photo shoot

When we got together with my family for Mother's Day, the topic of bros icing bros came up. We all had a good laugh over the concept. Then when we went to Ohio, the topic came up again a few more times. Even so, when we walked into my parents' house this past weekend and my sweet, little mom immediately held a room-temperature raspberry-flavored Smirnoff Ice in front of Pat, it was shocking. Pat didn't skip a beat, though. He nodded, popped open the top, went down on one knee, and pounded it before I could say, "Wait, let me take one more picture where you're not backlit!"

Unlike a lot of icings I've seen online, there was no ballyhooing. Pat is a really good sport. If you know Pat, then you know this is true. Pat is as cool as, well, Coolio. Nay, he's cooler.

Frankly, I think he enjoyed it.

Don't mind the fact that there is a 4 year old in this shot. (Don't worry, we told her it was "daddy's medicine," so it's okay.)

And since this blog has taken a rather unclassy turn, I'll go ahead and post a recent picture I took of moldy fruit. You heard me. We keep a container on the counter for stuff that we collect that needs to go to the compost bin. It's sort of like purgatory for produce. Anyway, I put some past-their-prime raspberries in there, and the next day I opened it up and found a bunch of bearded raspberries. I thought they were very pretty. Here is Sir Admiral of Berryton.

Good day, sir!

Fran

I started the big dig this past Saturday. The weather was lovely, and I never really got a chance to do one last clean-up in the fall because of that class I was taking, so I was itching to get outside. I did a little bit of documentation.

These are nothing special.

See?

Moss Man.

Does anyone know what this little nubby brain-looking thing is? I do.

Here is the giant, scary tree in our backyard that I have nightmares about.

The next day I woke up very sore from my garden adventure, and I was relieved the next day when it rained and I wasn't able to get all Crockett up in this Victory Garden. If you caught that reference, you were probably born in the 70s or earlier.

Fran

My good friend Kensey, who was my freshman year college roommate, has a trick glass. It's shaped like a boot, and when the level of your beverage gets low enough and you take a swig, a little pocket of air gets in the toe area of the glass. When you then go to set the glass down, the liquid kind of kicks the air out of the toe and you get a little splash to the face. It's quite a sight. We were taking turns drinking out of it the night before her wedding (partly by choice, partly by peer pressure), and it was hilarious every time someone got a splash of beer to the face. (Beer in the face is inherently funny.)

A couple years ago, Kensey sent me a little shot glass in the shape of a boot in the mail. I admit it never got used until tonight. Greta has an uncanny knack of keeping a mental inventory of everything in the house. (It boggles my brain.) As far as I knew she had never even seen the boot shot glass, but tonight she asked to drink grape juice out of it. Random, but I went with it.

(As an aside, a shot glass was actually the first real glass Greta ever drank out of because, well, it's a baby-size glass. Maybe it's a little unconventional, but it works.)

Here is Greta getting excited about drinking her grape juice out of the little boot glass. (It was straight grape juice, not even watered down. We live on the edge, people.)

She drinks out of a shot glass just like her mom: with both hands.

Looking a little tipsy.

(Grape juice) drinkers' remorse.

Fran