fourth of July from Brooklyn,

these are from my fourth of july, totally different then Briana's weekend, with the nephews and nature. . . . we had a bbq in the back yard, and even Brown Bear passed out from the sunny day and too much beer. . . 

tibor on his island

jeffrey goes for a swim

instead, we used the little blow up pool and my hat to fill this little rock crevice with water.

due to a very belated application of sunscreen, jeff and i swam the boys over to the shady side of the river and he swam back to constuct this fancy shady shelter.

you can see a little blow up pool in the top picture. the boys were not so sure about the river and so jeff was trying to find a flat spot to fill this with water so they could splash around.

there were no flat spots.

a lovely end to my beautiful summer vacation weekend

our gorgeous, i mean handsome, nephews at the washougal river.

the next day

i was eating breakfast (potatoes from our garden, sauteed with that lovely arugula and a fried egg) when our brother called to see if i wanted to go to the river. hell ya!

and i gardened.

and in between meals on the fourth

i cleaned the house.

and hung our new painting by martha.

the evening of the fourth

the evening of the fourth, troy brought home some salmon fillets-- they'd been sampling them at new seasons that day... one of the delicious perks of his job, hopefully enough to offset the kooks.
we had them, grilled, with a grilled nectarine, snap pea, shaved fennel and basil slaw with local feta and arugula.

doesn't that look delicious??

then we watched the neighborhood fireworks from our front porch. i drank a little too much rose but luckily didn't handle any explosives.

summer vacation in one long weekend, cont.

for breakfast, i had leftovers from the nicoise salad-- potatoes, peas and artichoke sauteed and on toast with a soft boiled egg. it was actually the first time i'd ever made a soft boiled egg.
i finished the book, by the way, before the weekends end. "monsters of templeton". it was very good. the rock keeps the pages from turning.

Grand Central

I think this might be my first photo in my "Tibor" project, since it's a train station I think it counts for the kinds of things he likes. maybe it's a stretch . . . but I like it.

art school comes to NY or welcome to NY Aubrey!

one of my favorite fellow photo majors (from my undergrad experience at PNCA) to sit for has recently moved to NY  for grad school in photography. so this last weekend, I sat for her again. it's been 7 or 8 years since she's photographed me. it was really cool to see her still working.  her stuff is still really amazing. it's inspiring to be in this space again, with art projects abounding, be they mine or someone else's. 

anyway, this was the floor from the shoot, my shoes, her shoes and her girlfriend/photo assistant's shoes with ribbons of my silk sewing scraps. . . . 

a perfect summer vacation rolled up into one long weekend: in photos & words

Friday was like a welcome surprise. I hadn't known about the day off due to the holiday. Now that--after 4 years of work--the bones of the garden were there, I’d bought flowers to plant over the weekend.
But I didn’t plant flowers on Friday.
I cleaned a little. I read. In the sun, lounging around like a teenage summer. I made hard-boiled eggs and aioli. And then I thought: nicoise salad. The perfect summertime meal when the temperature hits 90 and keeps going.


But in typical Portland fashion the day was at its hottest in the evening, still too hot to eat. We sipped on our sangria-- so easy to drink--and had some chilled beet soup with horseradish, dill and buttermilk and waited for the sun to go down.

So many things come from our garden-- the potatoes are the first we've ever grown. In fact, I wasn't even sure how to harvest them. They are the best potatoes ever.

Artichoke, peas, lettuce all fresh picked from the garden. Seared ahi. Aioli. Delicious.

Chocolate ice cream with cherries for dessert. Decadent, beautiful summer.

my trip to Beacon

I love meeting the babies of the brilliant people I know. especially these people, since I've known them forever. and since I knew Justin was smitten with Paula from the first time he talked about her. I wish the photos of Ruby with Paula turned out as well as these. 

It's such a beautiful family! 

garden update.

1 of the thyme plants didn't make it. and the other 2 are fighting pretty hard. i keep thinking i should just make something with it and eat it before i lose it fully. 

otherwise the basil is doing well! it must be the view.