In the thick of it

Though we are apart in our own cozy abodes in White Plains, NY and Dover, NH, we are both working hard with our respective end-of-the-semester duties. For Mike, that includes studying for three law school finals. As for me, I am busy writing a final paper, grading umpteen lab notebooks and final papers, and trying to fit in some time to work on my research (and getting over an annoying cold; no need for sympathy, but it will explain the plethora of chicken soup photos below).

We're in good spirits, though, and thought you might want to take a quick peak into the lives of two currently busy bees.



Hopefully we'll have something more exciting for you soon (for our sakes and yours)!

Phish for New Year's!

So...we're going to see Phish at Madison Square Garden on New Year's Eve!

Needless to say, we are psyched. 21 days!

Until then, we just need to hurdle over some projects, papers, finals, and the like.


While posting more often is the goal, please check out the post below and vote (everyday!) to save an art farm and support a really unique project.

Click here to vote for the Women's Studio Workship!

Help Save an Art Farm (Please!)

Support my friend, Terez, and help get the Women's Studio's Art Farm funded! Please vote each and every day until December 31st!

Here is the link for you:
http://www.refresheverything.com/wswartfarm

And check out a clip about what they are up to and what they plan to do in the future.



Thanks! And spread the word!

Holiday Lights

Here are two photos to serve as proof that the holidays are rapidly upcoming. As you can see, Dover is quaint as ever, and has decked itself out for the holidays!

In addition to preparing the train station for the arrival of "The Polar Express," (see above), the City illuminated all the trees downtown along Central Ave., which should help Santa find a landing spot in just a few weeks!

Happy Holidays (almost)!

Still waiting for the bus

While we are currently slightly busy with end-of-semester shenanigans, allow us to share a fun tidbit from a previous expedition: we're on Google Earth! Actually, if you relied on Google Earth and not this blog for updates regarding our whereabouts, you'd be liable to think we are perpetually waiting for a bus on the island of Laeso, Denmark.

If you want to see for yourself, look up Laeso on Google Earth. We can be seen modeling Danish public transportation at 57 degrees 16.794' N and 10 degrees 56.147'E (Elevation: 7m), or along Vestero Havnegade, near the intersection with Kanderedevej.

Making the garden cozy for the winter...

The time of year has come when the temperatures drops to the low 30s and frosts at night. And as New England weather becomes quite unpredictable, a small group of community garden stewards headed to the garden on a chilly Saturday afternoon to prep the garden for the winter for what may very likely be the last time for the season!

Along with some composting, sheet-mulching, rain-barrel draining, shed-tidying, and camaraderie, we planted what we estimated (by crude measures after the fact) to be about 600-800 cloves of beautiful Red Russian garlic to be harvested into 600-800 heads of garlic next summer! Magic!

With the onset of winter, our garden looks cozy. Hopefully you're enjoying the coziness that this season affords, too.

Miss Rissa Roo

It appears that our blog is being looked at by more people than we thought! (Please leave comments to say hello and keep in touch, whoever you are out there!) In light of the discovery, we will try to be better about posting. This time of semester does not lend itself to heaps of adventures or travel, but a quick post is certainly doable.

Tonight, after a long day of teaching labs, I think about coming home to a cuddly pooch. I dug out some older photos of Clarissa, a cuddly pooch very near and dear to many, and who provided endless joy to me and surely others. For those who don't know, I helped to train and raise Clarissa together with a friend in college for the program "Guiding Eyes for the Blind." It was an amazing experience, and though she passed her test at the completion of the first stage of the program, it was discovered that she had relatively severe cataracts (the irony!). In the end, she was adopted by a lovely little family in Ossining, NY where she currently resides.

Here she is as a tiny pup, and as an adventurous boating pup! Enjoy!

We diplomats disarm you with our smiles...and treaties!

Heh heh heh...I thought of that punny little title myself. Seriously, though, while I haven't posted much about it on here, my past several months as a legal adviser/diplomatic intern (for climate change and sustainable development issues) with the Mission of Grenada to the UN have been fascinating. I have gotten to attend all sorts of formal meetings, attend lots of closed negotiation sessions between different member states (countries), and-yes-even voted on nuclear disarmament treaties on behalf of Grenada!

While I hope to do a better job of photographically documenting my experience, here are a couple to give you at least a brief glimpse from within the "diplomats only" portion of the UN.

Here I am, busily working away in First Committee negotiations. Just kidding-it's lunch break. More people show up for meetings than this (after all, this is the UN, not Congress).

Here are a couple photos (sorry for the blurriness) that I snapped in astonishment on one of my first days at the UN. I was instructed to go unlock a conference room, and expected to find, you know, a conference room. Instead I found this behemoth, which my card apparently permits me to unlock at will! It truly has been a surreal couple of months.

And, finally, I just happened to be walking through the UN one day, and look who sauntered past! Is that blurry man next to the police officer in a white uniform Obama?!? Why, yes! That is President Obama.

[Confession-I was actually sent on a 40-minute reconnaissance mission by a fellow delegate to see if we could get a good spot for a photo as Obama walked by our conference room. Minus the blurriness, the plan worked well. And no, I was not the only diplomat eagerly awaiting this 5-second encounter, as you may be able to tell by the throngs of other diplomats the police are keeping at bay.]

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! Charlotte and I just returned from quite an exciting experience (namely, participating in this year's Portsmouth Halloween Parade). The event is amazing and totally grassroots-run, and we were just one of many hundreds of people marching through enormous crowds along the sidewalks (many of whom were in costumes, too!) It was a great event, and it was lots of fun to be part of the excitement.

Time permitting, we'll add some more photos from before and during the parade, but in the meantime, here's another photo someone snapped of our costume!

View from my Office

I have been meaning to bring my camera to campus for the past week or so, but in a rush to catch the bus, make lunch, etc, I have forgotten...until today! The view out my office window has been so incredibly vibrant and I thought I would share it with you. I am not sure how much longer it will last as the leaves are falling fast, but I caught it in time, I think! The University of New Hampshire campus has been unbelievably beautiful lately and I hope the same is true of your surroundings, wherever that may be! Happy Fall!

Quark Fest at Brookford Farm

While it is now some time ago now that we were at this cheerful event, we thought you might enjoy seeing some photos from Brookford Farm's Quark Fest that we went to back in October! As you may remember, Brookford Farm was featured in a post early in the summer as the supplier of the raw milk we used to make mozzarella!

Quark is a cheese/yogurt-like product and this was a festival centered entirely around it!

Look at that Quark!

Here are the happy cows that make our milk! And such a beautiful day!

The farm was set up with all sorts of fall entertainment, including: a hay maze in the barn...

...puppet show...

...quark-inspired food!

...celtic-folk music...

...and some very friendly chickens, among other events including pumpkin carving and all sorts of other fun, nature craft projects.

So long for now! We'll be back to post some additional photos from fall festivals and events that we're attended in the Seacoast in the past month or so. Enjoy!

Fall finds!

While we're on the subject of new acquisitions, take a look at three of our latest! Charlotte and I stumbled across all of these a couple weekends ago up in Dover. First, let's address the pumpkins. Charlotte and I were driving near the community garden, which has been the home of many sad gardeners lately (as our pumpkin crop was largely stolen) when suddenly Charlotte yelled "Stop!" In the midst of some very dense brush (and wending its way into the forest) was a huge pumpkin vine with two perfectly shaped-and perfectly orange-pumpkins! Hooray!

Around the same time, we stumbled across this awesome circa 1949 Smith-Corona typewriter in a Dover shop. While we learned from a postcard inside the case that Mrs. James Jordan used it up in Great Diamond Island, ME during its younger years, we are bringing it all over the Northeast on our travels. We are having quite a time learning about this contraption we never grew up with (who knew that "Caps Lock" actually used to lock something?!?), and I have a new-found appreciation for exclamation points, as this typewriter was designed without an "!" key. Fun!

Artie the Avocado

Sorry, folks! Long time, no blog.

And the impetus for this post is the sprouting and splitting-open of Artie the Avocado (affectionately named by THE Kevin Angstadt), conveniently posed against fun, new, non-law/grad school-related reading material from the Dover Public Library!


We shall see what comes of Artie, as I am off to buy him a new home in the morning to begin the next stage of his life. Wish him luck!

Edit: As it turns out, he's not quite ready to be planted. He has yet to grow some nice long roots. Stay posted!

Delmarva, Part 1

A couple weeks ago, Charlotte and I took a few days to "vacation," though spending the summer in New Hampshire's Seacoast has certainly been no hardship. Since last summer's quota of vacation time was spent in Denmark visiting Charlotte's Mormor and Morfar, we chose to head south this summer to visit my (Mike's) Mom Mom and Pop Pop. After a bit of a trek from Dover, NH, we arrived in Ocean Pines, MD, on the Delmarva (aka "DELaware/MARyland/VA") Peninsula. While we were quite happy just to have arrived (see our smiles above), we were soon whisked away to a wonderful dinner with a goodly chunk of the Angstadt clan. We headed to the Sunset Grille in Ocean City, where we got a big table, a great view, and, best of all, the Early Bird Special! Seated at the table were (L to R) Pop Pop, Mom Mom (to make her blogosphere debut in subsequent photos) Mike's Aunt Diane, Charlotte, Mike, and Linda (a truly wonderful person who Mike likes to consider his aunt because it makes him feel very lucky).

We ate a good deal of food, including several soft-shelled crabs (mmm!), and everyone was in good spirits.

Following dinner, most of us headed to the nearby Assateague National Seashore for a quick evening sightseeing visit. While you, as a blog reader, can catch a glimpse of the ever-energetic Mom Mom (on the right of the photo below), we as tourists came to Assateague to search for one of its majestic oddities-wild ponies! There is a sizeable herd on the island, and in addition to the beautiful dunes and beaches (and flies/mosquitoes, if the wind blows the wrong direction), it is often possible to catch a glimpse of the horses doing what wild horses do!

Even on our first visit, we weren't disappointed.

However, once the sun went down, we left the horses behind and headed back to Ocean Pines for another project. Ricki's cheesemaking kit had made the journey south with us, so, as you might guess, fresh mozzarella was on its way!

As before, we measured out the necessary quantities of raw milk, citric acid, rennet, and salt, and heated the mixture as directed.

We next cut the curds with a spatula (which was just as fascinating as the first time), and then it was time to pulllllllllll-and streettchhhh-the curds out. Pop Pop handled this task this time, and we discovered that PA cows make some great cheese!

We were soon enjoying delicious, homemade mozzarella! Mmm!

And, as before, you will soon have yet another blog update to read, since we spent several more wonderful days in MD. However, this blogger needs a break, so stay tuned!

Mike's Summer Job!

Well, as the summer draws to a close, I wanted to take a minute to share the place I was lucky enough to call my summer job here in New Hampshire. I had no idea how my summer at the City of Portsmouth, NH's Legal Department would turn out (since I am not a native New Englander, and since I had no prior experience in municipal law). However, the experience was undoubtedly the best I have had since entering law school. This first picture shows my home base, Portsmouth's City Hall, though the many tasks I was assigned kept me on my toes and moving all throughout Portsmouth.

As you can see, I also was very lucky in terms of my office; I did not exactly receive a cubicle to work in! My wonderful bosses made the Law Library my personal office, where I had plenty of room to spread out. All this space proved to be a wonderful asset, because although I entered the internship knowing nothing about the workings of Portsmouth, NH, I was soon put to work dissecting zoning maps, analyzing sewer plans from the 1800s, and examining countless other documents that taught me much about a city I have truly come to love.

As you may have noticed, my desk was flanked by two very large windows. And, as you can see in these photos, the top floor office really treated me to some fantastic vistas of the City. This photo gives a glimpse of the "South Mill Pond" in the foreground (a tidal water body that drains completely at low tide), as well as some hints of the turbulent Piscataqua River beyond. The structure visible at the far left of the photo above is one of the two bridges that connects Portsmouth, NH to Kittery, ME. The blue building peeking out from behind the tree on the far right is the sprawling Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which currently services nuclear submarines!

Scrolling down, you can see a bit more of the panorama I was treated to on a daily basis. As you can surely tell, even the Mill Pond itself is a gorgeous water body. It was a very calming and soothing place to work, and I felt very fortunate (and often unusually productive) on a daily basis.

This photo shows the rest of the view from my window. Here, you can see the other portion of the Mill Pond (where, as you can see, the tide is beginning to go out in the distance). In the background, you can also see some of the buildings which comprise the Portsmouth "skyline." City Hall is set atop a hill that overlooks the downtown from across the pond, so I had a great view of many of the businesses, streets, and homes that we were addressing in our daily work. While working on large, national-scale legal issues certainly has an appeal, I also discovered a real attraction to contributing in matters where the effects are local and immediately tangible.

And, finally, I should point out this gorgeous building, which is the Portmsouth Middle School. In addition to the countless other kind and welcoming gestures my bosses made throughout the summer, they secured me a key to this school's band room so that I could walk (or drive) across the pond at lunch to practice trombone whenever I wanted. In all, I am extremely sad to say goodbye for the school year, but I certainly feel special to have spent this summer in Portsmouth, NH!

Now, the summer might be drawing to a close, but there are plenty of photos from earlier (and more recent) adventures that we are just getting around to posting. Stay tuned for more updates in the near future!

At long last!

Well, it took a while, but it was worth the wait! My band, the Dave Strumfeld Group (some of us are shown above performing in Brooklyn), has been recording a new album since my junior year of college. Now, as I prepare to enter my third year of law school, it's actually ready to go! All in all, the album turned into quite a production, and we're not quite certain what genre it falls into. Regardless, today is a special day, because it is now available for the world to hear...and purchase!

If you want to hear some samples (or claim your own copy), search "Dave Strumfeld Group" on iTunes! Hint: if you want a particularly tantalizing 30-second snippet, check out our sample for "Telescope"-whoa!

Weekend update, part deux

As the earlier post may have suggested, the weather this past Saturday was absolutely exceptional (low humidity, a high around 80 degrees with a nice sea breeze). As a result, Charlotte and I couldn't bring ourselves to head inside, so we headed off for a bit more exploring. From Portsmouth, we followed the coastal road south along the New Hampshire coast. We passed the historic Wentworth Hotel, located not too far from where we took sailing lessons earlier this summer, and passed several miles of gorgeous ocean vistas. Ultimately, we discovered a new fun place: Rye Harbor, NH.

Despite the fact that the harbor appears to attract many recreational boaters and tourists (there is a whale watching boat that departs from Rye Harbor nearly daily), it has definitely retained its working waterfront character, with many fishing and lobster boats still claiming Rye as their port of call. In all, it was a wonderful discovery on a beautiful day!

Sunday proved to be an equally beautiful day, and we were lucky enough to stumble upon a similarly gorgeous location. Not far at all from Dover (and very close to the ponds Charlotte has been collecting samples from over the course of this year) is Mendums Pond, which serves in part as a recreation area operated by the University of New Hampshire. This meant that the admission was very reasonable (and free if you're Charlotte) and the facilities were very well-maintained. Before taking the warmest, most wonderfully divine swim of the summer thus far, we rented a canoe and took to the water for some exploring!

On our way around the lake, we spotted a very comely loon. It was drifting around the lake gracefully, until we began to stalk it! We actually ended up getting very close, and Charlotte managed to snap some great photographs.

After a quick dinner back in Dover, we headed back towards the ocean, this time to the Casino Ballroom in Hampton Beach, NH for an Umphrey's McGee (a very precise and talented jam/rock band) show. Charlotte and I were lucky enough to get spots very close to the stage and have a great time.

As our ears return to normal after the concert and we trudge through more mundane work-week escapades, we're already planning for this weekend's explorations, so stay tuned!