Pretzels!

I did it! I actually baked something involving yeast and it turned out good! I had pretty much convinced myself that I wasn't good at baking, but tonight I proved myself wrong. I felt like I didn't really know what I was doing, but I guess my mom is right, "If you can read, you can cook." So to all of you out there who think you can't bake yeast-y things, I urge you to check out The Fresh Loaf. This is the pretzel recipe I used.

YUM!!

Lunar Eclipse

Last night I went to the Harvard Observatory with my roommate Tim and my good friend Sylvie to see the Lunar eclipse. It was a clear, but cold night and we had to wait in line to get access to the roof, but the wait was worth it. They had all the lights turned off and a bunch of telescopes aimed at both the Moon and Saturn. We all got to look through one set up to see the Moon, but the line for the one to Saturn was too long and we were getting cold. So we went inside to see the oldest telescope known as The Great Refractor of the Harvard College Observatory. This was built in 1847 for just over $25,000. It’s really beautiful and I could just imagine a crazy astronomer trying to woo his love while looking at the stars in the cute little double-seat. Chances are, in reality, it was the crazy astronomer and his crazy assistant looking at the stars… Oh well. It was a fun night and I’m planning on going back to one of the other nights when it’s open to the public and hopefully not as crowded.

President's Weekend in NJ

This past weekend I had the both the time and lack of homework to head to New Jersey to see my brother and his family. It was my nephew’s 3^rd birthday, too, so that made it all the more worth it. I had class on Saturday morning, but I left straight from there and made it in less than 4 hours. The weekend consisted of many games of Scrabble, an intellectual discussion concerning the merits (or lack thereof) of the Scrabble dictionary, lots of good play time with all three boys, a rain-soaked trip to the park, and a botched bowling plan that ended up resulting in a fun evening of board games and Mexican food with good friends from high school. I’ll let the photos (and captions) tell the story.

This is Alex, Kim, Mike and John playing games and eating dinner. John, Alex and I played Scrabble, and John, Alex, Mike and Kim played Blokus. It was a great alternative to our original plan of going bowling.


This is the most adorable Emerson ever:


Sebastian got a Big Wheel for his third birthday. He rode it all the way to the park with a little help on the steep parts.


This is Sebastian and Jill on the playground. Note Emerson being followed by John on the left side of the photo. This was right before it started to downpour.


Half-way home John and I and the kids ducked under a church awning. Jill went on ahead to get the car. You can see in the background how hard it was raining. No one was really happy, but Emmy finally got a chance to touch the Big Wheel.


The rain let up and John decided to walk home with Nathaniel and Sebastian, leaving me alone with Emerson while Jill got to us with the car. Emmy was pretty sad to see his big brothers leave.


After coming home and having a warm bath and some hot chocolate, the bigs boys got a story before bedtime.


It was a great weekend and chances are I won't see these guys again until they come up for graduation in May. Already looking forward to it!

Beer and Chocolate

Two of my favorite things, paired together to bring out the best in each other. This was a beer and chocolate tasting held at the Wine Gallery in Brookline. This place was wonderful and the tasting was great. My friends Ann and Amy joined me and we got to enjoy some local Taza chocolate, made in Somerville, MA and some beers that were chosen to compliment the different chocolates that Taza makes. I have to say, the whole thing just made me SO happy (as evidenced by the above photo). You can read all about and attempt to recreate the pairings on your own at Drink Craft Beer. Enjoy!

Monday and Super Tuesday

This Monday I decided to attend another Barack Obama rally, this time in Boston. It turned into quite a time commitment. Miriam and I left Harvard Square at 5pm, we were in line at the rally by about 5:30 and literally spent about 4 hours standing in line, outside in the cold waiting to be let in. We got to know some of the people in line with us, made some phone calls for the campaign and generally enjoyed some good conversation, cheers of "Fired Up, Ready to Go!" and trying to stay in the middle of the crowd in order to stay warm. Once we made it inside we sat on the floor for about 15 minutes before the speeches started. We got to see Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy and finally Barack Obama! It was a really enthusiastic crowd, tons of young people, lots of cheering and just generally being excited. I didn't get home until around 1am and my feet and legs were killing me!

Here's a little clip of the very end of Barack's speech. It's hard to hear him over the crowd.



Tuesday started out early, I voted before work and then had class immediately following work. After that I came home and watched some of the totals come in from Super Tuesday primaries. I was bummed that Massachusetts went to Hillary. I had been viewing the race through Cambridge colored glasses and just assumed that the rest of the state would follow suit. Cambridge ended up going 63% to Obama.

It's still such a close race and one that I'll be paying attention to until the bitter end. It's just so excited to be able to clearly picture either of the democratic candidates as our next president and know that it will be such a huge improvement over what we've got now. I'm already looking forward to it!

Things I learned

I learned a few things from my blogging every day challenge. First of all, I learned that there isn't always something to write about. Some days don't need to be blogged. However, I also learned that blogging doesn't need to be a big-to-do. Sometimes even just a little thought here and there is better than being out of the loop for weeks at a time. I also learned that people like photos on blogs, and even though this takes a little more effort, I think it's worth it. And I found out that more people than I thought are actually reading this little blog. Thanks for the comments and emails!

So I guess, overall, it was successful, even thought I didn't get to do it every day, I did learn something which is always good. I hope you all enjoyed it, too. Here's to better blogging for the rest of 2008 (and beyond)!

Chicago Weekend!

OK, so I really fell off of the blogging-every-day boat, but for good reason. I was in Chicago this past weekend and classes started on Tuesday. So here's all about my weekend in the Windy City:


Anyone who ever visited me in Chicago, undoubtedly had the pleasure of eating at Huey's Hot Dogs. Above you can see the remains of my Veggie Dog (No Onions, No Hot Peppers!) with Fries and a side of cheese. The fries are the best around and the hot dog was great, too. Jerri, Suz and I started there and Mark and Dan showed up shortly thereafter. Everything was going smoothly until Jerri, with her ever-expressive arms, accidentally spilled a full glass of water all over me. When I asked what she was trying to say, she commented on one of the buttons on my bag. It says "Future Librarian". Jerri's always creative mind thought that is said "Future Lesbian". Hate to break it to you folks, but I'm really a future librarian, not a future lesbian.

After Huey's, Suz and I headed down to Intuit Gallery to see a show of Henry Darger's work. If you don't know anything about Henry Darger, he was a reclusive artist who lived in Chicago and created a 15,000+ page graphic novel about seven sisters called the Vivian girls. You can check out the movie In the Realms of the Unreal to find out more about him. The show consisted of some of his watercolors, pages from the book and a re-creation of his apartment. It was great to see. There was also a collection of mug shots that was pretty interesting.


Suz and I then headed down to the Loop and paid $0.25 for every 5 minutes of parking in order to run around Millennium Park for 25 minutes. One of my favorite things in Chicago is the public sculpture known as The Bean. It's officially called Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor. Above is a photo of just a small part of it with ice formed on it.

That night we got to have dinner at Yes Thai and I got to eat two of my favorite things: Tofu Satay and Rama Special with Tofu. It was wonderful, and Jerri and Mark and Dan and Ali joined Suz and I and we had both good food and good conversation. After our meal we headed to The Hopleaf to meet up with some of friends and finish off the night.

Sunday started out with a trip out to Oak Park to meet up with my good friend Nate. I got to see his beautiful house, meet his new wife and their kids! It was a relaxing morning with a great breakfast, good conversation and good laughs as always.

After Oak Park, Suz and I headed back into the city and straight to the Old Town School to enjoy the rest of the day immersed in Jug Band music. At 2pm, we saw a new documentary called Chasin' Gus' Ghost. It was great. Once that was over, we went to the Jug Band Jam in the basement. There were so many different instruments in attendance: banjos, guitars, fiddles, washtub bass, jugs galore, kazoos, a banjo uke, mandolins, washboards (yes, plural), and too many homemade percussion instruments to talk about. It was just great.

The highlight of the day was the evening benefit concert. Our good friend Arlo put together the Will Shade Gravestone Benefit Concert. It brought together a collection of great Jug Band performers including what for me was the highlight of the show: The Carolina Chocolate Drops. It was awesome to see them live.

Here is Suz, Sally, Me, Jerri, Mark and Arlo after the concert. We then headed over to The Grafton to finish off the night with curry fries, drinks and more good conversation. For me it was the end of a perfect weekend. Suz and I headed back to her place and my flight left early on Monday morning. Overall it was an AWESOME weekend! I'm so glad I made it out there, even if it was for such a short time.