t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


JAN

29

2006

i met jesse for some museuming at the harvard natural history museum. there was a nature photo exhibit that seemed right up our alley. the photographer was robert turner, a name i didn't recognize, but who's work of large-sized prints of american natural landscape were pretty amazing. the photos almost seemed like advertisement for national parks across america; after seeing them you just want to visit all these places. jesse, who does museum exhibit work, told me that the HMNH was planning an anthropod exhibit in the near future (i <3 insects!). i told her my favorite exhibit in the entire museum was the preserved coelacanth (looking better than ever after a brief hiatus where it was getting restored, perhaps fish botox was involved) and she got her photo taken by the kronosaur. afterwards we wandered into the halls of taxidermied birds. i saw a stuffed specimen of a bufflehead (the duck i saw yesterday in weymouth), as well a spectacled eider (which can only be found in alaska, and apparently not so common anymore). the place was a madhouse, parents and kids everywhere, and occasionally our conversation would be interrupted by the screech of an angry child somewhere within the museum. next, we marveled at the ingenuity of avian nest building and we both agreed that there should be a book about nest identification. hungry, we left the museum. jesse seemed tempted by a garrish-looking jacket hanging in the unsupervised coat closet. we had lunch at the oxford spa, i had the "oh mitt" (a sandwich of turkey and bacon, natch) while jesse went with "the thesis". she showed me some recent photos she'd taken with her digital camera (although one was mysteriously off-limit, which was the one i really wanted to see). afterwards she went to go pick up her friend while i walked back home.

the mushrooms are really picking up! they're big enough now that i can see veins on the stems. yesterday, when i was trying to cut out holes for the trapped mushrooms, i accidently knocked off 3 baby ones and damaged a few others. i felt awful, since i've been waiting for them to sprout for so long, and i just got careless. but seeing how fast they're growing now, it'll just be a matter of days before the ones i beheaded are replaced with new sprouts.

in the evening i had a belated chinese new year dinner at the cafe with my parents, my great uncle, suhan, and his mother (who just arrived today from los angeles). suhan's mother said i looked fatter since the last time she saw me (last june back in taiwan, i was 10 lbs. lighter after my southeast asian foray). we had hot pot and once again i ate to capacity.