All posts by laurahinnj

Remembering, Wanderings

The blink of an eye

9 Comments

While I was up in North Jersey on Friday to visit the hawkwatch site, I took a stroll around the campus of the college where I did my undergraduate degree.

When I was a student there it was still just a college and not a university like it is today. That change is mostly superficial, I guess, yet I went there fully expecting that I wouldn’t recognize the place for all the new buildings that have been constructed since I graduated. I was happy to find that the core of the campus was unchanged and that the feel of the place was the same to me. It does feel much more grown-up somehow, though, with a cafe attached to the library, a diner right on campus and its very own train station.

I spent an hour or so sitting on the familiar benches outside Partridge Hall, which used to house the Department of Spanish and Italian, where I spent the majority of my days for those four years. It was only twenty years ago this month that I started there as a freshman, after all.

Cripes! Where did twenty years go?

In the blink of an eye…

I’d started college as a Political Science major, of all things, but mostly C’s and a D or two (plus the riot act from my dad) convinced me that Poly Sci most probably wasn’t where my talents were.

How exactly I ended up as a Spanish Translation major is less clear in my memory, but I suppose I might have been influenced by the mission-style architecture of the campus, or my Spanish-born uncle, or more probably that I mostly always got A’s in Spanish without very much difficulty.

😉

Anyway… Spanish was a good fit for me. Not as easy one, as Montclair State is blessed with a diverse population and an excellent faculty that hardly ever cut me any slack as the only non-native speaker in most of my classes. One of my professors often ‘complimented’ me on my ‘creative’ use of the language, in fact.

😉

I never was able to make a living doing the type of translation work I love – literary translation – nor was the year spent doing legal and medical translations very lucrative, but I think I’ve been lucky since then to be able to make use of my undergraduate degree in most all of the jobs I’ve held over the years. That’s probably more than can be said for my friends who stuck with Political Science.

Of course I’m denying the fact that I had to get a graduate degree to be able to make any real money (as if!) but that’s another story, anyway.

It was nice to spend a couple hours there and see myself 18 again with the whole world for my imagining.

Birds, In the neighborhood, Pastimes

Fields of gold

4 Comments

The open fields glowing with goldenrod and the wooded trails of Tatum Park were the backdrop to Monmouth County Audubon’s first field trip of the season this morning. This late summer flower, together with the asters, keeps the honeybees in business now and the sight of it will be a welcome memory to anyone walking these same fields come the dark days of December.

Our group of twelve enjoyed the restless voices of Robins and Catbirds in the woods, had a nice look at a Cooper’s Hawk gliding through a swarm of Tree Swallows high overhead and had a demonstration from our field trip leader of the explosive seed dispersal technique of jewelweed after a brief glimpse at a hummingbird feeding among its flowers.

We ended our walk puzzling over the identity of a quickly departing flycatcher while a fawn of the year emerged from the jewelweed and goldenrod at our feet. Two Common Yellowthroats and a Downy Woodpecker were found feeding in the same area. While there didn’t seem to be many birds present today, the warm sun and all that goldenrod made up for the lack of migrants.

Birds, Wanderings

Skywatching for hawks

16 Comments

I know it’s a Raven, but it’s the best bird pic I got today during a couple hours spent at the Montclair Hawkwatch. The hawkwatch site is NJ Audubon’s smallest sanctuary and the second oldest continuous- running hawkwatch in the country, second only to Hawk Mountain in Pa.

Finding hawks at a ridge site, as opposed to a coastal watch like Sandy Hook or Cape May, is really difficult and requires a lot of patience and much better eyesight than I have. We were looking at speck birds for most of the day! I did get to see a few kettles of Broadwings way up in the clouds (yesterday they counted 4437 Broadwings), some Osprey and Sharpies, a couple Kestrals and had a nice look at a Peregrine.

We had to be glad for all those clouds in the sky cause they gave us landmarks to help locate the birds soaring high above. A fun day, but I prefer coastal hawkwatching that doesn’t require quite as much imagination!

I met this guy there who has some fantastic hawk pics on his Flickr site.

Visit here for more Friday Skywatch posts.

Dog days

Top this

20 Comments

So… I was done early with work yesterday afternoon and had wandered out into the yard to sort through some of the skippers that were flitting about the um… um… what’s this flower called again? Is it snakeroot? I think so. Anyway, it’s a bit weedy in the garden, but is a skipper magnet. I was only outside with the camera for twenty minutes or so and Luka is, after all, nearly grown, so I didn’t crate him and thought nothing of leaving him unsupervised for such a short period of time.

Bad idea! Maybe your dog is like Luka: you know, you spend money on toys and stuff for them and they just destroy whatever it is for them that you buy. Luka did that this week with the nice soft bed we bought for his crate. I was concerned with his elbows on the hard metal all day long, but he tore it to shreds on Monday morning. $40.00 wasted!

This time he decided to save us the trouble of that intermediate step of buying something with the money and then shredding the purchased item. Instead he just shredded the money straight away. How considerate! The DH had left an envelope of money and checks from FD t-shirt sales on the dresser and Luka grabbed it and spread it out across the kitchen floor. Thankfully, only one check and a ten dollar bill were actually shredded beyond repair.

At least I think so anyway.

Silly dog!

And then there was the chasing him through the house, laughing, camera in hand, for the sake of that Ben Franklin…

I’m not sure I want to imagine what he’ll do to top this.

From the field, Whatever

Some days there just aren’t enough hours

7 Comments

Today started out quietly enough; I got to sleep a little later than usual because it was a field day, then my first appointment wasn’t at home so I had enough time between appointments to do some end-of-season sale shopping. There was even a cute dress that I almost bought.

Stop laughing – I have been known to wear an actual dress on occasion!

Two appointments later I was thinking about lunch, but instead went for a little stroll in the sand by the bay. There was a sweet phone call and laughter with a friend. Then sometime after 1 pm things went south.

My exceptional scheduling skills had me in two places at opposite ends of the county at the same time. Impossible to accomplish. I made a decision to see the client that lived in the worst neighborhood first (I like to be in and out of certain parts of town before the hoodlums are awake and standing around on the corners) with the idea that I would have my office call the other client to let her know that I’d be late. Well… another client beat me to the punch on that one and called my office to complain that it was 2:30 and she’d cancelled her dialysis treatment and sat home all day waiting and I still hadn’t shown up. I mostly straightened that mess out, though I don’t think I made a new friend with that lady. Pfft!

I juggled and drove in circles and that damn lady wasn’t home when I got there.

Then I had a wonderful couple hours at the Y doing yoga and paying attention to my breathing and lifting weights to vent the pent up crankiness.

I came home to a crowd of neighbors standing around in the driveway with the sweetest teenage boy who’d lost control of his parent’s car and ended up somewhere in the middle of my lawn. Poor kid! He was okay, but apprently the parent’s car was not. Thankfully the tow truck and the police cars were gone by the time I got there. The kid had come back to apologize for messing up the lawn and was met first with my crazy neighbors who teased him to no end.

I sat down here, finally, to fill out my registration for the Fall Weekend, only to be interrupted to help the DH catch an injured gull down by the boat ramp. That went surprisingly well.

Gulls smell very fishy. Maybe not everyone knows that.

It’s after 9pm and I still haven’t eaten a single thing. All day.

Drank about a dozen cups of coffee though. Can’t you tell?

😉

So… I’m officially signed up for a couple days in Cape May next month and a boat tour that I hope won’t be rained out like last year’s. I got some other stuff done that I’d meant to do this weekend.

There’s still a dozen emails staring me down.

I think I’ll have a nap.

Birds, Snapshots, Whatever

The light of the body is the eye

4 Comments
and this one’s rimmed in red!

There was no food on offer, so I’m not sure just what his interest in me was about. Maybe he was feeling companionable and thought I looked lonely at the beach all by myself yesterday. More likely he hoped I had a pocket full of potato chips! Gulls really are quite pretty when you stop to look at them. Not that I’m ready to do very much of that.

😉

I like to make lists, Whatever

You gonna eat that?

5 Comments

From Liza:

The Omnivore’s Hundred:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

1. Venison (I’m pretty sure I was tricked into eating this)
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (For the first time last weekend)
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich (Ick. PB is much better with bananas)
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans (Red beans and yellow rice is one of my favorite things)
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (This is something of a point of pride for me)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (I love good churros)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie (Apple, preferably)
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare (Would you expect anything different?)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano (I made my first mole in high school)
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

I’m not very daring when it comes to food, obviously… especially seafood. It was fun reading about all the food items I’ve never even heard of. Most didn’t do anything for my appetite though. I guess I’m not much of an omnivore.

😉

Birds, I like to make lists, Wanderings

16

4 Comments

That bit of early evening sunlight reflecting off this yellow-headed blackbird is what makes me like this otherwise terrible pic; the quality of light in North Dakota was magical and generous. Even the moonlight seemed to fill the prairie pot holes until they popped out like mirrors of the star-filled sky.

Anyway, I digress…

These were my prairie life birds:

Eared Grebe
Western Grebe
American White Pelican
Sharp-Tailed Grouse
Yellow Rail
American Avocet
Black Tern
Western Kingbird
Bank Swallow
Sedge Wren
Clay-colored Sparrow
Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow
Yellow-headed blackbird

I’m still holding onto most of my North Dakota stories like precious little pebbles in the pocket of my favorite pair of jeans. Every now and again I pull one out and turn it over in my hand and decide if it’s polished enough for telling yet. Most aren’t, but I’m beginning to remember and still enjoy just sitting with those memories.

Each of the birds on this very modest list has a story of its own; its own sweet memory. I’d forgotten, I think, how nice new life birds can be. A couple of them aren’t technically life birds for me, but I’m a little quirky about claiming life birds and would just as soon wait to check a bird off that list as not be able to really remember seeing it for the first time. These are all firmly set in my memory of a wonderful couple days spent wandering in the middle of nowhere.

#16 in my 38 by 39.