The Unofficial Beginning of Summer With The Usual Suspects

To celebrate the unofficial 2007 beginning of summer (which in Canada is the Victoria Day long weekend), our friends Michael and Lorna held a wine and cheese party. The other purpose was to inaugurate the patio furniture in their back yard -- formerly a blasted heath filled with strange, unearthly weeds -- but now, nicely paved with interlocking brick.

In addition to the usual suspects, Mary-Karen and Larry were in town, visiting from Edmonton.

Taken from Lorna and Michael's back patio -- the Moon and Venus (not Jupiter -- see comment) in conjunction.



Update: The Astronomy Picture of the Day for May 23, 2007 has a much better image of this conjunction event -- taken the same night as the party, by Jay Oullet from a site near Quebec City.



Meanwhile, at the party...


A sampling of the exotic cheeses provided throughout the course of the evening. What these static photos do not show is the vast, titanic struggle for food, Darwinian in its intensity, of those who chose to remain inside, versus those who sat outside on the patio. The result was that most of the food ended up "migrating" to the patio, although balance was maintained with the wine supply being inside.


Michael and MK:


Jill and Lorna. Lorna's makeup was done earlier by MK.


Bob:

Karl, being authorial :-)


Madelaine:

The back patio gang, including Janice, Dave, MK, Chris, Sherry, Mark, and Karen.




Lorna and Larry:

Robert and Madelaine:

Jill and Michael, with a lantern made in the shape of a rat. Best not to ask what Michael is doing to the rat.

Jill, giggling at the thought of Michael and the rat...

Bob and Mary, also amused by the unspeakable things that Michael is doing to the rat:

Liza:

Jill and Lorna:

Chris the daylight savings guy appropriately in front of a clock:

Michael and Sara:

We started this post with an image of two objects in conjunction -- we end it the same way.