what is this thing?

My husband brought this home from the St. Vincent de Paul. What is it? You place a candle in it and then it magnifies and focuses the light... but for what purpose?

huh?

my 3.5 year-old son.

declared tonight, while rolling around on the floor, "I am a portion. I am a portion of the Sun."

Dye.

Here is a really neat site about hand dyeing cloth. Paul Burch.

Professor Alfredo DiMarino is dead.

And I am in a state of shock, receiving this news now. He was a wonderful man. Remember his Shakespeare class? It was a hoot. And the Modern European novel? Good times. I was trying to contact him to let him know that I was going to librarian school (he was an awesome librarian at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna). I owe a lot to him, and think of our conversations often. I only took three of his classes in one year--one of which I was the only student. I feel very fortunate to have spent this time with him.

He had had heart problems for some time, and was in hospital when things suddenly got worse and he passed away, without knowing what was happening.

If any of you are reading this, send me any memories of DiMarino you might have.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Heh.

What I would do with a sewing machine. Heh.

Baby Paints.

Yesterday, youngest son asked if the baby was wan artist. We discussed what he does to be an artist--make stuff. Today, with three year-old assurance he proclaimed his baby sister an artist. Here she paints.
Crayola makes a really nice finger paint that is totally nontoxic and washes off of everything.

Broccoli bigger then my babe's head.

No joke. This large and beautiful organic broccoli was grown by Mr. Bibliotecaria at his organic garden at school. There is a tiny portion of the square city-block dedicated to organic farming. The rest is for growing really scary frankenfoods (and the really weird ones they don't even let out of the greenhouses. I've walked by an watch grad students making little marks on their papers and then covering the corn husks with paper bags. I don't know what was going on there. But if you grow buckwheat stalks next to your broccoli, the aphids will attack the old buckwheat and leave the broccoli alone.


We have five more of these--all about this large--so dinner tomorrow will have broccoli soup and some roasted broccoli. I love soup.

We also got our worm bin stocked up with wormy-wormys. The boys were very excited to see the little critters squirming and ... well, squirming about. We picked them up and a few varieties of strawberries to keep inside for a bit at the Spiral Gardens. I saw strawberries in these pots with their runners hanging down as decorative (well, and yes, functional) plants at another garden in Berkeley.

Our carnivorous pitcher plants came out of the fridge, but still haven't started to sprout yet. I hope they do, because they're really quite lovely.