In the glow of sunset 30 April 2009

I have to say, sunset and the moments just afterward have to be my favorite time of day.  Anyone who knows me realizes that I am in no way, shape, or form a morning person.  While I’m not nearly as bad as my college roommate (she would literally growl at you if you spoke to her before she was fully awake), I’m still not a fun person to be around first thing in the morning.

I’ve always been drawn to sunsets, I guess because I don’t see many sunrises.  There was one time, however….  I was fifteen, spending a few weeks with my real mom when she still lived in the condo in Ocean View.  The beach was just steps away from her door, and I spent many, many happy hours in the sand, reading.  One night, and I can’t remember why, my real mom and I stayed up all night long.  She finally pooped out sometime in the early morning hours, and I decided it was time to take a walk along the beach.  I watched the sun come up all by myself, and I loved every moment of it.  I had my little 110 camera on me, the one that didn’t even have a built-in flash, that my parents had bought me when I was ten years old.  I had to use flash bars in low light — remember those?  Surprisingly enough, I took some really lovely photos of the sunrise with it.  I think that was the first time I was impressed by something I had shot myself.

I still have the print in one of my albums.  I should scan it in.

We get some really lovely sunsets here in Rhode Island, but I’m not situated well to take advantage of them, photographically.  And there are only so many photos you can take of the same ol’ scenery here on the island.  I’d have to really plan ahead to get a great shot of a sunset that didn’t include a location I’ve already shot a million times before, and planning isn’t usually something I’m very good at.

But we get this wonderful glow here in the house come springtime when the sun gets low enough in the sky.  That’s where the lighting for the photo above came from, the sunset streaming in my back windows.

To me, sunset is a time to enjoy a few quiet moments.  The day is over, the stress of one’s job is over (one would hope), and the restful night is right around the corner.  In the summertime it means relief from the scorching heat.  It’s a time to sit back, enjoy a lovely dinner, and relax.  The beauty that comes along with a sunset is just a bonus.

The only thing that’s better than a sunset is the twilight that comes next.  It’s the absolute most beautiful time of day for me, that time where you can still see by the fading rays of the sun, but the lights have come on.  There seems to be an aura around every light source, and the colors simply pop out at you.  Even something so mundane as a traffic light takes on an ethereal beauty at this time of day.  I guess, if you’re a morning person, it would be the moments before the dawn.

I just looked up “twilight” over on Wikipedia to make sure I was using the right word, and now I know why I love this time of day so much.  Wikipedia points out that “Due to the unusual, romantic quality of the ambient light at this time, twilight has long been popular with photographers and painters, who refer to it as the ‘blue hour’ or ‘sweet light‘, after the French expression l’heure bleue.”  Sure enough, there’s a morning twilight as well.  I don’t see myself getting up early enough to take advantage of it, however.  I’m much more likely to see it because I haven’t been to bed yet.

Speaking of going to bed late, I’ve been a naughty girl all this week.  I’m reading the sixth book in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, a novel titled A Breath of Snow and Ashes.  How I love Gabaldon, and I highly recommend her Outlander series to anyone who enjoys a good read.  She’s sometimes shelved under Romance, but don’t let that put you off if you’re not usually a fan of romance.  It’s really not a romance, not your traditional trashy novel anyhow.  Granted, the books do run a little long (A Breath of Snow and Ashes is nearly 1,500 pages in mass market paperback), but the writing really sucks you into the story.  I’m running a little behind with this novel, in that Gabaldon jumps straight into the story with absolutely no trackback to her earlier novels.  In a way, that’s good; I’ve always hated the review of earlier material that tends to be the first couple of chapters of a sequel.  But I haven’t read a Gabaldon in at least three years, and probably closer to four.  I’ve been waiting two years just for A Breath of Snow and Ashes to come out in mass market paperback, the smaller paperbacks that were the only size books came in until someone came up with the bright idea of the larger trade paperbacks.  I’ve got the other five books in mass market paperback; I didn’t want to ruin my set.  Gabaldon’s coming out with the seventh book in the series this fall.  I’ll probably be waiting another two years for it to come out in mass market paperback.

And now it’s off to bed and to read some more tonight.  Maybe tonight I’ll actually turn out my light before 1am.

Insane in the membrane 29 April 2009

I got to thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if we all had a nictitating membrane??  A third eyelid, translucent, of course, that we could use to wet the eye yet maintain visibility.  Right now my eyes feel so good when I close them, but I’ve got things I want to finish first tonight.  I need my own nictitating membrane.

I looked it up online to make sure I wasn’t wrong in remembering what a nictitating membrane is (I’ve been a little gun-shy ever since the “grin” issue, where I always thought a grin was a huge smile while others informed me that a grin was a tiny, closed-mouth upturn of the lips) and found out I’ve been pronouncing it wrong all this time.  It’s not “nictating,” like I had previously thought.  There’s an extra syllable in there.  Who’d have thought?

Not I.

So there you have it.  It’s “nictitating” and not “nictating.”  Several online sources agree, so if you believe it’s “nictating,” take it up with them.  Leave me out of it.

I conned Kurt into taking me up to Providence when he got home from work.  I thought he would be done early since it’s ship ride week in which most of the office is out of town on a field trip, but he had actually quite a lot to get done.  Then he had to meet with his partner from his Spanish class, as his final, an oral recitation, is tomorrow.  Keep your fingers crossed for him, mmmkay?  So it wasn’t till close to four o’clock by the time we got out of the house.

Shockingly enough, I conducted my business at the mall in record time.  I don’t think we were there for more than about 30 minutes.  Sad, really, when you consider it takes us 45 minutes to get up there, but I’m trying to cut down on what I buy.  If I’m in the mall for less time, I buy less stuff.  It really does work!

I was craving Mexican food, thinking of Kurt’s Spanish final tomorrow, and the GPS told us that there was a restaurant less than a mile from the mall.  How did we exist before GPS devices??  How I love mine.  I’m not a fan of taking the highway everywhere I go; for me it’s less the destination and more the journey, which is why I love to get into the car and just drive drive drive.  The GPS shows us alternate routes, prevents us from getting too lost, and also tells us where the nearest Mexican restaurant is.

We ended up in Federal Hill, which the internets is now telling me is Providence’s Little Italy.  Oops.  We had Mexican.  We did notice the proliferation of Italian restaurants up there; we were simply craving Mexican.  I fell in love with the area immediately.  It’s like driving down Main Street, USA, but it’s just outside downtown Providence with the State House and the financial district.  One moment you’re in Big City America, and the next second you’re out in the midwest in a small town.  The difference is amazing.

There was so much I wanted to photograph there, but the temperature was dropping quickly, and none of us had brought a jacket.  I have a feeling we’ll be going back on a warm summer night to investigate further.  There’s so much I want to poke around in and peek into.

That, and apparently the restaurant we visited has molcajete.  I didn’t even notice it on the menu since we opted for the three-course fixed-price special, but a couple near us ordered the two-person version of the molcajete.  I haven’t had a good molcajete since we left Washington — a tomato-based spicy stew of beef and chicken and mushrooms and shrimp and cheese, served with tortillas.  It’s truly delicious.

And now I compensate for my lack of nictitating membrane and close the only eyelids I own.

Like a wave on the water 26 April 2009

HEAT WAVE!

Folks, I am not kidding.  Yesterday the high was 58º.  Tomorrow the high is predicted to be 67º.  Today’s high was in the 90s.  (That’s 14º, 19º, and 34º-ish to you metric folks.)

HOT HOT HOT.

Actually it wasn’t that bad.  For one thing, the humidity was pretty low, so it never got muggy.  For another, there was almost always a nice breeze blowing to cool us down.  And lastly we got out of the house.  I think that was key, the getting out of the house.  I remember being stuck in the house when we lived in Washington when the temperatures would start to rise, and I was miserable.

I asked Kurt if we could explore more of Rhode Island, the parts we hadn’t really seen.  Generally we stick to the eastern side of the state, from Newport to Warwick and up to Providence.  We’ve seen it all, really.  It’s a small state!

So we headed up Route 102 to investigate.  Along the way we stumbled upon an Earth Day Fair that helped benefit the Hianloland Volunteer Fire Department near West Greenwich.  And I was just saying to Kurt that I wish there had been a fair we could go to today.  Talk about serendipity!

There wasn’t much to the fair, just a few local vendors selling things like handmade soaps and Pampered Chef.  But there were pony rides and a wall to climb and goats to pet.  Not only that, but the firefighters were selling clam cakes and clam chowder inside the firehouse.  Yum!  When we finally made our way to the eats, the clam cakes were already all gone, and to make it up to us, the fire chief decided to sell us two quarts of clam chowder for the price of one.  Total price?  Four dollars.

I was always under the impression that Rhode Island clam chowder was made with a clear broth to distinguish it from the creamy New England clam chowder or the tomato-y Manhattan style.  I’m not quite sure what this chowder had in it, but it was quite good.  Too many oyster crackers, obviously, but sometimes you just gotta.

Funny story regarding oyster crackers.  One day we were out to eat at a place serving seafood (probably an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet), and I was busy stuffing myself silly with crab.  But I needed more than just my hands to break apart the crab legs.  So I asked Kurt to get some some crab crackers.  Instead of coming back with the implement that cracks apart crab shell, he brought me a packet of oyster crackers!  I don’t think we stopped laughing for a good thirty minutes, and I still giggle when I think about it.

Maybe it was funnier when it happened.

Anyhow, the chowder was HOT when it was delivered to our table.  Like lava hot!  Just the thing for a broiling hot summer day, eh?  I’m sure that most Earth Day Fairs are held during much cooler temperatures, so clam chowder makes a heck of a lot more sense.

I’m starting to get the feeling that we bring the hot when it comes to fairs.  KarmaCat informed me of the Scituate Art Festival when we first moved here, so we decided to check it out.  That was in September, but I guess we had a bit of Indian summer that day.  The temperature had to be in the 90s, and everywhere we went, we overheard people wondering at the hot, hot weather.  I heard someone say that usually people are dying for a hot cocoa to warm themselves up during the festival, but that day the Del’s guys could barely keep up with the demand for frozen lemonade.

Finally we had seen all there was to see, and Grace had copious photos taken of her on the firetrucks.  How she loves the emergency vehicles!  I think if she could have taken one home as a pet, she would have.

What does one feed firetrucks?? Gas, I guess. They might need too much room than what I can give them here in military housing…

And then we took the long way home on all kinds of back roads.  Dinner was chipotle burgers on the grill with roasted potato salad and a green salad on the side.  I broke out the blueberry ale — nom.  The sweetness really balanced the spiciness of the chipotle burgers.  We ate outside too; by then, the sun had gone down enough to do some seriously cooling.  There is nothing better than delicious foods cooked outside and enjoyed in one’s backyard.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.