Fire and Frogs and Fiber Fantasy

The Professor hosted a cookout this weekend, which he in his funny Yankee way insisted on calling a barbecue, even though there was no pig or barbecue sauce. (And yes, he is a Yankee if he’s from California. Those are the most notorious.) Despite the misnomer, everyone had a great time. Fiery.

He made salsa, first roasting jalapenos on his gas stove.

I didn’t get very many pictures of the crowd, but here are a few. There were lots of Emory chemistry faculty and and family, folks from Athens, and Atlantans who once hailed from Athens and thereabouts. Here are Scrappy, Chip, and Emily, demonstrating the various stages of the blink: open, closed, halfway.

Both Mason sisters! And Big Mike!

Also Stephanie and Alex and Sam came! Why do I have no pictures of cutiepie Sam? I was too busy taking in his adorableness. He has grown so much and has the sweetest expressions. Ahhhh. Kate came too, and actually was in a few pictures, but only her back in a blur.
The next day, the Professor took me to Fernbank, where we saw fossils, frogs, and fog tornadoes.


Here are a few of the froggies.




We also went quickly through a room filled with optical illusions and devices to show how the senses work. Illuminating.

One of my favorites was the “blind spot” test. You hold this card at arm’s length, cover one eye, and keep your eye on the circle on the left. At a certain point, the circle with the triangle on the right will disappear. We all have a blind spot, but we don’t see it because our brain fills in the spot, so it always seems a full picture.

Trippy. I didn’t even have to bother to read the directions for most of these—the handy thing about having a scientist boyfriend is that he can explain how all of this stuff works. Yes, it’s true, I was too lazy to use my eyes to read how the optical illusions worked.
Another lovely weekend in Atlanta. Now, back to reality. Not really. Of course. Whenever reality starts to seep in, I start a new knitting project. I’m about to drown in cashmerino.
So right now I’m daydreaming about using the wool fabric that I bought in New York to make a jacket and skirt. This is insanely overambitious for my skills, so I’m planning on enlisting my mother’s help, and my first step is to buy a great sewing machine and serger. Although this is not actually going to happen, I am going to research it. Anybody got any advice on what are the best sewing machines for sale today for the average out-of-touch-with-reality consumer?