Sunday August 22

We succeeded in our goals of making a scripture cake (moist, slightly spicy, studded with fruit and nuts) and going for a hike. For our hike, in fact, we climbed up the head of Sleeping Giant Mountain in Connecticut, near Matt's boyhood home. It's a beautiful reservation, complete with an old quarry (which I tried to climb).

Next week we will try to get through the Ace of Diamonds: Translate three poems from foreign languages (one each and one together). The language lines are tentatively drawn as one German (Matt), one Latin (me) and one Spanish (tag team). Expect translations next week. Likely candidates include Goethe, Horace and Neruda, I think.

August 8 2010

After long hiatus, we are back!

The hiatus was mostly due to the combination of Matt's finals and my fieldwork stint in Florida - we're going to try to double up to make it through the rest of the year. Okay, I'm a bit skeptical too.

This week, we will be attempting to make a scripture cake and climb a mountain. Scripture cakes are made according to recipes using biblical references (e.g. "3/4 cup Genesis 18:8, 1 1/2 cup Jeremiah 6:20, 5 Isaiah 10:14, separated ..."). Mountains are made of geology. Stay tuned for, we hope, more regular updates!!

May 8th 2010

We saw our Independent Film today. Matt’s still in the middle of exams, so we decided a film was more feasible than a play – especially an independent film distributed mostly online. A dreamlike indie fantasy called Ink is available to watch on Hulu, so we watched it. It’s an interesting movie. The visuals are very well done and interestingly deployed; ultimately the world could have used a little more background, but the characters were quite good. It’s set in the conflict between “Storytellers” and “Incubi,” which visit people at night to provide, respectively, good and bad dreams. Ultimately it was very psychologically-focused; there were some unexplored layers of just how the filmmakers conceptualized good and evil in this world; it’s probably worth seeing if you like that kind of thing. Here’s a poster.

 New card tomorrow!

May 6 2010

Okay. Let’s work backwards. This week, May 2-9, we have King of Diamonds: see a play or independent film. It’s probably going to be an independent film. We’ll try to make it to a cinema.
Right. We ended up taking last week off unofficially because of Matt’s finals, so we’re going to try to squeeze two activities into one week soon. That would have been April 25-May 2. The week before that (April 18-April 25) is supposed to have been 9 of Clubs: Origami, some of which I finally did. Conveniently, Matt’s lovely parents gave me this origami set for my birthday. 

So, I tried to make some flowers: tada!

They sort of look like the pictures! But not really.
The week before that was April 11-18 and in a state of vague post-GRE haze I did not quite build a coldframe in time. I got to it eventually, though, and here it is, complete with lettuce seeds underneath!

I’ll try and get more regular and organized again … sorry.

Tuesday April 13th

Hello Gentle Readers!

In honor of my birthday, I'm doing a quick catch-up post! When we drew another wildcard (the seven of diamonds) last week, I - with the GRE of Damocles hanging over my head - was only too happy to accept. But we have a Real Card this week: the Three of Clubs, "Make something useful for the house." Since we have an abundance of seeds sprouting or preparing to sprout, and a disused window behind our house, we're going to try to make a coldframe! Stay tuned for pictures and possibly me driving a nail through my hand.

April 3 2010

April 3, 2010

A month since I updated, eh?
And what a busy month it’s been! At the point of our last update, we had just drawn the card for “Garden!” to occupy the week of February 28^th-March 5^th. We did some research about seed starting, but it wasn’t until this past weekend that we actually planted our first round of seeds. Soon—we hope—our buttercup squash, basil, kale, spinach, strawberries and eggplants will sprout!

So then we took two weeks off (sevens and deuces wild!) while we went to Belgium and England for a week. While we were there, we saw: spectral monks

 a circular rainbow

a lot of my relatives

a cathedral

an art museum

a fantastic art nouveau exterior

an extremely weird monument

 and The Gothiest Pillar!*

Yay vacation!

We came back to a new mandate, which was not carried out quite on time. But, as per required, we Made a Toy for the Rats (Ten of Clubs). It was a beautifully crafted device consisting of an egg carton and two crabapple stick suspended from strings. There would be pictures, but they promptly destroyed it, which we believe to be a sign of a good rat toy.

Our next card was the Four of Spades: buy and play a new board game. Fortunately this was an easy one—we’ve been meaning to get Die Sterne Stehen Richtig for, oh, close to a year. 

For those not familiar with it, it’s a game based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos; each player plays as a cultist trying to arrange the constellations to summon her particular horrible ancient god and bring about the end of the world. It was illustrated by the author of the webcomic "Unspeakable Vault (of Doom)." Cultic joy awaits!

Tomorrow, we draw a new card and, hopefully, return to a more normal schedule of updates and activities. As soon as the Biology GRE passes on April 10^th (possibly to return in October, but that’s another story …), I at least will have a little more time. So stay tuned, and happy Easter if you celebrate it!

*"So, Joanna, why are there many many more photos of Matt than of you?"
"Come on, gentle reader, we've been over this. I look like this in pictures."

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!"

"Exactly."

February 28, 2010

Sadly, a week of abs workouts has not given us six-packs of steel. We still do not look like that man. But then, it’d be a little worrying if I did!
This week’s card is the Nine of Spades: Garden. “Garden? But it’s practically still winter!” True—but there’s still some stuff to do! It’s a little early to start seeds, but we can make a plan for starting the seeds we bought. It’s ridiculously late to plant bulbs, but we can at least get those tulips into a cool, dry place for next year and maybe start forcing the paperwhites (also much, much too late!).

In our garden, we’ll be growing Hutterite Soup bush beans, Early Russian cucumbers, Rosa Bianca eggplants, Yellow Wonder wild strawberries, Rocky Top mixed lettuce, Dwarf Siberian kale, Far North melon, Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach, Bush buttercup squash, Genovese basil, Polka Dot Mix bachelor’s buttons, Jet Black/Nigra hollyhocks, Late Spencer Choice mixed sweet peas, shade-loving mixed flowers, and “your grandmother’s flower garden” mixed flowers. All but the last two came from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

We chose our seeds for compactness—hence bush beans, bush squash (it’s usually a rampant vine!) and dwarf kale—hardiness—the spinach is unusually tolerant of heat, the melon and cucumber of cold, and so forth—and appeal—the flowers are mostly sweet-smelling flowers that last well in vases, the vegetables are all things we eat constantly. Strawberries are known to be quite hard to start, but sweet peas are very easy. Anyway, we’re very excited! Since the cards demand it, this week we’ll do research on the correct time and manner to plant our various seeds, and perhaps buy, beg, borrow, steal or scavenge some equipment (DIY coldframe, anyone?). Stay tuned, I’ll let you know what I discover!