Suspicious silhouette

We recently moved into a shiny new office building, which is great in almost every way (for instance, now we have windows!). The one thing that is kinda funky is these silhouettes along the walls - the ones near the entrance are of small children playing, then they gradually grow as you walk through the office until you reach grads in caps and gowns at the opposite end. Except, somewhere in the teenager section there is this:

Apparently the guy on the left is holding his backpack and the guy on the right has a book in his arm, and they are walking to or from school together. However, I'm finding it impossible to see it as anything but a mugging - and apparently enough other people have the same interpretation, because they are getting the "artist" to come back and modify it to look less like an armed robbery. I will sort of miss it when it is gone...

Frankensister

Warning: Avert your eyes quickly and don't read further if you don't like seeing slightly graphic things!

I am in Baltimore this weekend hanging out with my sister, who currently looks like this:

She also has this pump contraption that collects all the juices draining out of her wound:

We've been calling it her "hug" because we think it looks like one of these:

What do you think happened? It's choose your own adventure:

1. Knife fight
2. Hugged a tiger
3. Shaving mistake
4. Papercut

(Actually, she had to have a benign tumor cut out of her neck - she's totally fine but it looks pretty gnarly.)

We are already thinking of Halloween costumes that will incorporate her cool new scar.

Of Mice and Men

Yesterday Ben and I went to NYC to see Of Mice and Men - that's right, we are so cool that we go to NYC for a day to see a play.

(In reality, this production is starring two actors I have a crush on - Chris O'Dowd and James Franco - and that's why I made us go.)

Unsurprisingly, the play was very well done. However, we were surprised at the number of folks in the audience - mostly teenage girls presumably there for James Franco - who didn't seem to know the story. There was a weird amount of laughter at Lennie's lines - which are kind of funny in the way that a kid sometimes says funny stuff, but aren't really that funny because they're coming from an adult man in a desperate situation - and when Lennie killed Curley's wife there were genuine gasps and cries of horror. Then in the final scene when George pulls the trigger, many of the girls were sobbing hysterically and didn't seem able to believe what had just happened or that the play ended there. I guess they got their 10th grade English lesson for the day!

Dog Days of Summer

Today we went to a hot dog festival.

The banh mi dog, bottom left, was my favorite of the day.

We went with two friends, and between the four of us we ate 14 hot dog samples - each sample was half a dog, and we quartered each one, so we each ate 14/8 of a hot dog, aka 1 and 3/4 dogs. That doesn't sound particularly excessive, but the dogs were so intense - they had crazy toppings and some were made of things like bison and lamb and one was entirely deep fried - that by the end we all felt the need to lie down.

Me still optimistic after we ate the first 8 (pictured above)

Me and my friend Ashley after finishing all 14

After we regained the ability to stand upright and stagger to a new location, we walked to the harbor park and spent an hour laying in hammocks digesting and rethinking our life choices. Also, Ben got in trouble for rocking our hammock too much, because he is a rebel.

Hammock selfie!

We spent a few more hours wandering around the city and walking off our meat feast before heading home. I don't think I'm going to need to eat for at least two more days.

Home improvements

We try to do at least one home improvement project each summer, and this year we decided to tackle our balcony. We have enough room out there for a table and chairs, and there's a nice view of the city, but it's a little... bland.

Table & chairs removed to show you the plain concrete floor.

We bought deck tiles at Ikea, and it took a grand total of five minutes to install them. They just snap together!

Ben is so handy.

After I stained and sealed them.

The following weekend we went to a nursery and picked up some window boxes and flowers. After getting them all set up, and bringing the patio furniture back out, now it looks like this:

(We still have to get real pots for the basil on the table)

 To recap, with a few hours work and a couple hundred dollars (almost all for the decking), we did this:

Before

After

Take that, Tim Allen!

Woohoo!

In case you didn't see it on facebook, my cross stitch submission to my favorite fantasy author's book trailer competition was in the released trailer! I'm pretty sure this means we're best friends now. And it also means I'm friends with Neil Gaiman and Patrick Rothfuss, two of my other beloved fantasy authors.

Fun Fourth

Since we aren't in California this summer, Ben and I were able to spend today with friends doing our annual Philly Fourth of July Tradition: the Super Scooper All-You-Can-Eat Ice Cream Festival!

I didn't eat a cup from every single booth as in past years, which I guess means I'm getting old. I still ate a pretty ludicrous amount of ice cream, though.

After sufficient gorging we walked over to the harbor park, where we discovered something we had missed last time: giant cargo nets stretched over the water that you can hang out in!

We are rule breakers.

Adorable rule breakers.

The weather was gorgeous - warm but not hot and just a bit of breeze coming off the water - and we spent a few hours just lounging around chatting. At one point our friend got a phone call from another friend who asked what she was doing, to which she responded "not much, just drinking beer with friends in a giant water hammock after an ice cream festival." Hearing it all together like that made me realize I am quite possibly the luckiest person in existence.