In the interest of keeping you all in suspense over the status of the subscriber mailing, here are instead pictures of things that I did while not leading the dark hoard of gummy bears to stuff envelopes and so forth.
Sunday happened to be the birthday of one of my absolute best friends (Olivia), so my other best friend (Lindsay), and I took her berry picking. We went to a top secret location about 20 minutes from here (or maybe farther, or closer — in order to keep it top secret, Lindsay drove us in circles for a bit). For those of you familiar with the Eastern Shore, who might like to use your detective skills, the countryside en route looks something like this:
Or is that on the way out of town? In any case, it’s clear that the secret is safe with me.
Lindsay’s friend Jessie says that the native raspberry canes there have been around since colonial times. This means we didn’t just go berry picking, we became archaeologists.
(In the interest of rear-end anonymity, as well as basic human decency, I have reduced them to thumbnails here.)
I found a beautiful, empty birds’ nest…
But I was more interested in the berries.
There was also this random, gorgeous old mailbox:
We picked and picked and sweated and picked and got scratched and picked and finally Olivia and Lindsay had enough and dragged me away. Did I mention I absolutely love picking wild berries? It may as well have been my birthday. And we picked so many!
We were so hot and gross that the air conditioning in the car couldn’t come on soon enough. Olivia took desperate measures, draping her hair over the back of the seat to allow for better ventilation to her neck.
And since it was her birthday, I won’t post the shot of her happily munching berries on the way home. She’ll probably hate it for some reason.
Lindsay couldn’t believe how many berries we picked — and still had left, even after Olivia munched on them.
For some reason, we were utterly ravenous when we got back. Berries couldn’t satisfy us any longer. But I had a plan. It involved eight peaches, dark chocolate, a pound of pasta, shallots, white wine, and a lot of butter. Chocolate peach pasta!
My fellow chefs approved.
Of course, we didn’t forget it was a birthday…
Yes, that is a “cake” of homemade Tasty-Cakes, courtesy Olivia’s aunt. And… a trick candle:
I am officially taking the time to convert my typeset tray into a table. I’ve been meaning to do it forever. I just hope its still where I think I left it. Hmmm.
BTW – I have picked the heck outta those berries. As a child I would pick them for hours with my mother and sell what we hadn’t gobbled up during the harvesting process to a local produce stand. The profits went toward my soft serve ice cream habit. Those were the days.
P.S.
Happy Birthday Olivia!
We share the distinction of being born hours shy of dreaded “Firecracker Baby” status. I assume you also spent your childhood celebrating your birthday with a cake delivered at the tail end of a 4th of July picnic?
I guess its better than being born on Christmas Eve.
Ming,
Try Christmas Day. Yup, that’s my birthday. It’s kind of like having no birthday at all. I mean, even I forget. Which isn’t so bad now that I’m at the point where I’d rather not be reminded of my age.
Fun post, Emma, though I am having trouble wrapping my head around chocolate peach pasta.
Yeah, I’m a Christmas Eve baby. The only upside is that I never have to work on my birthday. Perhaps that’s also some consolation for Christmas Day, Clare?
Now off to seek out some berries…
Thanks for the wonderful birthday shenanigans, Emma (and Lindsay)!!
Reading this now reminds me of all the delicious food we consumed and I can feel not a whit guilty via birthday privileges. Berries, chocolate peach pasta, homemade Tasty-Cakes – yum!
P.S. – Reciprocal happy birthday to Ming! While I also dislike having my birthday overshadowed by another holiday, I’ve always liked fireworks, so I always say that the ones on the 4th are for me, they were just a day late. :)
Admit it, Emma. You wrote a post about raspberries just to taunt me.