How to become a guitar hero

1.  Buy a guitar, or borrow one for the occasion

2.  Strum a short sequence of chords resembling a children's song

3.  Wait for your nephew to follow with the adoration...

Produce

It seems to be the height of the summer produce season.  Here's a few picture of a few of the goods coming out of our garden.
  Radishes from earlier in the year.

Here are the beans.  Seriously, that was the total of the green beans.  The purple beans weren't ready to pick yet, so there are a few more still on the plants. That was the first of the zucchini, there have been a few more since then.  I think that will be the most productive of our plants. 

These are the beets.  Good thing we like beet greens, because the beets themselves were kinda small.  

Next year, better soil. 

Our Bloomin' Garden

My goal this year was to have squash blossoms from my garden, it looks like we'll have some of those and a few more.

These squash blossoms really got my imagination going.   No, I wasn't thinking about stuffing them and frying them.  I thought these first two looked like two ballet dancers, backstage.

And this one, the long fingers of an old lady in a monster movie.

California Dreamin': Baby steps

And visit with the babes...

Natanael, running,

Aiden, learning to walk,

Tatum, eating cheerios,

and Vayda.  Sleeping in my sweatshirt,

chewing on Uncle Cereal's ear,

playing with Oma and mama, 

and helping me blog.

California Dreamin': In between celebrations

I got to...


see Sam off to prom (so pretty),

See the Padres play the Diamondbacks,

in the dugout,

with cake... (good thing it wasn't the 17 inning game that followed a few nights later),

Visit Glen Ivy (no photos please),

See Patches, again (always a treat),

Play, Rock Band, Scrabble, Bowling, wii Bowling...

and

Spend time with my sweet family.

California Dreamin': Celebrating Milestones

Eddie turned 17, 

Samantha graduated high school,

Elliot graduated high school,

and

Oma turned 90!

Congratulations!

Book Review: Unaccustomed Earth

Jhumpa Lahiri is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.  This is the second book of short stories I’ve read by her and I am equally moved by them.  Unlike Interpreter of Maladies, the stories in this book describe a smaller range of experiences focusing almost entirely on Indian-Americans living in New England.  

At first I was a little disappointed by the everyday, commonplace nature of the stories but I soon realized that together the stories paint a picture.  She describes a series of people living their lives, the impact of their third culture experience only one factor influencing the way they interact with their surroundings.  

There is something about the way she is able to capture the story of each of her characters that gives me an intense, emotional connection to them.  I feel as though she is describing me in so many ways.  The impulses I have felt to fit in and to disconnect simultaneously.  The way I long to live a normal life just like everyone else, realizing that not one lives this life.  

The title of her book comes from this quote printed at the beginning.  

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil.  My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes my be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.  

Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Custom-House"  

Jhumpa Lahiri seems to be a quiet woman with an ability to observe the world around her and capture it in words.  She makes me feel both inspired to write and too intimidated to try. 

For some of the few TV interviews she has done, see Charlie Rose.