Weekend Recap, April 1

1. Friday sunset | 2. Strawberry daiquiri, for Cal. | 3. Dinner tradition | 4. Spring springing | 5. Train day | 6. Weekend reading for a potential new project | 7. Menu @ Chow | 8. Beer sampler | 9. Clams | 10. Pennsylvania-bottled Gin | 11. Egg time | 12. Glitter | 13. Dye bath | 14. Easter sunrise | 15. Eggs | 16. Dutch Baby | 17. Neel's bloody | 18. Easter Dinner

It's been a funny weekend. Don't get me wrong, The four-day weekend is awesomesauce and it's always great having my dad here to visit, but on Friday I had a migraine that impacted the whole day. We went grocery store to get stuff for Easter dinner and I couldn't make decisions or commit to anything. Fuzzy headed and feeling crummy. Poor Neel had a 5:15 p.m. meeting Friday night (who does that?) and Callum was feeling overwrought with allergies. It was a funny day. Off. Saturday was better. Fun errands (train store!), spring training games, and dinner at Chow. We came home and dyed eggs. I always dread this, but it was surprisingly fun. Gin helps.

So Sunday. I made my first Dutch Baby, which was awesome. Totally in love and I can't wait to do it again. But that Dutch Baby. I just happened to grab the handle of my oven-proof pan right after it had been in my 450º oven. Not my best moment. I may have mentioned to my son a time or two that it hurt like a son of a bitch. There was some brief talk of going to the Emergency Room, but I shot that idea down pretty sharpish. What could they do for me, really, that I wasn't doing at home already? The pain has eased up, but I was hampered all day. Alfie (my dad) ended up making the lion's share of Easter dinner (even though he denies it), and let's face it, my mood was pretty poor.

Did you have a good weekend? If you celebrate Easter, was it spring-like and nice? Despite all of our my trials, it's been a great weekend though. Isn't it good when you can not be at your best and still have the best of times? That's what it's like when my dad visits. All good. We have one more day together, and we're going to enjoy it to the fullest. And then my mom and her friend Mike comes next weekend! Nothing but blue skies ahead.

Movies watched: four. Zero Dark Thirty, Midnight in Paris, Argo, Skyfall (I'm still gunning for Lincoln, but I'm meeting some resistance.)
Bloody Mary's tested and consumed: uh, 4ish?
Restaurants we've visited: five
Grocery trips: three
Baseball games watched: three, counting Callum's: four
Basketball games watched: bits and pieces of eight including one horrific broken leg which makes my burned hand look like a wax treatment at a spa day. Did you guys see that? Shudder.
Times we've listened to the Midnight in Paris soundtrack. Uh, not enough. Although I think Cal might disagree.

five things, march 29 edition

1. I think I can tell I'm ready for spring when I hate every single thing in my wardrobe.

2. I think one of the best things we did this week was surprise Callum by having Alfie (my dad) come up a day early. I was coming into the house behind him, so I missed the look on his face, but I could see the shock in the shape of Callum's body when he first saw Alfie standing in our living room. It was hard to do homework Wednesday night, but it was worth it.

3. I think that in all the significant things in a young man's life, there is little more significant than a relationship with a really good coach.

4. I think another lovely part of my week was spending a bit of it with my friend and fellow photographer Judith, who owns Fresh Look Photography. We had coffee and talked about life and photography and everything in between. She even interviewd me for her blog, which was weird and fun! Judith and I first met in an advanced photography class at the art center where she now teaches, and we're able to get together  each month with the photography group that has grown out of some of those classes. Meaningful collaboration can make such a difference. There's so much I need to learn and so much that I'm not good at. Our twice monthy group meeting, and the times that I get together with the others in the group, just one on one are so good for me. They energize me and lift me up. Being with Judith was like that. Even if all we did was talk about raising our kids and what our favorite lenses were!

5. I think we have a lovely weekend ahead. Callum is off today, and he's off Monday too. It's always so fun having my dad here, and let's face it, the days off won't hurt! It's bitterly cold (we nearly froze to death at Callum's baseball game last night), but Easter means spring, and all our limbs are stretching out, like those vines, reaching for the sun. However you celebrate, weather it be by egg-dye or solemn ceremony, please have a lovely weekend yourselves. XO

 Thank you all, for your kind comments on yesterday's post. I feel all sorts of good and hopeful things about our country these days, don't you?

All you need is love {still + life}

This has been a big legal week for the US. Our Supreme Court (that's the big daddy of our legal system) heard two cases that pertain to the rights of same-sex couples to marry. Prop 8, a law in California, bans same-sex couples from actually getting married. On Tuesday, the constitutionality of that proposition was argued before the court. The Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, was before the Supreme Court yesterday. DOMA, signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, basically says that marriage is between one man and one woman and therefore denies federal benefits and programs to same-sex couples. These benefits include tax savings, family and medical leave, and Social Security payments. This case was brought to the court on behalf of an 83-year old woman who was forced to pay over $300,000 in estate taxes when her partner of 42 years died, simply because they were of the same sex and could not legally marry.

Well. You all (y'all) probably know how I feel about this. It simply baffles me that I have the legal right to marry based on who I fell in love with and other people don't. And truthfully, it's a bit more complicated than that. Neel's mother was Irish and his father is East Indian, so he's bi-racial. His parents' marriage, which took place in Pennsylvania in 1965, could have easily been impacted by Loving vs. Virginia. That's the Supreme Court Case that legalized interracial marriage. Pennsylvania, however, had already legalized interracial marriage, and was in fact the first state to do so. In 1780. The parallels between the current cases before the court and Loving vs. Virginia are fascinating. The Supreme Court decision in Loving vs. Virginia refers back to the 14th Amendment and its Equal Protection Clause. This clause says simply that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Equal protection of the laws. Equal. Equality. We are not all the same, but we all deserve equality under the law.

I've talked to you about my friends Mark and Fred (my friend Fred from France) before. While we're watching this closely for so many friends (And by the way, I don't have "gay" friends, I have "friends."), we're watching the arguments on DOMA very closely because of Mark and Fred. On Tuesday, Mark posted this on his Facebook page:

Twenty-three years.
Four children.
Four homes.
Had money, lost money, had money, lost money, working on getting money.
And more mini-vans than you can shake a stick at.
If that's not a "marriage", I don't know what is.

Neel and I were joking with another friend that really, Fred and Mark do marriage better than we do: more kids, more houses, more minivans. They even go to church way more than we do. If you're going to deny someone rights, I'm not sure Neel and I should make the cut! However, because they are a same-sex couple, Fred's immigration status rests in the hands of the Supreme Court's repeal of DOMA and Mark and Fred's family rests in the hands in the repeal of DOMA. How can this be? How can what I take so for granted, the simple ins and outs of daily family life, become a matter of legislation for someone simply because of who he happened to fall in love with? Where would we be if Neel's parent's couldn't have married?

I believe in love. I believe in marriage. I will always, always fall down on the side of more, not fewer, rights for our citizens. If the family is the bedrock of our society, how can we deny anyone who chooses to come together and create one, no matter how, the basic right to do so?

All you need is love.

river view {life}

As many of you know, I'm working on a 365 project this year. You can see my photos (and many other inspiring projects) here. Knowing that I struggle with follow through (ahem), I gave myself a ton of leeway with this one from the get go. I can use my phone if I need to, I'm not going to sweat it if I miss a day, and I'm just going to shoot the things that take my fancy, relying on prompts and themes only if I feel the urge. Many people work best under the constranints of a structure (how do 365 self-portraits sound to you?!), but I'm trying to go a little easy on myself here.

One thing that I started, almost by accident, was taking pictures of the river near our home. We are just a few blocks from the Elizabeth River, an easy walk, and my Friday commute (I generally run Callum to school on Friday before my hikes with my friend Tracy) has me coming up on the river at unexpected times of the day. So one Friday I took a picture. And then another. And then I started to think, maybe this will be a little mini project within my 365. Fridays on the river. When Callum had his ski accident, that plan went out the window, but hey, I'm giving myself some leeway, so my Fridays on the River became Weekends on the River, and now we're nine weeks in (I started a little late!). Some days the wind was whipping, casting white caps on the water, and one day the tide was out, allowing me to hop down on the sand. One Sunday morning I woke up to the distant, mournful tones of the fog horn on the water. Before anyone was up, I grabbed my camera and hopped in the car (jammies still on!). That's picture number four above.

I've done a little research on projects that take a photo a day at the same place, and if I start to feel myself getting stuck, I'll do more. Right now, this one is my favorite. What I'm doing is nothing like that! What I know is that water calls me, and even when I think I can never get another interesting shot from this same spot at the end of the street, I have but to walk down there, and there's something new to see.

For each shot I pick for my 365, there are dozens that don't make the cut. Sometimes there are obvious reasons, and sometimes it's hard to make the choice. Sometimes the outtakes are just as lovely as the photo I choose; they simply aren't the story I want to tell on that particular day. For the River Shots, that's particularly true, and I thought I'd share a few of my outtakes here today.

These final three are all from last Friday night. I wanted shots from the shipping yards as the lights came on, but we lucked out with a gorgeous sunset too. How do you choose? And what do you do once you've gathered them all together?

river view {still}