Totally Hectic

It's been a hectic week. I have worked some very long days, and the work has been mentally and emotionally tiring. I'm so far over my hours for this week that I came home today after only 3 hours and am now in bed. I am debating forcing myself to take a nap. I don't nap very readily, so it is a struggle to just lay down and close my eyes and still my mind. Even more of a struggle to actually fall asleep.

The main thing notable/sharable since Sarah left has been Daniella's and my discovery of Veggie Tales. Her piano student's mom recommended the song "oh where is my hairbrush" to her, and we proceeded to watch it on YouTube two or three times in a row. And then sing it non-stop for the next day and a half. "The Pirates who don't do anything" was also a hit, especially once we figured out through google that Mr. Lunt is a decorative gourd. If you don't know what I'm talking about, google "cucumber hairbrush," and you are in for a very silly treat.

I thought I'd also post some non-Thanksgiving related pictures from Sarah's visit. In addition to cooking, Sarah and I:

Went out for coffee (twice)

Laughed and giggled

Made cards

Stayed out late in Adams Morgan over falafel and dessert (the cookie sandwich at The Diner)

And saw more of those green balls, both in living sculpture

and store window plastic

I will now start a label for those green balls, as they seem to come up with inordinate frequency.

Thanksgiving Dinner

We had 2 guests for Thanksgiving dinner: Rowan, and Anne, who was my Head Resident (like an RA) at Smith for 2 years. We all chatted in the kitchen while Rowan was sauteing chard, and then in the living room over goat cheese and white bean hummus. We read poems, as is the tradition in my family. I botched mine up, but everyone else did great. Anne read us a poem in German and in English--she translated it herself! Then we sat down to dinner, saying what we are thankful for.
Rowan, Anne, me.

All of the food turned out excellently! I was very happy. Before pecan pie, to let our food digest, we played a great game of Pictionary Telephone. There was much laughter over difficult-to-decipher pictures (mine) and hard-to-draw sentences (Rowan's).

A few were especially funny.
First Sentence: The grass is always greener on the other side
Last Sentence: One stick figure is scratching my cornea which makes me really sad so I have to go break something and drink a cup of hot tea.
The middle of that sheet involved lice and Jack and Jill.

Another one:
First Sentence: Is this the true face of genius?
Last Sentence: A man with a tugboat on his head hums while imagining his home with a replenishing fruit bowl outside--only there never seems to be any grapes.

The pecan pie was delicious with vanilla ice cream.

Thanksgiving! Food Prep

Sarah and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving week! We very much enjoyed cooking and hosting our first Thanksgiving. The menu:
Butternut Squash Soup with Ginger
Green Bean Casserole (a la Campbell's Soup)
Roasted Beets and Brussel Sprouts
Stuffing
Pecan Pie

As we are vegetarian, we skipped the turkey. Rowan brought homegrown swiss chard and Anne brought appetizers.

Sarah and I started cooking on Wednesday with the squash soup and pie. When I make squash soup (which happens quite frequently), I roast the squash. This necessitates cutting the raw squash in half, an often formidable feat. I started gently:
After banging the squash with the knife stuck in it repeatedly on the counter in an attempt to break through, I resorted to brute force.
This resulted in some seriously raggedy-looking squash.

I thought that brandishing the remaining squash like a triumphant squash conqueror would help bolster my oomph.
Let's just say it's a good thing all the squash gets pureed in the end.

Sarah was a bit more sedate making her pecan pie crust.
The filling:
The finished pie! Isn't it pretty? Sarah managed the lovely top decoration even though I kept eating the pecans from her "decoration" pile. I thought she had made a pile of the rejects.
Thursday morning we started with the stuffing. Every year when I am home for Thanksgiving, I wake up to the smell of onions sauteing in butter: my dad starting the stuffing. He cooks the stuffing and turkey, and likes to be out of the kitchen before anyone else starts cooking. So when I started sauteing my own celery, carrots and onions in a whole stick of butter, it really smelled and felt like Thanksgiving.
Right before it was time to put the stuffing in the oven, I remembered the most important flavor of the stuffing: white wine. By some miracle, we actually had a corkscrew (2!). I didn't have to borrow one from Ken and Kenny, or the scary neighbors. I had not, until that moment, successfully uncorked a bottle of wine. As you can see, it was quite the effort. But I had success!
The stuffing about halfway through cooking. This was my favorite part of the meal.
We also roasted beets and brussel sprouts. The color contrast when raw was excellent, and they tasted so sweet cooked.
One thing about having several different roommates over the last year and a half is the rotating kitchen supplies. I am now without a sufficiently large mixing bowl, and my soup pot was in use. While all of the green beans fit in the bowl, it was difficult to stir them into the sauce. About halfway through I realized that it was customary to defrost the green beans before mixing them in the sauce. This might have aided the mixing process.

It was a fun day and a half cooking--not stressful.

Weekend in Northampton: Sunday

Sunday morning we took a walk in the woods, something I have missed while living in Bethesda. The leaves in New England are so much more vivid than they are down here. Before my weekend with Sarah, I thought it looked like fall here. Now the colors on the trees in Virginia seem muddy in comparison. If you don't like photographs that are mostly foliage, scroll down for a while.





Hungry from our walk (ok, I will face it. When are we ever not hungry? This blog is mostly about what I eat), we went to Woodstar for their fabulous bagel sandwiches. Our favorite sandwich is East Meets Woodstar, usually served on their homemade bagels (I had mine on sourdough toast this time). It contains cream cheese, lox, undyed pickled ginger, cukes and wasabi. We also enjoyed an iced latte (me) and an iced chai (Sarah). It was lovely and warm outside, as evidenced by our cold beverages. Ok, by Sarah's cold beverage. I will drink something iced at any time. Also note that empty tic-tac container that had until recently contained my supply of lactaid pills for the weekend. Evidence of a delicious weekend!
After poking around Noho shops some more (yes, the themes of the weekend were eating and poking around), we spotted Rosie and Yael across the street. We joined them in listening to Mount Holyoke's M&Cs (Milk and Cookies). They were excellent musically and had lots of fun singing. Some of the Smith groups take themselves a little seriously, so it was nice to see some levity.
Rosie was wearing her new Old Navy sweater that she claimed to have been wearing ever since she bought it. Yael clarified that she had not slept in it.
Somehow hungry again, we cajoled Rosie and Yael into joining us at the new burger place in town, Local Burger, to try their fried pickles. I think they had counted on each having 1 or 2, but the pickles came like a giant basket of french fries, and their consumption help was necessary, appreciated and enjoyed by all. These pickles were thin dill slices coated in a corn meal-salt-pepper mixture and fried until crispy. The perfect mix of juicy and crunchy. I was instantly addicted.
Overall, it was a wonderful weekend. Basically, we spent most of the weekend eating. Or shopping, or walking around. I love Northampton, and my friends there. I returned feeling loved and satisfied. And very full.

Weekend in Northampton: Saturday: Halloween!

Saturday at Smith started with breakfast in the dining hall--my day starts off best if I eat oatmeal for breakfast. Not because I am some oatmeal aficionado, but because I am a slave to routine.

Saturday was our shopping day. We poked around lots of our favorite shops in Northampton. I bought gorgeous boots at Synergy, tights and mittens at the accessory shot, and many cards at Faces. When I visited Smith as a prospie, older Smithies told me that Faces was the inspiration for Urban Outfitters, combining funky clothes with funky random stuff you convince yourself you need. This was back when Urban Outfitters was funky as opposed to just odd and ripped-looking. I think it is a testament to the playful and alternative element in Northampton that Faces has thrived for about 10 years. This time, they had added some toys near and dear to my heart: Giant Microbes! Normally, the plush pathogens are between 5 and 7 inches, but Faces had an example of one of the new GiganticMicrobes! And in my old friend, E. coli:
They also had something near and dear to my life: H1N1 flu! See, it's supposed to look like a pig...swine flu.
After buying some cards that are so obscenely funny that I can only send them to about 3 people (that would be you, Dane and Nora), we headed to La Veracruzana for lunch. I know that Mexican food does not photograph well, but trust me that it was delicious. I had spinach and cheese enchiladas with tomatillo sauce and my weight in beans. Sarah had enfrijoladas, which she introduced me to.

As usual over a meal, we had a serious (in a good way) discussion. We talked about our future plans, the new possibilities opening up to us as we discovered things we love about our current endeavors. When should I go to public health school? What kind of school should she go to? When? What kind of public health should I do? Before we knew it, our lunch was gone and we were very full. But all of that serious conversation did not prevent a silly photo:
After lunch we took to the streets again, revisiting the site of our first date on October 27, 2007. On that date, after our friends agreed to look after the very demanding Hillel guest...presenter?teacher?songstress?wackjob?... and shooed us out the door, Sarah and I headed downtown. For whatever reason, we eschewed the more typical Haymarket and Woodstar and went to The Yellow Sofa, new at the time. There, we sat on the yellow sofa, drank extremely peppery chai, and listened to a very bad guitar player. It was a good date.
Returning to 2009, we had someone take our picture on that same yellow sofa, which is extremely uncomfortable. The experience was made more awkward by the fact that the sofa is now positioned on the stage where bad musicians perform.
This is my favorite intersection in Northampton. Each light cycle, there is only one opportunity for pedestrians to cross the street. It occurs all at once, so people can cross the street in all directions, including diagonally. It makes a noise when it's time to do that, which results in the name of the intersection: The Beep-boop Light.

Halloween in Northampton is a funny thing. At first we just thought that people were dressed, not atypically for Noho, slightly strange. Funny hats, wigs, striped stockings, lots of black, or even like superheroes. After we saw signs on shop doors advertising downtown trick or treating, it occurred to us that these people were probably in costume. We smiled over the fact that this wasn't our immediate thought, as it would have been in Bethesda or DC. From 3-6 on Halloween, most of the stores downtown offerred trick-or-treating to costumed children. It was adorable to watch. So many children of color with 2 white mommies! (nothing wrong with that, just an observation about Northampton). Lots of superheroes, princesses and literary characters. I was quite pleased to see Pippi and Laura Engalls Wilder. We also saw the following sign at essentials, a store that sells nothing that could be vaguely deemed essential. Sarah liked its position over the ribbon.

We had a mid-afternoon coffee at Haymarket. A mocha milkshake for me, which emcompassed everything a blended coffee drink should be and nothing more: espresso, chocolate, and ice cream. No powders, no mixes, no ice. Sarah had a latte in a tall glass and a cookie.

Back at the H-Dub ranch, we read some more on the couch before dressing up for our anniversary dinner at Osaka. This Japanese restaurant has the best sushi on the east coast that I have experienced. It is just really damn good. You should eat there if you are ever in Northampton. We had 3 rolls: one with eel, one with salmon, and one with shrimp and crab and asparagus. Avocado featured heavily, an essential sushi ingredient in my book. They should sell it at that store. We sat in the quieter, more intimate sun-porch area. Such an improvement over our Valentine's Day meal there! (I have learned my lesson about Feb 14: NO going out for dinner!). Our sushi:
After dinner, we weren't so full as to pass up a second round of Herrell's. This time I had a cone of mud pie (coffee ice cream with fudge and oreo pieces) and Sarah had something with hot fudge. Was it mint, Sarah?

As it started to pour, we met up with Rosie and Yael and walked down Prospect Street to see this cool Halloween display. I would like to note that this activity took place under duress for pretty much everyone but Rosie, until it stopped raining and we were all much happier. Apparently every year, this guy makes a lizard?dragon?aligator? out of pumpkins. It was so cool! And worth getting wet for. The first picture shows the lights, and the second shows the pumpkins. We think the scales were drilled with a drill.


The 4 of us followed our Halloween jaunt with a game of Boggle and some Where in the USA is Carmen SanDiego trivia. Rosie also modelled her new, very hip suit with Sarah's heels. I can't believe "my first years" are seniors now!

A very happy Halloween!

Weekend in Northampton: Friday

On Friday morning it was sunny and fairly warm. We woke up on the early side and headed to The Green Bean, a local, mostly vegetarian place that opened up my senior year. They serve awesome breakfast and lunch in a sunny spot.
I had Green Eggs and... which I had with this sort of smoked tempeh that I just love. Don't get me wrong, I usually find tempeh about as appealing as, well, fermented soybeans, but there is something about the Green Bean's that is so tasty! They also use it on their V-BLAT (vegan bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato sandwich with homemade vegannaise). Anyways, my breakfast was a scramble of chopped up kale, eggs, cheddar cheese and spices. With the tempeh on the side. Sarah got the monumental and delicious huevos green beanos.
It has kale, black beans, homemade salsa, scrambled eggs, tortilla chips, cheddar cheese, and sour cream in a delectable heap. We watched an adorable 2 1/2 year old flirt with the table next to her. We smiled incessantly at eachother, so joyful to be at the same table in the sun.

We spent some time poking around a few shops in Northampton. I replaced my rainbow bumper sticker at Pride Connection. The warm colors had faded away on the old, and I was left with green, blue and purple. Pride Connection had done some re-decorating. I like it.
We stopped in CVS for some drugs, and saw this on the pharmacy counter.
Click on the photo to read the list. Apparently this basic surgical mask protects against HIV, Hepatitis (all 3 kinds!), and Ebola, in addition to H1N1 flu. This is nothing short of miraculous, as HIV, Hep and Ebola are NOT spread by droplet or air transmission. Bottom line: don't pay 3 bucks for a surgical mask that makes outrageous anti-infection promises. And go the CDC flu website if you have questions about H1N1 flu.

We had lunch with Rabbi Bruce at KCZ (Kosher Cutter Ziskind. I helped coin this acronym, I might add). Nothing like Michelle's matzah ball soup. Headed to the chapel afterwords and visited with Maureen and Kim, the chapel's wonderful admin staff. Unfortunately, Jennifer was home sick, but I did get to take this photo as we walked back to Wesley.

Also this one, which resulted when I tried one too many times to get a nice photo of Sarah. This is known as the hairy eyeball.

At Chris W-Z's suggestion, we checked out Ford Hall, Smith's brand new (Gorgeous!) science and engineering building.

The biochemistry and molecular biosciences departments/labs moved over there along with the engineering program and computer science. The labs are so nice! Chris has a wonderful new space, with a huge area for RNA work. And the SAW lab (where I did STRIDE for 2 years) has offices for all of its adult staff, as well as a great lab facility. I am so happy for everyone that they now have this updated and spacious facility.

One of the things we did on Friday was admire the fall foliage around Smith campus. We took pictures of eachother, and then Celeste appeared and offered to play photographer.


In lieu of tea in Wesley, Sarah and I sat in Haymarket with lattes and a dark-chocolate chunk cookie. We have our best conversations at a table over food. Sarah told me all about her thesis. I am continually amazed by how good she is at Torah study and critical analysis. It is wonderful to hear how excited she is by this research and writing process.

On our way back to Wesley, Celeste again materialized to photograph us before we changed for Shabbat.I led Shabbat services, from our new and spectacular siddur (Sbolts you rock my socks!) We started making this siddur in the spring of 2006, gathering poems and readings from other siddurim and books of poetry. And now it is real. Leading services in Dewey common room, in the small circle of friends felt like home. I missed the tunes, the willingness to do an alternative reading instead of a mumble-version of a prayer, the laughing and ease. And we even got to sing "Shabbat Feeling." It felt like Shabbat.

It was my first time at the Kosher K (for more than 10 minutes) since I graduated. I felt removed, but not freaked out. It felt really strange to be there without Nora and Sbolts, my constants every Friday for 4 years (Dane, I missed you too).

After dinner, we headed home just as the Haven-Wesley haunted house was wrapping up. We forced Rosie to wash the make-up off her face and ate chocolate mints from Trader Joe's while sitting on the couch by the door. I missed the Haven couches dearly. After Rosie left, Sarah read me Harriet the Spy for ages while I curled up in her lap. It was wonderful.