Spooky time!

Happy Halloween everybody!

To celebrate, check out this totally ridiculous clip of Tyra Banks interviewing a vampire. Tyra acts like she's expecting a scary sexy Twilight character to come out, but is instead greeted by Don Henry "The Vampire Emperor". Instead of a sexy trendy bloodsucker, we are treated to the musings of an awkard slash nerdy intellictual-type with monastic tendencies, who takes his vampiring very VERY seriously. Tyra clearly doesn't get him at all. My favortie line of the whole interview is at 3:40, when Tyra throws out the kind of back handed insult- "But you're not wearing any makeup or anything! You've just got like, a face like a vampire!"

Click through to Part 2 if you want to see Don do feats of strength, and complain about his aching vampire boneses.

Sorry I couldn't embed. I think clicking the link is totes worth it! It's Tyra at her Tyra-ist.

Tyra and a vampire

Punkin Time

Last night, Paul and I carved our Halloween Jack O' Lanterns. It was a lot of fun. It was Roosevelt's first Halloween, and I think she enjoyed herself. She kept putting her face really close to the knife when we were carving. She also enjoyed eating the punkin innards way too much. She kept sticking her paw into the goop bowl and stealing little pawfuls of the stuff.


Unlike last year, we actively strove to not draw the same exact face on our punkins. I think we did a good. job. Guess whose is whose!

After the carving, we saved the seeds and roasted them. Hooray for healthy snacks! My mom used to make these every year when I was little. They're a real symbol of fall, and especially halloween, for me.


First, we seperated the seeds from the mush. I was pretty pleased with myself that I hadn't actually physically touched the innards during the latern making process, using a great metal spoon. This snackscapade kind of undid all that active avoidance.

Then, we rinsed and strained the seeds, picking off any remaining bits of debris that we could find. After, we patted them dry with a paper towel.

We tossed them in olive oil, and sprinkled them liberally with salt and seasonings. I used a "grilling and broiling" seasoning mix I found in the cupboard. I think we might have inherted it from Tracy Circle. It had garlic and onion flavors, lots of pepper, and bit chilli powder in it. It actually gave them a punch of spiciness I wasn't expecting.

I would say use whatever seasoning you like best though. When I was little, my mom would make them with lawrys seasoned salt. Here's a copycat recipe.

Then we baked them at 400 for 20 mins on a baking sheet, turning after the first 10. They came out pretty darn delicious!

A list for the New House

Top 10 Things Left Behind by the Previous Owners
I couldn't rightly make this a "best" or "worst" list, as some things are wildly on either end of the spectrum

1. A Family Portrait. My mom-in-law found a really awkward family photo in the spare bedroom closet.


2. Terrible Lawn Ornaments. A miniature wheelbarrow and a statue of a fairy. Just what I always wanted!

3. A box full of losing lottery tickets, meticulously stacked and ordered by date. This was an attic find.

4. Indications of a troubled youth. We found a packet of papers about the rules at "Pegasus House", which appears to be some sort of teen reform program. Underneath it, said teen's class notebook, in which every single doodle is drug related. He was learning about "The Crucible".


5. A carafe of some mysterious blue liquid, one cigarette floating within.


6. A measuring tape for determining the weight of a live cow. "Do not stretch the tape! Do not get the tape wet!". You measure across the chest. I would be a 168 pound calf, and Paul would tip the scales at 160. Hooray for animal husbandry!

7. A level of dirt and grime that strongly indicates that these people did not ever clean their house in the 15 years they resided there. Accessories to this are cockroaches and the dead mouse behind the fridge.

8. A Beautiful metal candy box from the 1940's, filled with screws and hinges.

9. A cardboard cut-out of two children feeding a lamb cupcakes.


10. This mighty fine collection of 6 steins! I'm actually really really thrilled that these were forgotten, carefully wrapped up in a box in one of the 3 sheds. Treasures!

Suprise History Lesson

One of my jobs at the Quabog Valley CDC (which is not the center for disease control, despite popular opinion) is to drive around to all the town halls and libraries in our service region and deliver our catalogs. I get to drive around with Kelsey, my fellow Commonwealth Corps intern, and see the beautiful western MA countryside like a couple of leaf peepers. We also attempt to schmooze with the local public servants on the side.

It's been pretty cool seeing all the different town buildings, and how they range from the very new and very huge, to the very old and quiant. One of the town halls (I can't remeber which one, but I want to say it was Brookfield) had a little museum-like display put out in the halls of the town offices. One of the cases turned out to be a bizarre tribute to 19th century male facial hair.

The case was full of ceramic shaving mugs, boxes of moustache wax, and a rather grand collection of moustache cups, which was something I didn't know existed.



Apparently, in the age of big-front-wheel-bicycles, moustaches were so cool a special cup was invented to protect ones meticulously groomed whiskers. The cusp of the cup was designed to keep your handlebar dry, and keep your hot tea from melting your moustache wax.

Museum Musings

So my internship at Higgins Armory has been cool so far. The drive is obnoxiously long, but once I get there, I enjoy being there. I go twice a week. On Thursdays, I go and do archival work for the curatorial department. This is cool, because it's something I'm interested in studying in library school. It's nice to get some experience under my belt and realize that I actually like doing it.

Right now, I'm digitally scanning Higgins Family photos into the server. It's a little dull, but I really enjoy looking at the pictures, it has a kind of found magazine vibe to it. Two weeks ago, I was doing family portraits, which included one of Mr. Higgins Sr. as a baby in a kilt and stry-ped tights, and one of his wife as a child taken at the St. Louis World's Fair (1904).
This week, I'm getting into the weirdness of pictures from the family house. This includes faded, unflattering snapshots of the family bathroom, and a bizarre photo of a child mannequin in a baby-sized suit of armor, labeled on the back as "Jody".


When I'm there on weekends (usually Saturdays, sometimes sundays, but I won't be there next week if you were thinking about visiting...) I'm taking visitor surveys for Beyond Belief, our interactive art exhibit about mythology and crytozoology. This is kind of cool, because I get to sit outside the exhibit and watch little kids play in the quest gallery, where you can try on helmets and play dress up and the like. There are lots of cute little kids out there in the world. The other day, two even came to the museum already in costume. One was dressed like a little knight, and the other, for some reason, was dressed in a metallic silver spaceman suit.
I haven't even seen that many kids being rude or bad in there, or throwing fits, which is nice.

I have to say, seeing 200+ kids every weekend, I've learned which baby names are officially played out. Literally every other little boy who comes through the museum is named with some variation of Aiden. Hayden, Jayden, Caiden, or Brayden. It's actually kind of startling. There are also a crazy ton of Noahs, which is too bad, cuz I always liked that name.

The constant

Even though life has been kind of transitional lately, getting used to new jobs, new houses, and commutes 3 times as long as they used to be, there's one thing that hasn't really changed at all.

How addicted I am to this game : http://www.oopixel.com/games/escape-the-red-giant/

I've been playing it since the summertime, and I'm pretty sure it was snowing tonight when I drove home from Higgins.

1 year!

Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary. The fact that we've been married for a year is pretty crazy! We celebrated by going to Elements in Amherst for hot tubbing and a massage. It was really excellent. If you're looking for a great romantic date in the valley, I strongly recommend it. You can have an indoor or outdoor tub, and they let you bring in your ipod and play your music choice during your session. It was really great, especially given the soreness I've accumulated from all the driving I've been doing lately.

It's been a really great year. I was thinking about all the fun stuff we've done and accomplished. We bought a cat and a house, and went to Mexico. We both went skiing for the very first time. We tried lots of tasty beers and many new recipes. I got Paul addicted lost and he got me to fall in love with clam chowder. It's been a really great year, and I'm looking forward to many more. Love you husband!

It turns out we share our anniversary with Monty Python, a fact that I love. The first episode of "Flying Circus" debuted 35 years ago. On that note, a little matrimonial themed silliness is in order:

Autotune the news

Ok, so I never posted that house update I promised. Sorry! Life has been super hectic lately.
On top of starting two new jobs that don't let me post to my blog at work, I've also been busy with life stuff. In the last week, I've driven to worcester twice, visited the big e, and went to a red sox game. The busy-ness of everything has been awesome, fun and exciting, but hasn't left much time for blogging. I'll try to be better!

I have found something awesomely blog-worthy this week. "Auto-tune the news" on youtube. They do a little montage of recent news in the spirit of our greatest modern hero, t-pain. This one, about lettuce regulation and katie couric pimpin on the late night news is my personal fave.