That name is my name too

First my dad got me this candy that shares my nickname:

It was a chocolate covered orange slice, yum!

And then we got this junkmail with a familiar return address:

I kind of want to go there.

And then my job got featured on CNN Money as a best company to work for, even though technically we're not a company. Other than that the article is pretty accurate, except everyone in the picture looks super serious and actually people at work are usually smiling and aren't robots.

So in conclusion, I have a good name and a good job, and even though my vacation is over and I won't have a summer vacation for the first time since I was four, I don't really have anything to complain about.

More Hudson River Valley

Since it didn't rain the whole time we were in the Hudson River Valley, we still got to go for a short hike. Well, I don't know if it was actually a hike, because the path was called "Poet's Walk," and it was pretty mild, but at the end you get to be on top of a hill and have a pretty view of the river:

They had to idiot-proof the trail by adding signs indicating you shouldn't wander through random open fields:

We wanted to take a picture of Ben walking past the sign barefoot, having left his shoes at its base to comply with the "No Bootprints" rule, but the ground was too muddy.

Also, we saw a beaver:

It ran away before I could get a more impressive picture.

After our beaver encounter it started to drizzle, so we decided to learn something and go to visit the Historic Vanderbilt Mansion nearby.

This was just for one Vanderbilt and his wife, and they only lived there 8 weeks a year.

We learned a lot of interesting things about the Vanderbilt family, including that in his heyday Cornelius Vanderbilt owned one dollar out of every circulating twenty (compared to Bill Gates's 1:157 ratio today), and was worth more than the entire United States. Also, he had 12 kids when he died, but he left 95% to just one son, because of the other eleven ten were girls and the only other son was epileptic (i.e. "insane" in that day and age).

The mansion we visited was owned by Frederick William Vanderbilt, whose dad was the second-generation Vanderbilt who got 95% of his father's fortune. He and his wife never had any kids, which is why their mansion went to the park service after he died. Also, since it is near one of FDR's homes, during the '30s and '40s the CIA and secret service had a bunch of guys living in it for president-protecting purposes, and they drank all the wine out of the wine cellars (plural because there was one for whites, one for reds, and one for champagnes). What a sweet service assignment for World War Two!

They had a small museum next to the house, which included a section on the 60ish staff required to maintain the mansion and surrounding estate:

The two lonely dudes in the bottom right corner have somewhat cryptic labels:

Day Man

Night Man

So that's how I ended up spending the remainder of my vacation silently singing "you're a master of karate and friendship for everyone" to myself.

Hudson River Valley

We spent the last two days of our vacation in the Hudson River Valley, for the extremely significant reason that it is halfway between Burlington, VT (home of the farthest-away friends we visited) and Philadelphia, and I wanted a break from driving. Despite the dire weather forecast, it only rained for about half of our stay, and for the other half it was quite nice.

This was the view outside our window (when it stopped raining).

We stayed in a bed and breakfast, which was great with the possible exception of its super-bizarre hallway Art: Ziploc bags filled with paint and nailed to boards in semi-patriotic arrangements.

See, it looks patriotic! Also, slightly like blood.

It is definitely made of Ziploc bags, paint, and nails.

Some of the Ziploc Art also had plastic condiment cup lids in it, I'm assuming for extra Art:

History!

Disposable plastic lids!

Other Art had little explanatory tags attached to it:

Hmm, I don't recognize this flag...

... now I learned something!

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any tag that explained why someone decided to fill Ziploc bags with paint and tiny plastic lids, then nail them to boards in various interpretations of the American flag.

Art!

My other favorite part of where we stayed was that they had electric candles in the bathroom, which were obviously electric because:

1. They were made of plastic, and not wax.
2. They had a switch on the bottom, as well as a clearly visible battery compartment.

3. There was a sign in the bathroom telling you they are electric.

My favorite part is not that the candles were electric, but that despite the numerous indicators that they aren't real, they were all covered in scorch marks from people trying to light them with matches:

Gotta love people's determination to set things on fire! If only someone would carry that idea over to the hallway Art...

Vermont

You guys, even though the weather forecast said it wouldn't, it stopped raining in Vermont yesterday! We got to go for a really nice walk around Burlington, and even dine al fresco, all while enjoying sunshine and dryness.

Of course, since it had been raining for the past week, there were some visible reminders of the recent wet weather:

This is not supposed to be underwater.

Neither is this, but he looks pretty at home there.

Also, I knew Vermont had sort of a reputation for hippies, but...

In my mind, the pink polka dots represent discarded foreskins.

Now on to New York!

The downside of vacationing in New England in the spring

Here is the weather from where we were yesterday:

 Here is the weather forecast for where we currently are:

Here is the weather forecast for where we are going tomorrow:

And here is the weather forecast for where we are finishing our vacation with a two day stay that was supposed to involve hiking, orchards, wineries, and other outdoor activities:

Next year we are going somewhere tropical.

Connecticut

I have always resented Connecticut, and it’s stupid silent “c” in the middle that cost me a perfect score on my fifty states test in seventh grade. But now our friends Julie and Dan bought a house there, so I have decided to make amends with the Constitution state, and also to make it the first stop on me and Ben’s New England road trip this week (woo, vacation!).

Julie and Dan’s new house is great! It has a squirrel on the front:

See, I am not kidding.

Even more excitingly, it has a lake in the back!

It was raining, but it's still a beach.

Also, Julie and Dan and their beach are all in Connecticut, but the lake (and the land on the other side) is in Massachusetts. This is great for Julie and Dan because it means they can easily drive to MA for cheap gas and alcohol on Sundays (despite CT's blue laws), but potentially bad for me because if they ever have kids, and then I visit them and take their kids swimming, I will be guilty of transporting a minor across state lines.

The other exciting thing near Julie and Dan’s new house is a Big Y grocery store. The Big Y grocery store is better than all other grocery stores, because instead of a lame customer loyalty reward system that revolves around an easily transportable plastic card, they use doubloons to reward their loyal customers:

See, once more I am not kidding.

Well, technically they aren’t called “doubloons,” but “silver coins.” When you spend enough money on groceries, the cashier gives you a silver coin when you checkout. Then later if you are shopping and you see an item marked as a “silver coin deal,” you just give the cashier your silver coin and she gives you the discount! Assuming you remembered your silver coins, and you have a silver coin for each silver coin deal, that is. Also, apparently there are also gold coin deals, but Julie and Dan haven’t bought enough groceries to earn a gold coin yet, so we can’t be sure what they look like. I’m going to assume they are just as awesome, if not more so, as the gold coins.

So Connecticut was a great success, despite the fact that Julie (whose husband’s last name is Spagnesi) got accused of being racist against Italians by the head of the Hartford Italian American Society (much in the same way my Jewish paternal grandmother used to accuse my mother of anti-Semitism whenever they disagreed, despite my mother having married my grandmother’s also-Jewish son).

Next stop, Boston!

The Book of Mormon

Look where we were today!

It's God's favorite musical, so you know it's good!

We have been wanting to see The Book of Mormon since we saw Jon Stewart rave about it on his show a few months ago. It was particularly awesome because we got to see it with my (formerly Mormon) mom and aunt, who were able to fill us in on all the juicy Mormon background, from having to wear Temple garments during sex ("there's a really long crotch zipper!") to when the Church decided black people are actually people in 1978 (despite them not being "white and delightsome"). Also, apparently at BYU (their alma mater) they send someone to proposition anyone who is 25 and unmarried in the theater department, to make sure they're not... you know.

The show itself was great, but sort of hard to describe. Highlights included dancing cups of coffee in Mormon Hell, God telling Joseph Smith not to show anyone the golden plates he found "even though that would really, really help people believe you and make you seem less crazy," and Jesus in a light-up robe calling someone a dick.

Also, since we were in NYC for the afternoon we got to stop at Baked by Melissa, a mini-cupcake place I used to go to when we lived there. It's great because they are delicious and have a lot of flavors, but you don't have to choose just one because the cupcakes are bite-sized and you get them by the half-dozen. Also, they are really, really cute:

I can't decide whether the caption should be "yum!" or "awww."

Now we are back in Philly and have no more fancy shows or cupcakes coming up, but the Book of Mormon soundtrack comes out on Tuesday!