows, and blended our faces in the window/mirrors, and looked at the little robots, and all sorts of other things.
We even went to the Gunther von Hagens BodyWorlds 2 exhibit. It was a bit edgy for a 6-year-old, but I kept an eye on him to see his reaction. There was only one awkward moment – he asked a funny question, and several people turned around to look. I answered it in a fairly straightforward way, and he was reassured.
For the squeamish, I should mention that they don’t really look like what they are. The plastination process makes everything look like a very advanced model, not the real thing. There is no smell, no sense of death at all. And they are beautiful. The sheer complexity! I was looking at a very thin cross-section of someone’s leg, and the textures reminded me of aquatic lifeforms – like sponges. After about 20 minutes or so, Ben was ready – get this – to go get some lunch. He said that he was bored of looking at all the humans. He wanted to eat (and then go to the museum store and then look at the big dinosaur again). We had lunch looking out on the river.
See the reflections on the glass?
We had a somewhat scary moment when I realized that John’s cellphone, that I was carrying, had died. Since we hadn’t set a time or place to meet up again, I finally called the Press and left a message, which was a bit garbled in delivery. We found each other, finally, in the lobby of the museum.
I never did stop in to visit my hometown (which John has never seen). I would have liked to see a few more friends in the eastern Massachusetts/Providence, R.I. area (Jan, Mary, Lorna…and yes! you too Nicolette! and others!), and some of my extended family. We ran out of time.
Later than we had planned, we got into the car, navigated through the tunnels, and headed west on the Massachusetts Turnpike (the Mass Pike, the Pike), directly into the setting sun – toward Amherst.
To be continued…
(but not tonight…)
A big wedding congrats to my friend Rosei (Roseangela). May you and JP have a blessed life together, full of laughter and love and kindness and joy.
See more wedding photos!
It is very sweet where you said:
Now, coming to life again, I’m married! And happy in my new house, sharing life with an excellent husband. This is my life page now. Let us see the future of us.
Now…get that Ph.D. done! (hugs)
I was in the middle of a coaching call yesterday (training a trainer on DISC theory and workplace applications) when a post-it was stuck onto the desk before me. It read, “Did you say that it was ok for your son to bring home a kitten? Call hubby.”
No, I never said that (of course), but I had to continue with the call for almost another 45 minutes.
When I was finally able to call home, it turned out that the kitten signal wasn’t from Ben (6) but from Evan (24). He was “sure that I would want him to” bring us one of a litter of very young kittens that were abandoned at the back doorstep of where he works.
Well, I’m not sure the timing is good for a pet, but I’m sure you know what happened we saw this little creature:
The cat – Ben wants to call it “Stripe” or something that starts with an “M” – was shaky and scared last night, so I ended up cuddling it out on the couch all night. Of course, he/she seemed to think that 4 am was the perfect play-hour.
I’m sure this cat is too young to be away from its mother. He (or she?) won’t drink any water or milk (should I try Similac? I actually have some). Some dry kitten food and a few bits of Ben’s Eggo is all the kitten has had. I’m not sure if it knows how to use the litterbox, but there’s been no activity of any kind in almost 24 hours now.
I’m going to call the vet tomorrow, but any sharing of the kitten wisdom would be welcome. I’ve not dealt with one this young before.
This is the kind of thing that makes me want to tear my hair out in frustration. I happened to see a little toad that looked just exactly like a piece of bark. I had to get off a couple of quick shots with the digital camera before it jumped away, and didn’t have time to mess around with all the options and controls. The camera simply would not focus on the toad. It was set to “auto.” This is the sad result.
As you see, the background is captured perfectly. I tried to fill the whole screen with the toad, zooming in til I could zoom no more – all to no avail. I didn’t have any problem taking a photograph of small flowers, but I suppose that’s because there weren’t really two distinct field depths.
So what is the secret, photographers? If this happens again, I shall scream.
Our sweet little cat Zoom has been missing for five days now.
Zoom was abandoned in the park that borders our property about a year ago. He adopted us.
He’s very shy, but he trusts us. When I go out on the deck with my morning cuppa java, he is usually waiting for me. He greets me with chirps and miraows and mutterings, and once I settle down and have my first sip he jumps into my lap and snuggles in.
We’ve gotten very attached.
I put flyers up around the neighborhood last night, and sent an email to the neighborhood list.
There have been multiple sightings of two/three coyotes in the neighborhood, and other cats have gone missing. Concerned, I once tried to take him indoors, but he climbed the walls. He is an outdoor cat.
When my stepson brought his dog Evie over – a pitbull (a very sweet and intelligent pitbull, but a pitbull nonetheless) – he zoomed up a tree immediately. Got himself down too. I was hoping that he would zoom out of danger.
My deepest fear at this point isn’t even that he is dead, but that he’s just injured and can’t find his way back home. I know that he’d be back if he could get here. I’ve searched the woods out back and across the street – nothing.
My hope is fading.