thomasianbrown.com

I was going to write something about the middle east, but I didn't. I don't know...what use is an opinion?

or click here to send pizza to the front...

that'll help.

A thought-provoking article from the Jerusalem Post

Photo update

...have updated my photo page with links to each of my biggest flickr tags, so its more easily browseable...take a look.

Alien Homer Simpson Tree...

Liz's B-day party...

...was totally fun. Yummy food, whole fambly together. Zachy played with me on the swings, and he's usually pretty shy with me. We played with bubbles and water shooters (not "guns" or "pistols"...little dolphin-shaped shooters). We also played with sparklers, and wrote stuff in the air and took long-exposure pix. And of course cake and presents.

A few highlight pix below. The whole set is here (click).

Alev foofy-headed in mid swing...

Cuties on swings...

Total kidness: batting around an orange soccer ball with a rainbow feather duster while your little brother pushes a pink baby stroller behind you

Alev hugging me. I love this picture...

Zach ringing Alev's bell...

Dad getting squirted...

Bubble face...

29...ish. She's 29ish.

We went out with Adam and Jacquie last night. These are a couple of friends of theirs whose names I lamely forgot. They both had cool hair, sort of Suzie Quatro-esque. I took other pictures, but sent them to the wrong address, so they didn't show up.

Family Reunion...

...for my mother's mother's side, up in Rome, NY. I wasn't ever particularly close to this side, as my maternal grandmother passed away when I was young. It's curious to drive upstate to a big field to come together with a lot of people I wouldn't otherwise know, and be related. It felt neat to be connected to something I didn't feel very connected to, if that makes sense. This was a meeting of the Wheelers and the Howes. My mom's mom was named Jeanne Howe. The name Howe is apparently from Northern England (hilly country I guess) and comes from the Norman (whatever that language would be) word for hill. I guess the Normans came along and named all the different hill dwellers (I guess I do come from a long line of hillbillies) "How". I think the "e" on the end came later. I read that in an email that someone had up at the reunion.

It was fun to hang out...I hadn't even seen Liz et al. since Mother's Day. Alev has grown, and is missing her two front teeth, and Zach is getting bigger and bigger, and is still shy. We got to hang out with my cousin Adam and his girlfriend Jacquie, which I had been looking forward to.

Also, my mom finally got to meet Andrea's mom, who came down from Buffalo just to do that, which was nice of her. They hit it off right away (after their teary first hug, awwwwwwwww.)

The family tree...I'm up on the left.

That's me and Liz on the left...

Yellow postit on the bottom is my mother's aunt's cousin. View large, and the two names highlighted in yellow on the lower left came over on the Mayflower. (read this article...) Red stars are Revolutionary War. Pretty cool.