More Sox!

I’m popping in from headache land to post some more Sox photos from the game on Sunday.

He threw a good game for his first time in the majors.  He even got ejected.
Our new starting pitcher, Kyle Weiland, in action.

Paps makes his entrance from the bullpen.  Gotta love the music.

There's a reason they play the beginning of the "Jaws" music when he comes out.
Papelbon takes the mound.
He was throwing 96 mph Fastballs.  Consistently.
Papelbon in action.

I like Papelbon, can you tell?  The two Sox shirts I have are Big Papi and Papelbon.

Ok, there’s work to be done.  More later.

~Kelly

 

Yet another reason we love our Sox

The Red Sox have come a long, long way over the decades, and I am proud of them for doing the right things in such a public way.  This is their new video in support of the It Gets Better Project, which offers support for bullied gay teens.  Kelly has been a big fan of Dan Savage for years, and she introduced me to his work, which is how I became familiar with this particular effort. I like how Youk even adds that it’s ok to ask for help, and admits that he himself has been in therapy. – Geoff

So, ecards.

Some of you may have heard that today is my Birthday.  I have received some nice phone calls and a couple of nice emails and ecards.

Leave it to my brother to send me this.  My brother is the best.

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/7clWWHieJGp9P2Mv

Kinda makes me wonder what else the day will bring?

~Kelly

Once a year, in June

I have the odd fortune to have a huge number a friends who have birthdays in close proximity to mine.  I swear, I grew up without knowing a single other Gemini (Ok, I knew one person who had the same birthday as me, but she and I didn’t hang out.)  Now, as an adult, I have two friends who share my birthday and half a dozen friends who have birthdays within days of mine.  This doesn’t even include my parents.  My mother’s birthday is  7 days after mine and my father’s birthday is another 4 days after that.

So, for about, oh 8?  10? years now, my friends and I have been having a big joint birthday party.  As times have changed the parties have gotten smaller and involved less alcohol and ended earlier.  Now they involve offspring.  Ah, how times have changed.

This year the kids were remarkably cute and SO energetic.  For your enjoyment I have uploaded a video from the party of 7 1/2 month old Thomas and a bunch of photos from the party and also from a while back when we went out to cut down some trees felled by an ice storm (aah, life in the burbs) and one of the wee ones is wearing my hard hat.

Enjoy and if you’re the parent or Auntie of one of these kids, feel free to leave a comment if you want me to email you an original of one of the kidpics.

And here is the URL for the photos from the party.  http://junebirthdays2011.shutterfly.com/

Enjoy!

~Kelly

Geoff Graduates

Some of you may have heard that Geoff graduated yesterday.  He finished school back in December, but like a lot of his classmates, he finished his internship a day or two too late to walk in December.  So he and a bunch of his compatriots from his NCIS class at Lincoln Tech in Somerville got their Diplomas last night.

I shot video from our seats which were back halfway in the auditorium just past the middle.  Before you scroll down and click, there are some things you should know.  There were a LOT of people there with no concept of how to behave in public.  Many of them talked through the whole thing until it was time to award diplomas.  There were probably hundreds of infants and children, many of whom cried, fussed, or otherwise made noise.  There were friends and family of the graduates as well as the graduates themselves who were arriving late to the ceremony right up to and through the awarding of the diplomas, so there were people wandering into my shot, completely oblivious of what I was doing.

The most important part of the ceremony was that Geoff was selected as the student speaker.  Out of all of the graduates, he was the only one who was selected to give a speech and it was the only speech that actually got the attention of the audience enough that they quieted down and more or less stopped talking.

I’ve embedded the videos below.  His speech is there in its entirety along with the various processional, recessional, line up, and diploma stuff.  He’s going to blog the whole text of the speech and write about his own experiences at a later date.

And here are the photos of Geoff in his regalia at the podium and with the head of his program and favorite teacher, Jay.

Geoff & Jay at Graduation
Geoff graduates, again!
Geoff behind the podium
Geoff "speechifying."

~Kelly

Today was a crappy day.

This made it a whole lot better.  Dachshunds are not only stubborn, they’re tough little buggers, too.

~Kelly

Dog survives a month in burned-out house

By Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff

A Hyde Park woman cried tears of joy this week after finding her dog alive among the ashes of her burned-out and boarded-up house, where the dog had survived since a blaze totaled the residence on Feb. 23.

Terisa Acevedo initially thought that Lola, her year-old long-haired dachshund, escaped the blaze and was wandering through the neighborhood. In the days after the fire, the 24-year-old EMT and Northeastern University student posted fliers on telephone poles and walked the neighborhood hoping to find her dog. But as the days turned into weeks, Acevedo began to think that Lola perished in the fire.

But on Monday Acevedo returned to the house to shut off the alarm on a truck she was keeping parked there, and she heard a scratching noise at the boarded-up front door. She immediately knew it was Lola.

Acevedo yelled out her pet’s name and with the help of friends, tore the plywood off the entrance. Lola, apparently out of fear, retreated into the blackened interior of the house. But when Acevedo called out her name again, Lola ran into her arms.

“It was a miracle,” Acevedo said yesterday, hugging her dog at the Angell Memorial Animal Hospital in Jamaica Plain, where Lola is being nursed back to health.

Hair! And flowers.

This is another one of those flashmob videos.  It came from an article on Boston.com where they, rather insightfully, point out that someday we’ll probably all look back and wonder why on earth people ever did these things.  But, for now, I’ll take them.  This one is advertising for an upcoming production of Hair that is coming to Boston.  The video is here and I like it very much.  I especially love that the dancers are people of all shapes and sizes and colors.  That just thrills me to pieces.

Oddly enough, I associate the music of Hair with my childhood.  Or, rather, my pre-teen years.  I had a rather odd but inventive music teacher in Middle School and there was one year in grades 6-8, I can no longer remember which one, in which he had us do a concert of all the music from Hair that didn’t contain 4 letter words.  Granted, there isn’t a ton of it, but we had a great time with it.  I had a little solo at the beginning of Age of Aquarius.  This was the same guy who did a whole unit for us on The Beatles which included why Sgt. Peppers was such a big deal, the whole Paul is Dead thing, and the White Album.  He was, in retrospect, probably someone who did too much acid in the 60’s but he was pretty kickass.  As a professional musician, I owe him a lot.

Anyway, enjoy the video.  It brought a smile to my face.

~Kelly