Grilling trout

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from TedVilla

My salvaged hostas

Someone chucked these. Gopefully I can salvage them. I've been considering planting some on this hill for a long time. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from TedVilla

Summers first cocktail

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from TedVilla

An Outrageously Awesome Way to Kick Off Summer 09

 We went out for dinner with the whole family and some friends -- 4 adults, 5 kids -- an awesome way to kick off Summer 09. Our friends are members of the Weston CC and this evening we were their guests. It was a wonderful evening. We had a cocktail. We ate some lovely food. The kids had ice cream for dessert. We bowled on three lanes at the CC's lanes (Candle Pins, a Boston classic, and more challening than 10 pins). Let me reiterate: a totally awesome way to kick off summer 09.

Before gettting in the car we ran around a bit in the "golf field," as Child One called it. On the way home we grabbed some iced coffees and steamed milks with vanilla and took the country way home. We put down all four windows and opened the sun roof. We turned up James Taylor and drove through the lovely countryside near our house. The crickets were singing. The air was warm, gentle and enveloping. My family surrounded me.

Let me reiterate, an outrageously awesome way to kick off summer 09.

Posted via web from TedVilla

Not the best looking testarosa ever

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from TedVilla

Fort point channel from congress st

Saw this hawk today

Good times on 95

Yak herd in nc?

From blue ridge pkw

Cape Cod fish company outpost

Stone baked pizza mellow mushroom

From a porch at Biltmore

Apologies for upside down photo! Silly b-berry.

Talullah gorge

Farewell Lake Lanier

Cooking dinner

dinner two

Dinner

Amicalola falls looking up

Amicalola falls looking out

It's what's for dinner!

I-85 S Durham NC

Robert E Lee Memorial Richmond

West ave & boyd richmond va

Sunday in the fan of richmond va

Port of Baltimore

From Del mem bridge

Rest Stop Sycamore

Road Lunch. Oy.

IMG00041-20090418-1108.jpg

GW bridge

IMG00038-20090418-0921.jpg

Hartford CT

IMG00036-20090418-0838.jpg

Charlton MA

southwesterly on the sound

West Beach Beverly MA

100 square feet

The garden I dug today

Digigng A Garden

Spring!

Big March Snow

Major Milestone

Child One learned how to ride a bike today. We had tried last year and she and I had had some epic battles on the local playground. I think that neither of us was ready. We put the training wheels back on her bike and she puttered around the neighborhood all summer and fall, perfectly content. Perfectly content that is until she realized, in early fall, that she could not keep up with the other kids who had all learned to ride two wheelers that spring and summer.

This winter we've been talking about getting out and learning so she could buzz around this spring and afterward. Today was a beautiful day, crystal clear but blustery and cold and we headed to the playground to give it a try. Within 20 minutes of trying, and one break to goof around on the jungle gym and swings she'd mastered it. The whole family was there and it was a great moment. She was beaming and proud and a bit amazed that she'd figured it out. I was totally psyched for her, and little bit for me -- I'd completed one of the mandatory tasks of fatherhood and taught a child to ride a bike.

It was interesting to watch her buzz around and see how far and fast she could get away from me. Learning to ride a bike is a major milestone, truly one of the instances when you realize as a parent, in a very concrete way, that your children are free in the world and will explore much of it without you. We teach them to explore this world. We teach them to ride a bike. We give them the tools they need to go out on their own. Amazing.

Approaching Front

Joppa Flats

Classic Place

Hawk In The Bed

If you were hoping for a naughty post, forget about it.

I was sting in my living room this morning reading the paper and drinking some coffee when something flashed outside the window, just in my peripheral vision. It was large and brown and for a moment I thought it might be a large bird, possibly a raptor, but tossed that though out -- why would a large bird be in my front bed? A few minutes went by and I was goo-gooing and ga-gaing with Child Three when I heard this funny, high pitched noise, outside the house, in the front bed.

I looked out the window, and saw a hawk, sitting amongst the rhododendrons, with its wings somewhat down and out. I ran upstairs to get the other kids and Mrs. Agricola and managed to show Child One the hawk before he took off across the street. I have no idea what he was doing in the bed. The wings down and out were definitely some sort of display, but he was all alone. Whatever it was it was cool, and I've seen this hawk before, or at least the same kind (I'm having trouble identifying it), so it is definitely a neighbor. I hope to see it again soon.

The Contraption

This evening, my kids built The Contraption. Comprised of paper towel tubes, a broken down tea bag box and an industrial thread spool (I have no idea where that came from!). They ran a little soccer ball eraser through it and had tons of fun.

Why we buy toys for the kids I'm not sure, because left to their own devices they come up with incredible things like The Contraption and it entertains them for hours. The Contraption is still set up in their room, and they will be playing with it come 6 AM. Now this post is not completely about The Contraption, though it does provide entree to talk about a post I read on Catskill Cottage Seed about intuition. Written by my Twitter-friend Richard Reeve it asked the following question:

The question this raises for me: does our education system beat out of us our ability to play? “Stop the day dreaming and do your workbook!” Perhaps it’s wrong to think that daydreaming is nothing but an escape. It’s a disservice to our capability to squash one of the four psychological functions.

I commented there, and believe this, because I see it in my town and neighborhood that the beating begins before kids hit the schools. Kids are running to this class and that class then to this play-date to that one then to this party and then to that party. They have zero unstructured time. Perhaps it's our lack of parenting chops, but our kids, while in some classes, sometimes, have lots of time to play in the mud and muck around in the backyard hunting for rocks and sticks, build forts, play in the sandbox and build The Contraption in their room. We let them be kids. We let them play. We let them explore. We try to stay out of their hair (this a two way street, to be honest). It's a joy to watch and I think they'll be better served in the long run.

February Train Ride

Democrats & Taxes

"Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter." --then-Sen. Tom Daschle on 7 May 1998

Somehow, I don't think Tom Daschle (nor Timthy Geithner, nor Nancy Killefer) will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law. His erstwhile buddies in the senate were tripping over themselves to tell us what an honest, good and noble character he is. It's sickening as a private citizen to watch these shenanigans unfold. I know that if I owed that much money, or even a small percentage of Daschle's default, that the IRS would put a lien on my house, garnish my wages and possibly even put me in jail. There are truly two systems in this country and it has nothing to do with race. There are those of us with no connections and no suction in DC and then there are those folks who toil(ed) in the hypocritical and increasingly amoral cesspool that is our national capital.

Increasingly I get the feeling that we live in an oligarchy and it makes me nauseous. Our elected officials treat us like little kids, too stupid to come in from the rain and in need of perpetual care. Towards this end our activities, behaviors and desires must all be proscribed. The Oligarchs however get to do what they want, when they want, how they want and erstwhile or not they are defended by their peers.

The whole Daschle debacle reminds of something I used to hear while living in Brooklyn. There was a construct that started "Oh, he's a good guy, but . . ." But, he killed Frankie's uncle, or cheats on his wife, or hits his kids. "Tome Daschle is a good guy but he cheats on his taxes while excoriating those of who want to try and keep as much of our own money as possible."

John Updike, RIP

She had on a kind of dirty-pink - - beige maybe, I don't know -- bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down. They were off her shoulders looped loose around the cool tops of her arms, and I guess as a result the suit had slipped a little on her, so all around the top of the cloth there was this shining rim. If it hadn't been there you wouldn't have known there could have been anything whiter than those shoulders. With the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just her, this clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light. I mean, it was more than pretty. (from A&P)

Winter Sun, Boston

Real Winter

I've been told that the Inuit have 7 words for snow. Icelanders have a word for a volcano that erupts beneath a glacier and causes a flood once the glacier wall gives way (hlaup). I wonder if those cultures have a word for real winter. This winter is the real deal. Granted, we've had many bluebird, days, but we have had lots of snow -- the banks of snow at the end of my driveway are up to my shoulder. We've also had lots of cold: 30 F feels downright balmy.

I'm not complaining. I actually like the extreme weather (not like tornadoes or Cat 5 hurricanes) but cold and snow in the winter, and heat in the summer fascinate me. They change how we interact with our world, how we function and take us out of life's everyday sameness. If you think about it, life between 35 F and 80 F is very pleasant, very easy to deal with. When you start to creep up on the high end or dip below the low end, things start to get tougher, more interesting, a bit less comfortable. Couple temps beyond this range with precipitation, humidity (or lack thereof in winter) and we are forced to adjust, and compensate even more.

Unsettled, harsher weather reminds us that we dwell in a sometimes tough place, and that despite heating and air conditioning we are still subject to nature's vagaries when we leave our cocoons. I'm looking forward to spring (who doesn't?) but I enjoy what is happening now, and permit real winter to remind me where I am, and what I am.

Traveling With Kids

Last weekend Mrs. Agricola and I packed up the family and schlepped to Logan International Airport to fly to Houston to visit my brother and his family for the Christening of his youngest daughter. Three kids all 5 and under, on a 4.5 hour flight can be a bit daunting, I must confess, and we approach flying with some trepidation. That said, we do fly fairly regularly for a family. My oldest, Child One, has been on many a flight with multiple trips to Chicago, Tampa/St. Pete and now a pair of flights into Bush International. Her brother, Child Two, has been twice to each of these places as well (if my counting is correct).

DVDs on the Mac Book help to pass the time and keep little people occupied. I'd never get a DVD player in my car (like the trip to Cape Cod requires video-sedation . . . ) but on a four-plus-hour flight, it's a Godsend. The thing that helped me more than anything else, however, was seeing the utter joy and excitement that my little ones (at least the mobile and speaking C1 & C2) demonstrated when they saw planes on the tarmac outside of the terminal.

At that moment they knew were in for something cool: flying in a big jet, way up high in the sky to go see their cool aunt, uncle and cousins. The wonder of it all pumped them and me up. I remember being a kid and being so excited to get on a plane. Those days are long gone, but having kids of my own helps me to recapture some of that wonder and remove some of the drudgery that is modern air travel.

Rothkoesque

Farewell, 2008

Two-thousand-and-eight was a wonderful and strange year. We welcomed the arrival of Child Three (wonderful!). Something that I'd thought would happen in 2009 happened right at the end of the year. It is what it is and we're moving on. I'm looking forward to 2009 and excited about the possibilities. Mainly, I'm eagerly anticipating watching my children grow and change and helping them as they do. My family is what gives me the greatest joy in this world and if I make any resolutions this year (which I usually don't) it's to be a good husband and a good father and always work to get better at both.

Happy new year to all.

Ever onward.

Death With Your Cornflakes

My little ones saw this morning's Globe front page and asked why the girl was wrapped up. I said that she was dead. "How did she die?" "From a bomb." "What's a bomb?" "A thing that explodes." "What comes from the bomb?" "Metal." I've got to be more careful with the paper. This is the second time in the past 4 months or so that there have been dead children on the front page of the Globe. I support the right of papers to print what they want, but it's tricky when you have to explain to children about dead children -- particularly when they die in a conflict the roots of which confuse most adults.

On a political note, why do the American papers never publish pictures of dead Israeli children above the fold?

Merry Christmas

The Tradition Continues

The decorated version of this year's gingerbread house. Mainly decorated by the kids with minimal parental oversight. Last year's, pre-decoration.

First Haircut

I took Child 2 for his first haircut, ever, today. I have to admit that I was a bit sad to do it, but he needed it cut. He looked like a kid who'd been raised by wolves and been living in the wilderness for his first three years. It was fun, but it was time. He cleans up very well. He endured with minimal fussing and zero tears. It really feels as if he's moved into the realm of big boys now.

I don't like to put pics of my kids on the web, you'll just to trust me.

Too Spicy

I made dinner the other night and forgot my audience. I grilled some salt and pepper crusted chicken that was a bit too peppery for Child 1 & 2. Child 2 frequently says that things are "too spicy." This can be anything from salt-and-pepper-crusted-grilled chicken, to certain NECCO wafers. He stated, as I peeled the nicely cooked crusty outer layer of the chicken off of the pieces on his plate, that "we're kids. We don't like pepper."

Point taken.

Disaster Redux

In 2006 our tree fell within hours of being decorated. This year, the tree fell two days later. It happened just before heading off to school with the kids. I was upstairs helping C2 get dressed when he heard a whoosh and a smash. We lost a bunch of our nicest and prettiest ornaments -- the danger of hanging near the top -- as well as the tree topper that Mrs. Agricola and I bought just after we got married. It's such a drag when this happens because then you need to un-decorate and un-light the tree and start all over. I also invested $50 (that I really didn't want to do this year) in a tree stand that will hopefully keep our tree upright for the remainder of the season.

If a crashing tree and shattering ornament aren't bad enough, poor C1 thought that the tree had fallen as the result of a little, but heavy ornament that she had just gotten. She was weeping and saying "it was the ornament's fault . . . it was too heavy . . . " "No, the tree fell because it's a bit heavy to one side," we told her. She's so sweet and tenderhearted.

Tree Trimming

We decorated the family tree this weekend and it was quite fun. Typically we light the thing in the evening and Mrs. Agricola and I end up trimming it after the kids go to bed. This year we switched things around and decorated it in the morning. The kids had a blast taking ornaments out of the box (that might have been more fun than actually hanging them) and hanging them on the tree. Child One looked and thought about each ornament, and considered to whom it belonged, and "Could this reindeer be me and this one be Child Two and this one be Child Three . . . " Child Two hung ornaments in clusters and Child Three just looked -- it's what you do when you're 10 weeks old. Pater & Mater Agricolae joined in the festivities and it was an excellent couple of hours.

After the fun ornaments were on I spent some time filling in holes with small shiny balls. These are the workhorses of tree decorating in my book. I hang them in the gaps, and try and set them back from the outside of the tree so that they sit inside of the branches and shine out. Their reflective surfaces lend brilliance to the tree and help to intensify the lights. In a post-tinsel and post-garland age the small, cheap, shiny ball is what makes the tree. While sitting in front of the tree this evening Mrs. A commented that the tree is really shining and shimmering this year -- and it is.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday Child Two! I can't believe you're three today. Where does the time go? You roared into our life on a cold and blustery Thanksgiving Day, arriving well before dinner, and you've been bringing smiles to us ever since. I'll never forget eating my Thanksgiving dinner that evening in the cafeteria of Brigham and Women's' Hospital. Despite the fact that I was eating alone, in a hospital cafeteria and wolfing it down to get back to the room to see you and Mumma it was one of the best Thanksgiving meals I ever ate.

Happy birthday, and many, many, many more.

Exit

My father's sister-in-law's father died today. He was 95 years old. He lead a long, interesting and good life. He made a decision after a recent hospitalization and recurrence of an infection that became pneumonia not to go back to the hospital and not to fight the illness. "It was time" he said to his family. He faced up to his mortality, took control of the end and made what I think is a wise and brave decision. To me, that's not sad that's powerful.

Rest in peace George, I raise shot of Scotch in your honor.

Veterans Day, 2008

The other night I was watching "Saving Private Ryan" on one of the cable networks. I'd seen the movie before, and seen the scene in the US cemetery at Normandy before, but it got me thinking.

In 1993 I did the obligatory post-college European backpacking trip. a friend and I toured European capitals and the country side. One of the best destinations was the Normandy coast and a visit to the beaches of D-Day. We hitchhiked out from Bayeux and got dropped off at the exit for the beaches by a lawyer going to an interview in Calais. We walked from the exit to the beaches, along country roads boxed in by the huge, infamous hedgerows where undoubtedly Americans, Brits, Canadians, Poles, French and Germans died. It was a lovely summer day, 6 July, 1993.

We came eventually to the US cemetery at Coleville Sur Mer. A beautifully manicured and maintained piece of America, paid for by the blood of our soldiers, along the French coast. We walked down a path on a hill to Omaha Beach and looked back up at the ridge where the cemetery sits. I thought of the troops who came ashore there; considered their landing and how downright terrifying and awful it must have been to cross the ground we'd just crossed. Kids played somewhere down the beach, their laughter floated towards us on the breeze and an F-16 flew along the coast, low and slow -- a weapon that signified how what had happened on 6 June, 1944 would most likely never happen in the same fashion again.

My friend and I made our back to the cemetery and walked along the paths, looking at row upon row of white marble crosses, and Star-of-David-topped markers. I walked up to one cross, at random, and looked. The man buried there had died 49 years to the day that I was looking at his grave. He was about my age (in '93) and from Louisiana. I'm sorry that I can't recall his name now, but I'm sure that his first trip to Europe ended in Normandy. I'd already been to Europe about 4 times by this time in my life. It was at that moment that I understood what it meant to be an American.

That Louisiana man came far from home to fight and die and help people in a land far-away. We're Americans. It's what we do. It's who we are. We are an amazing people, and I consider myself so fortunate to live in this country populated with folks like the man whose grave I stood before 49 years after his death. I thanked him, rubbed the top of his marker and committed the experience to memory, glad that I could pay my respects to him, his family and their sacrifice, yet, not their sacrifice alone. I honor the sacrifice of all of the men and women and all of their families who served and continue to serve, in our armed forces to protect and defend the ideals for which this country stands.

Still, we have men and women in the field and under arms, being Americans and doing what we do -- defending our ideals in the hope that others may experience and live with the liberties we increasingly take for granted in this country. Today, I pay special mind, and pay honor to all those who have served, do serve, and will serve. Thank you and God bless you all.

Proud, Indeed

From an article by Jeff Jacoby in the 5 November, 2008 Boston Globe about the gray cloud of the 2008 election.

But the most lustrous silver lining of all is the racial one. As a politician and policymaker, Obama distresses me; his extreme liberalism is not what the nation needs. But as a symbol - a son of Africa elected to lead a majority-white nation that once enslaved Africans and treated their descendants with great cruelty - Obama's rise makes me proud of my country. The anthem of the Civil Rights Movement was "We Shall Overcome." Impossible as it might have seemed scant decades ago, we have.

No matter what, for now, we do live in the greatest country in the history of the world and proved it again yesterday.

I Am In Charge

Speaker of the Stepford Wives

Civic Duty

On my way to the train today I stopped into my neighborhood polling place to vote. The line was longer than usual today and turnout seems heavy. It's good. Regardless of the outcome of this election it really has seemed to drive some turnout and gotten people to engage in the process and in the issues.

Though I'm not sure if I will agree with the outcome (based on last minute polls), I'll accept it as will most of us and wait to see what our elected officials wreak. I'll concede that the possibility of a black man as POTUS is a big deal, and for this reason alone, this election is historic. What is more interesting to me, and perhaps of greater historical importance is that if Obama wins, then this country has taken a huge turn from its history. Bigger, more intrusive government is definitely on the way. The United States seems to be swinging towards Socialism as it never has before.

Granted, many among us are war weary (though impending victory in Iraq should be curing that), scared by the near collapse of our financial system (precipitated in no small part by the Democrat party and their liberal allies) and annoyed at the stupidity of the Republican party (has a party been more inept at the PR game than the current makeup of the GOP?). These things, however, are not reason for me to hand the keys over to the Democrats. I don't see how more government is going to help us -- name one large event of the last three years helped by large government. The Democrats are certainly not free from special interests (labor unions, greens, abortion rights people, welfare-statists). Sadly, more government is what we're going to get if the Republicans can't hang onto the White House -- losing congress is a foregone conclusion . . .

It's our decision, we'll live with it, we (though not I and many close to me) chose to go this way, and though I neither agree nor understand why, that's the great power of our system and our society. Change happens, we have a say in it and we can enact change. I'm just not sure we truly understand what we've asked for.

Frosty Morning

Fall Sky

Child Three

Child 3 a boy born 10-4 606 am 8Lbs 4oz 20ins mom & baby r fine!

(sent from my mobile, in the hospital)

Micro-climate

Late yesterday afternoon a cold front passed through the area and brought some rain with it along with some nice cool air. As I walked across the wet parking lot to my car after getting off the train I noticed that my car windows were covered in condensation. After I hopped into the vehicle and started the engine I turned on the wipers to clear away the moisture from the windows. The condensation however was inside the car. The warm humid air that was trapped in the car condensed on the windows as the temperature dropped during the afternoon. This is not a major event nor an earth shattering insight, but rather an interesting little science moment, and another indication that fall is well underway -- as if the beautiful foliage and the fact that inside the house is chillier than outside (another micro-climate) were not enough.