As I was bicycling to work across the rain-swollen Charles river between Newton and Needham, that “rain-swollen” reminded me of Homeric epithets. My graduate school roommate was in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department at Brandeis, on his way to becoming a distinguished Bible scholar. That involved studying lots of languages, including some I […]
I finished (well, there are more loose ends to weave in, and to darn around the annoying gaps by the corners of the thumbs) the gray and maroon mittens. No, I don’t mind waiting for it to be cold enough for them. January will be soon enough. These are the Maplewood Mittens from Robin Hansen’s […]
The door of the cabinet under our bathroom sink was broken. Well, the Ives Push Latch on the door was broken. There’s no handle on the door. You push it in a fraction of an inch, the latch clicks, and a spring inside it pushes the door open. When you push it shut, it stays […]
When I was a kid, shortly after World War II, “Jap” was short for, and something of an ethnic slur for, “Japanese”. Nowadays, certainly in Newton, if you hear that syllable it’s more properly all capitals and means Jewish-American Princess. There are lots of those at Newton South High and elsewhere in the Boston area, […]
The Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake, New Gloucester, ME, has tours of several of the old buildings in the place. We got tickets after we had watched the woodturning demonstration and went through the boys’ workshop, meeting house, and the ministers’ shop. The Shakers must fit all standard criteria of a cult — founded by […]
The last active Shaker community is 15 miles from our house in Casco. In the summer they have a series of demonstrations and workshops in traditional crafts. We went over this afternoon for a demonstration of wood turning, which was presented by (just so you know, this is a Tripod link) Peter Asselyn of Durham, […]
Arlene had left the outdoor light on the deck (in Casco) turned on. Around 11:30 she looked at the screen door and hollered, “Look! There’s a luna moth on the screen!” There was, and better yet, when we looked, there was another one flying around outside. We took a flashlight, went out the front door […]
We stopped in the Hannaford’s supermarket in Windham on Friday evening — it’s open until 11, we were there by 9:40 even after standing in a long line at the Burger King at the Kennebunk rest area to get a cup of coffee, and we knew there wasn’t any OJ, milk, nor eggs in the […]
On Tuesday night, as our last meeting of the year, the Jewish Community Center klezmer band had what our teacher/leader called a musical soiree at the home of one of the members. It’s a big house on Commonwealth Ave in Newton, right along the route of the Boston Marathon (except that part of Comm Ave […]
Who’da thunk it, I finished something. Here’s the cabled hat made from Bartlett Mills 2-ply fisherman yarn, Sandstone color, that I got at Naturally Fuzzy Yarns in Harrison ME. The secret of this hat is that inside the cuff is a band of super-soft Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran Tweed wool-silk-cashmere yarn. Look at that, […]
