This next one isn't Vermeer (It's "The Procuress" by Dirck van Baburen), but if you look closely you can tell it's same painting as is depicted in the upper right hand corner of "The Concert" above.

Lake Needwood was very pleasant and filled with the Thanksgiving/Chrismas smell of a crisp winter forest. I hadn't gone to Rock Creek Park in a bit, and was surprised to notice that the trees were bare. I went into Rock Creek to gather the temperature vs. depth data with the temperature probe on the yardstick. I was wearing Milla's boots because I was the only one with feet small enough, except maybe Milla. We were trying to find a place with a depth of 60 centimeters, so I had waded into the center of the creek disregarding the water gushing into the boots and soaking my socks. I hadn't realized it would be so cold, or that the current could apply such insistent and constant pressure. I'd always thought the water would flow around me. I came back up and took off my socks and wrung them out and hung them out to dry on a tree branch and let other people do the rest of the data points. It would not prevent Ed and Milla from cuddling on the leafy bank later while I watched the water pour across a line of rocks in little rapids. Something I noticed was, the water never stops moving. (Well duh.) The ripples and the foam, the light and the shadow, is all caused by water rushing away from me, replaced by the same amount of water coming towards me, and yet from a distance, or to someone not paying attention, it looks as still and as clear as glass and as constant as if the water were a solid and unmoving sheet.

Afterwards, we had a lot of free time to just play around. We found that Rob and Dena balanced each other out on the seesaw, me and Alex balanced out Rob and Dena, and me and Alex balanced out each other. I picked up a nice walking stick David had hurled into the field as a javelin. I played on the swings to the creaking of chains. We took a walk around the lake, gleaming under the ashen sky and bare trees like unpolished metal.

Hank, Josh, Puffy (who is no longer puffy) and Alex burst into "Every Sperm is Sacred," a rap version of "I Like Chinese" and the Lumberjack Song on the bus trip, much to the dismay of everyone else. Josh and Puffy had a freestyle rap-off against Xu, and though Xu thinks he won, I think otherwise. I mean, Xu simply can't compete with such quality lines as

"Don't diss my dad at NIST just because he's a genius.
He looks through an electron microscope to find your penis!"

"Xu's sex life is so sad it's like investment banking;
whenever it gets bad he must resort to yanking."

"My dick is so big and so hairy and so long,
There are a alot of hippies who use it as a bong!"

Quality, quality.

Midnight Monday

Yesterday I went with my parents to Stella's house for early Thanksgiving dinner by candlelight. Stella and Jonathan continued being an awesome cooking couple. I'm really glad that for at least the last two years that I can remember, our family has actually been eating turkey and stuffing like a proper Thanksgiving meal. I know it's rather superficial, but I'm still glad that there is now an Asian household capable of cooking a turkey. Dongwoo and Maggie were there, continuing the Thanksgiving tradition of really tasty garlic mashed potatoes, and the nontradition of really sketchy gravy, respectively. It didn't mix well. By the time the gravy boat was empty, there was just this layer of oil. And really buttery, but tasty, succotash. My mom and dad got birthday presents, which were plum blossom perfume and plum wine. I have no idea what was up with the plums, but it was quite pleasant. My dad expounded on the history of corks while everyone else tried to look interested, my mom swapped recipes and we all talked about New York's Chinatown and food quality.

Also, I managed to cut my left index finger with a plastic knife and actually draw blood. By accident, of course. Still painful.

I am reading "Girl In A Pearl Earring" by Tracy Chevalier and was inspired to go looking through Vermeer paintings. These are all the paintings described or alluded to in the book, in chronological order.

The next painting isn't actually in the book, but the painting in the painting is the painting that Griet describes hanging from the Crucifixion Room.

Then I realized that the last one was not Vermeer, but a picture of Harry Potter in drag (link provided by WB. I love ya, Dubs.) The pictures are from The Play What I Wrote, directed by Kenneth Branagh.

I was doing some research about canned foods out of curiosity and came up with this:

An educational French comic.