My Benny

One of the (many) reasons I hesitate from posting on the blog is that I don’t have any really exciting things to share, especially no wonderful baby pictures, like so many of the sites I like to visit. But then I thought, what about my sweet hubby Benny? Surely he is subject matter worthy of at least one post. So here are a few pics from Bunji’s 311th-314th months:


Excited for a scrumptious McD’s breakfast at Logan Airport, waiting for our 6 am flight home



Enjoying Famous Dave’s BBQ ribs at the Burk family reunion outside Eau Claire, WI (I recommend zooming in if you want to fully appreciate the sauce-on-the-face)



Insect Ben



Practicing his form for using the bathroom in the BWCA



Hungry for a cupcake at The Magnolia Bakery in NYC



Out past his bedtime at a jazz club downtown Chicago



Mornin’ Benny brushin’ his teeth



An unexpected but very welcome encounter with a Jimmy Johns on a walk around Chicago


*That’s Bunji (boon-gee), my favorite nickname for Ben. I also like Jamin, and I enjoy his eye rolls and obligatory chuckles when I sing the corresponding chorus from Bob Marley’s "Jamming."

**On the subject of “Bunji”, our cell phones have a poorly designed feature where, if one of the buttons on the OUTSIDE of the phone is held down, the phone goes into “driving mode” (poorly designed in my opinion because it happens accidentally all too often, and I have never chosen to use it intentionally). When you get a phone call in this mode, instead of ringing, the phone says “BEEP [female voice] Call from [male voice] (caller’s name here),” with the awkward timing characteristic of computerized announcements. And the story: one time when the Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers (the best!) in my purse decided to activate driving mode, Ben called, and the phone said “BEEP [female voice] Call from [male voice] Bunji,” only it decided the correct pronunciation of Bunji was bun-gee, like a bungee cord (umm, wrong!). And so, I must correct the statement above, as I now have intentionally entered this mode at least twice and had Ben call me for a good laugh for both of us. (I don’t know, maybe you had to be there.)

New York, New York

Or, Our weekend trip to New York City, in which we attend a Sufjan Stevens concert, see our good friends Melanie and Megan, and take in the glorious sites of Manhattan.

On Friday afternoon, Elissa and I each cut out of lab early and grabbed a Greyhound from South Station in Boston direct to the Port Authority Bus Terminal just off of Times Square in Manhattan. Once in Manhattan, we caught a subway to Brooklyn to drop off our luggage at Megan and Mel’s apartment and then had to grab the subway back to Manhattan to catch the evening’s Sufjan Stevens concert.

Sufjan Stevens and his ensemble band were playing their first of three consecutive shows at the venerable Town Hall. Elissa and I had the fortune of seeing Sufjan play in Boston last fall at the Somerville Theatre just three blocks from our old house. Since he wasn’t coming to Boston on this tour, we had to venture all the way down to New York. Sufjan played a diverse mix of songs from his two ‘states’ albums (Michigan and Illinois), his ‘religious’ album (Seven Swans), his upcoming Songs for Christmas album, and a completely new song called Majesty Snowbird. If you are interested, follow these YouTube links for a few videos from the show:

“The Transfiguration” (Elissa recommends!)
“Majesty Snowbird” (Ben recommends!)

Sufjan Stevens, Town Hall

On Saturday morning, we ventured out to Central Park with Mel. We saw the acres of tennis courts, running paths, the Reservoir, and the Great Lawn and took some pictures to prove it.

Elissa and Mel, Central Park

View at the Reservoir, Central Park

View up to the Belvedere Castle, Central Park

View from Belvedere Castle overlooking
the Turtle Pond and the Great Lawn, Central Park

Ben and Mel guarding a gate in the Ramble, Central Park

We headed out of the park and went south into Manhattan to see the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

MOMA entrance

MOMA was quite possibly the best art museum experience I have ever had. Beautiful, orderly galleries packed to the brim with breathtaking art. Most impressive was the utter efficiency with which the world-class art was presented: there was little room for waste and exhaustive cataloging (go to the Met for that). (Disclaimer: Elissa does not support my disparaging statements regarding the Met’s excesses [blog disagreement #1].) Here are some highlights:

Elissa and Rodin’s Monument to Balzac

Klimt's The Park

(This Klimt was stunning in person, the digital camera doesn’t do it justice.)

Pollock’s Number 1, 1948

MOMA’s outdoor garden

After a long day of walking through Central Park and MOMA, we retreated back to Brooklyn and met up with Megan before heading out to dinner at Café Steinhof, a restaurant specializing in “Austrian comfort food”, just a few blocks from their apartment. Elissa went with the avocado and tomato sandwich and I the weiner schnitzel with roast potatoes. I found the schnitzel to be a bit tough, and nowhere near as good as what I had in Schwetzingen -- c’mon, why no spatzel?! But make no mistake, this is no Pie Hole post, here we specialize in photos and mildly informative commentary. While we waited for our food to arrive, we all contemplated the meaning of friendship and the joys of Elissa’s digital camera.

Ben, Mel, and Megan at Café Steinhof

On Sunday morning, Elissa and I said goodbye to Mel and Megan and ventured out with all of our baggage for one last bout of Manhattan site-seeing before catching the Greyhound back to Boston. We attempted to purchase a pair of cheap tickets through TKTS Tickets for an afternoon Broadway show at both their South Seaport and Times Square locations but came away empty-handed due to a restrictive combination of our spending limits and the limited availability of tickets to the Drowsy Chaperone. No worries though, we had a whole day and the entirety of Manhattan at our disposal.

Ben, with souvenirs

On 5th Avenue, we encountered what appeared to be a Polish parade (the shouts of “Polska! Polska!” sort of gave it away). We shortly realized that this was the New York City version of Casimir Pulaski Day, a holiday celebrated to honor the Polish-American Revolutionary War General Casimir Pulaski. In most places, this holiday is celebrated on the first Monday of March, but, for some reason that is as yet unknown to us, it was being celebreated on October 1st here in New York City. This encounter seemed fitting given that Sufjan Stevens had closed out the concert with his song entitled “Casimir Pulaski Day."

General Pulaski float

We continued our walk, stopping at the paper specialty store that Elissa had eyed ahead of time (but ultimately found to be disappointing) and the utterly rare (at least in Massachusetts) burrito mecca Chipotle. Since we still had a few hours to kill, we journeyed towards The Magnolia Bakery, famous for its cupcakes. After waiting in line for ten minutes, we got into the tiny store and picked out a half dozen, including a German chocolate cupcake, which was as good as it sounds. (Elissa went with the traditional options and was very pleased.)

Cupcakes galore, Magnolia Bakery

After our bakery stop, we grabbed the subway back uptown to the Port Authority Bus Terminal for our Greyhound back to Boston. Just 10 blocks out of the station, our driver stopped the bus to let us know that the A/C was broken and that we would need to wait for a replacement bus. By voice vote, our fellow riders agreed to proceed onwards without a functional A/C as long as the bus’ roof vents were opened to let in fresh air, affording us this nice view of Manhattan skyrises:

Unfortunately, this decision greatly displeased an older woman and she took the occasion, two hours later into the trip, to loudly and repeatedly complain to the driver about the breezy, cool conditions inside the bus. The driver responded to these complaints by pulling the bus over and threatening to order another bus to come and get us unless the passengers stopped complaining to him in the manner that the older woman had just done. Eventually, the driver decided against getting a new bus, closed the ceiling vents, and got back on the road, but for a solid five minutes I was fairly certain that we were going to be stuck in the middle of Connecticut for two hours waiting for another bus to pick us up just because an old lady complained that it was cold on the bus. Fun times on the Greyhound.

Big clouds outside the bus