Things Facebook makes possible

Yesterday, a friend who lives in Texas posted on Facebook that, because he and his wife (also one of my friends) had had to cancel a trip to London, he had two tickets to tonight's Flaming Lips concert at Roundhouse that were up for grabs.

We're not in London yet, obviously, but I do have Facebook friends there. I immediately messaged them to say, "Hey, these are available if any of you are interested." One responded to say she definitely wanted them.

I linked the two of them up via Facebook message, they exchanged details, and now a couple of friends are recouping part of the money they paid for tickets they can't use and a couple of other friends are getting to go to what promises to be a cool concert.

I doubt it'll happen twice, but I'm more than happy to take concert tickets off someone's hands if you find yourself in a similar predicament in a few months.

More fun with cooking

A recent effort to move all of my recipes to electronic form -- which I'll write about soon -- has left me wondering why I've never tried to make a lot of the recipes I've collected out of magazines over the years. So last night, while I was waiting for some totally mundane thing to cook for dinner, I whipped up some popovers.

I'd never made them before, but they turned out pretty well.

You can find the recipe here. I'll have to try the steaks another time.

A different kind of tie dye

We had a very late birthday party for Laura last weekend. We'd waited because she was hoping for a sleepover, but the logistical complications of finding a Friday-to-Saturday time that worked were overwhelming. So she had a couple of friends over for a good chunk of Saturday instead, and that worked out just fine.

The plan was to decorate T-shirts. I'd planned on bleached designs -- Google it if you're not familiar with the idea and am wondering what in the world I'm talking about -- but we ended up with fabric markers and paint, too, and so there were choices. Perhaps there were too many choices.

Instead of the "traditional" bleached ideas, we went with bleach tie dye. Each of the girls did two shirts. These were Laura's.

I thought they turned out pretty well. Laura already has worn the blue one to school, so I think she likes it. The other girls drew cute designs, too, and one of them also tried the tie dyeing.

 

Overall it seemed like they had a lot of fun.

Laura goes ancient Greek and academic

Friday was a big day for Laura's Humanities class. Earlier in the year they began studying ancient Greece and how its democratic processes worked, and now at the end they combined that -- and the chitons (robes) they/their parents made -- with the research projects they've just completed. It was very interesting indeed.

Many of the students' topics were current social issues, such as animal testing, eating disorders and various aspects of electronics usage. Some of the PowerPoint presentations were ... well, adventurous. And it was fun to put faces to the names of classmates Laura talks about but whom I don't really know.

Laura's presentation was on the benefits of learning to play musical instruments. Her PowerPoint was much more subdued than some of her previous efforts have been (that's a good thing!). I hadn't realized that robe I gave up many hours of sleep to create and decorate would be making an appearance. I thought the speaking part of her presentation was better than anyone else's, but of course I'm a bit biased. I was very impressed with the non-native English speakers' efforts, and overall I thought all of the presentations were thought-provoking.

I really should start carrying my good camera to these things, though.

My favorite church in Milan

I've said it before: Although the Duomo and Santa Maria delle Grazie are lovely, and Sant'Ambrogio is more historic, San Maurizio is the greatest church in town. I will miss being able to pop in and admire the paintings and frescoes (while keeping Owen from giving the little old volunteer guides heart attacks with his non-historic-church behavior). I feel certain Owen is more likely to miss the cats who live in the Roman ruins around the corner, but maybe he'll prove me wrong and remember all of this some day.

I suspect I've taken more photos of this -- painted by Aurelio Luini in about 1556 -- than anything else in Milan:

 

I don't usually pay as much attention to the ark scenes on either side of it, but I did get a photo of this one during our visit this week:

And I still, three years later, am fascinated by all of the Last Suppers around town.

 

I tend to focus on the rear part of the church, but this resurrection scene in the main chapel also is lovely.

 

Even on a dreary day when not much light is filtering in, San Maurizio is a lovely church. But on a sunny morning, it truly is the loveliest spot in Milan.

Takeout pizza is supposed to be easy, not creepy

PBA star in the making?

I realized today I'd never used this photo, which I took when Owen and I went bowling in Vicenza a couple of weeks ago.

I won the game, but not by much. He did make good use of the bumpers, though.