very simple

Sadie’s been with me for 2 and a half months now, and I think she’s at the point where this is now definitely home, as evidenced by the fact that she sleeps like this in the middle of my bed:

Her other favorite activity (which she also did when living at the vet) is staring out the window at all the people that go by. In fact, the vet wanted to make sure that I had a window onto a busy street because Sadie liked people watching (and bird watching) so much. I particularly like how she perches on the radiator cover and windowsill to get the best comfort/vantage point, as if she’s parked herself at the neighborhood bar.

The first tulip to burst through, while all the surrounding ones are still in their pre-bloom stage

We are not a particularly religious family, but we still do the big holidays. of course, we do them in our own unique, potentially sacrilegious way.

Our seder plate – the plate itself is beautiful, a gift to my stepmother from someone she knew who was an Iraqi jew. We, of course, never have all of the proper ingredients, so we do things like replace the hard-boiled egg with a purple marshmallow peep.

I can’t even estimate how old this bottle of Manischewitz is. It’s got a modern label, so it can’t be that old, but I do know that we dig it out of the basement every passover, use about 3 oz of it for the actual seder (and Elijah’s cup), and then drink good, non-kosher wine with our actual dinner. Then the bottle goes back in the basement for another year.

And finally – our passover table. This one is pretty traditional, including the deluxe edition Coffees of Maxwell House Passover Haggadah.

one of the many, many birdhouses that my parents have scattered around. Maybe next time I go up, I’ll do a whole photo series of their collection (most of which are purely indoor decorative items).

I took this in an attempt to show off the macro feature of my fancy camera lens to…someone.

This weekend, we headed up to the berkshires for an early passover seder on Sunday. But on Saturday, we had a farm day at our friend Billie’s farm. Billie runs the farm (where she raises chicken and cows) largely by herself, so a few times a year, friends head over to take care of some of the bigger projects that require more than one person. This year, we were re-fencing a pasture after the fence got damaged from all the snow this winter, and we were tearing out one of the gardens in order to turn it into more cow pasture. I (of course) brought my camera. I ended up taking more pics of the animals than of people, because that’s what happens when you put me near adorable farm animals (including adorable baby farm animals), but nevertheless, here are some shots from the day.

By her third day in the berkshires, Sadie and Ollie had reached a tentative detente. Which largely consisted of Ollie staying 2 feet away from her at all times and not making eye contact, in an attempt to get her to stop smacking him in the face. Here, Sadie has taken over his favorite spot in the house, which he’s had for 12 years, and he sits on the edge of the pillow pretending not to look at her.

up in the berkshires two weeks ago, things were very slowly, in very small ways, starting to bloom.

Since Sadie moved in with me, I’ve indulged her with an assortment of toys and treats. but none of that was necessary, because one of the only things she’s interested in playing with on a regular basis is one of my recycling bins. She can spend hours jumping in and out of it, letting me carry her around in it, and dragging it around my apartment. So much so that I’ve had to give one of them completely over to her, in the hopes that she’ll leave the other one (that I actually use) alone.

I actually heard this before I saw it, but it was instantly recognizable. I don’t know whether it’s restored or a replica, but I just love all forms and homages to the Shelby Cobra. My dad had one back when I was in high school/college, but his was bright red. Completely impractical, given the fact that you could drive it about three days a year (the combination of no roof and inability to park it anywhere safe was a bit of a limitation), it was still the talk of the town whenever we actually left the house in it. My favorite part about ours? The 5-point restraint harnesses instead of seat belts.