4-30-2011

We thought today would be a good day to shoot film cameras. Nicole decided to try out the Nikon FG that I got for $5 for the first time, and I used my grandfather's Leica M4. No matter which cameras we use, we always just end up taking pictures of our cats doing stuff like and making funny faces. Nicole was using a macro lens, so she could get super close to things to take closeup shots of cool stuff like morels. I just take pictures of Nicole. I wouldn't mind if all we ever do is hunt for mushrooms and wear funny headbands while taking pictures in the woods forever. We did find the biggest snapping turtle I've ever seen in my life. Nicole took pictures of it while in her picture taking stance. We keep secrets.

Ok, so we don't just go mushroom hunting all the time. We also go to carnivals and fairs. Especially if there are appearances by the Mantua Paotato (anarchy?) Queen, brides in a monster truck, and games. The Geauga County Maple Festival has all of this in celebration of maple syrup, maple sugar candy, and deep fried foods on sticks. I love everything about this. Nicole likes elephant ears, lemonade, and classy looking danger. For some strange reason, no one really wanted the sausage. This is why I shoot color film. Speaking of anarchy earlier, I guess smoking pipes is punk rock. Ok, I took too many pictures that I can't explain well. The only thing to know is that the very best thing about the whole festival is real maple cotton candy. If you've ever read my blog before, you know how Nicole feels about cotton candy. She loves it almost as much as I love this ring.

Another thing that I love is fire. We haven't built a fire in our back yard in years, but we had friends over to have fun and burn up the mountain of sticks that have been living on my deck for all those years since the last time we built a fire. I was pretty happy about burning sticks and made Nicole take weird pictures of me to celebrate.

4-29-2011

Nicole and I are too fancy even for fancy restaurants. From now on, we only eat at ristorantes. Ristorantes are the direct opposite of furniture movers who some how have a liquor licence. Even though I appreciate the honesty that they'll be tanked the whole time they're moving your sofa, and that they're friendly enough to invite you to "comeenjoy diningroom," this just seems like a bad idea to me.

4-28-2011

Are you hungry? Would you like some turkey before we go mushroom hunting? Mushroom hunting spots are top secret, but I'll let you in on some privileged information...we go to a tropical island with palm trees to find them. I found this weird looking shriveled up one all by myself. This is a big deal, because sometimes they're super hard to find (can you see it?), and I'm pretty sure I step on more than I find. Even Nicole is surprised to find them sometimes and she's much better at it than I am. She found these and I found this. Once you spot one, it's a lot easier though because they tend to grow in teams. I capture their teams. Have you seen Avatar? I captured the giant mushroom equivalent of "home tree" and brought it home to introduce the giant Mushroom to the big mushroom we found. This is what our mushroom cache currently looks like and we've already eaten two trays worth.

4-27-2011

We all know that it's adorable, but is suicidal bunny cake vegetarian?

4-26-2011

I'm sorry if my readership (all two of you) is getting sick of seeing pictures of mushrooms, but for the rest of morel season, that's pretty much all I'm doing with my freetime other than running (which I'm sure you're also sick of seeing pictures of).

4-25-2011

I got running stuff for running stuff.

4-24-2011

I go to church a handful of times a year. Today is one of those big exciting days. Baby Lily was about as excited to go as I was. At least it was a pretty walk after we parked. I think we parked somewhere over there by Wolverine. I'm glad this didn't happen to our car. After church, we went here for our more common Sunday ritual of b-b-br-br-br-brunch. Baby Lily was also very happy about Easter brunch. She showed off her baby bunny teeth and told us all about the religious history of the holiday while dressed as the pope. My mom really wanted this picture. Then she wanted a nap while we made an ill-fated trip to furniture Costco. Baby Lily is too cool for Costco. I think this says something political, but I'm not quite sure what. I know that this says the cheesesteak place we wanted to try was closed for Easter. Then is was back in the car for a long long drive home where we only stopped at magical rest stops where children hover to appreciate the indigenous wildlife.

4-23-2011

After a few miles of huffing and puffing under pretty bridges, we went to this place for gourmet perogies (I'm not sure how gourmet you can actually make a perogie, but they took it as far as it would go). We didn't go to become Freemasons, but we did the next best thing. We took Baby Lily to go see the Crayola Factory for the first time. Beyond lots of crayons and paper to color on, they give you these tokens that you can put into various machines and get supplies out of for fun crafty projects. Baby Lily's hand print came out pretty well, but her foot print came out a little funny looking. She wanted to make a dental mold, but she doesn't have enough teeth yet. So we taught her how to vandalize (clear) walls and crawl though (colorful) sewers without faceplaning instead. She was only good a the first part. She's very good at waving, unlike my mom who isn't so good at taking pictures. There was a bunch of informational stuff like stories about racist crayons and the one hundred billionth crayon (pictured here), and the biggest crayon in the world, but I really just looked at all of the colors and didn't read that much. There were colors everywhere. Even places where they're too old to be. Speaking of out of place things, have you ever been to Ferrari church? Or had good Thai food (I ordered for the name alone) in the middle of nowhere? Nicole likes Thai food, but she likes eating mushrooms better. I like eating cheesecake my sister made. Bunny likes eating Baby Lily.

4-22-2011

I guess Baby Lily read my last post making fun of her hair, so she made sure it looked nice for today before flying out of the house. I'm aware that it's super touristy, but we went to the Reading Terminal Market so we could eat food and I could pretend to be a street photographer. Actually, this destination was primarily guided by Man Versus Food Network shows so I could try Tommy DiNic's. I don't know if this is Tommy or not, but I know the younger guy is the one that was on the TV show that always makes me hungry. Hungry for this. I've eaten a lot of "omg you haf to try dis food" food featured on various TV shows in a lot of places, but this was really really "omg you haf to try dis food" if you're ever in the area food. But that's just me, Nicole likes cupcakes better. I like this lady because she makes very good cookies. I also like this lady because she's cute. Speaking of cute, Baby Lily decided she likes coffee, so we gave her her own one so she would stop trying to take ours.* Next, Nicole visited her holy place to go shopping with bunny. We get real excited about bunny. Baby Lily liked it so much that she wanted to steal bunny because she doesn't know what morals are yet, so we just let her do it.* More shopping in fancy stores in fancy places. I like looking at fancy buildings. Nicole likes being invisible with her sidewalk-cammo trench coat. Baby Lily likes noses. I liked this little bike and the ideas of a toddler bike messenger rolling around doing deliveries on training wheels. Are you ready for more food pictures? Because we're going to a fancy Food Network guy restaurant called Village Whiskey. It is named that for a reason, and I quickly ordered the most expensive scotch I've ever had in my life. I don't even know how much it cost for the bottle, but I'm sure it was more than I cost. They have lots of bottles, and truffle flavored mushroom cheeseburgers. That's right, Philadelphia Cheeseburger Tour! Cheeseburgers with foie gras and bacon. Then I quickly ordered the second most expensive scotch I've ever had in my life and let Baby Lily have a sip.* She was happy about that all the way until we got home when she could eat some meat cleaver and try my shoes on.


* A lot of the things that I write about Baby Lily aren't true. But the ones designated with asterisk all are.

4-21-2011

Look! I'm driving in a car. That means it's Nicole's job to take pictures while I drive us to our doom. Actually, I just drove us to the diner above. It may look really cool and classic inside and out, but it's really just a fancy Denny's. A fancy Denny's with hot waitresses and healthy road trip food. Can you tell it's my turn to take pictures again? You're not allowed to P or turn around over there. Or else you'll make trucks explode and then the firetruck will have to come and save people. After hours and hours of driving, we got to see the sleeping baby that we came to see. She wasn't too happy to see us at first, but then she got a grip and turned on her messy hair happy face.

4-20-2011

Easter bunneh gang colurz.

4-19-2011

I could look at pictures of morel mushrooms all day. Some days I kind of do. Today we were outrageously successful and picked so many that we left the little ones to hangout and grow bigger. We found more than I ever thought we would find in one day. Nicole won the prize for finding the biggest one so far this year. I really hope to beat this record.

4-18-2011

Are you getting sick of me posting pictures of all the little creatures I come across in their natural habitats? I hope you don't mind me posting more pictures of mushrooms, because today I'm explaining how Nicole cooks them. First, she cuts them lengthwise to make sure they're hollow and the right kind of mushroom, and to make sure nothing gross is living inside of them. Then she soaks them to rehydrate any dry parts and to clean off anything gross still stuck on them. Then she puts a ton of butter in a frying pan. We love butter. The mushrooms pan fry in butter, while she boils things and makes mushroom sauce until they're done. This is pasta with mushroom sauce dinner. We even used our downstairs dinner table that we normally just look at. We love mushrooms. We didn't know what our cat named Mushroom would think of them. We quickly found out that she's a cannibal.

4-17-2011

See this little green toad? This toad loves Nicole. He expressed his love by hugging her fingers very tightly and not letting go (pictured), and also by peeing all over my hand when he did let go. I'm now convinced that toad pee (and my trashy looking bandanna which I don't have pictures of) is good luck, because after finding plenty of puffballs, I finally found my first one of the year! And my second one of the year right behind it. The third one was behind that, but by then I stopped taking pictures (and crying tears of joy), so you get the point. Yeah, that weird looking wrinkly thing poking out of the ground is what we hike miles and miles in the wilderness looking for (and is also worth $200 a pound). I've had super vivid dreams about cutting the first stem of the year with my new knife. See, it's hollow inside. I'm aware that this all just seems super weird to normal people, but actually finding hidden little bits of wrinkly mushroom is horribly exciting and addictive (beside the fact that they're really good to eat). I would say we got found a pretty good spot when there are big ones growing this close together. Some are very small. I think I took more pictures of them than actually picked them, but Nicole also carries a knife for this reason. Bag of mushrroooommz. The bag is mesh so as you walk around, the spores can fall out and plant more for next year. This little guy was getting cooked in the sun. Totally unrelated, but I thought that this looked cool. This looks creepy, but this is also cool. This looks like a unicorn or a narwhal. I guess these cup mushrooms are related to morels. This newt is not related to morels. He is however engaged to Nicole. This is like a treasure chest to me. Then we went home to show our cat named Mushroom why she is a cat named mushroom.

Do you know what this bottle means? It means food feast at Momocho with out of town/state friends. I only take pictures of Joel when he's drinking while I point guns at Lorenzo.