so tired

I'm back in Providence after a week in Ohio for Christmas. It was great and lovely. I'm relieved to get back to my house and my bed and my routine, excited to go back to work (!) and to hang out with friends on new years eve(!!!). But I was sad to leave my family, and am now feeling tired and a little lonesome in my empty apartment after seven days in a little house holding approximately 1.5 more people than comfortably fit and all the love you'd ever need.

Some Christmas spirit for you

Pandas! In the snow!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Straight No Chaser's 12 days of christmas.

Monsters for sale

They may look sweet and cute, but in the past 24 hours these two have broken two bowls and three glasses.  In the process of breaking one glass and one bowl, they also spilled a mixture of hot soup and ginger ale all over the floor, which meant I had to mop the living room. I woke up this morning to find a cat vomiting soapy water on my bed.  Said cat (the stupid one, on the right)  had evidently been drinking from a pan soaking in soapy water in the sink.  She also bit my calf when I was making breakfast, suggesting the return of a habit we worked long and hard on breaking Also there was been some outside-the-litterbox pooping from both parties, which meant more mopping.
In conclusion, my cats are terrible demons who evidently have a strong, strong desire to live outside.

Apartment christmas

It's been rainy and not that cool in Rhode Island, but I decorated a (fake) tree, made a Michael Buble-centric holiday playlist on spotify and declared it christmas.

Also, I now have curtains, almost a year after moving in. baby steps?

Turkey Day

Oh, hi there Internet...so sorry for my absence. I've been somewhat overwhelmed lately, giving a talk to my department (my first in the no-longer-so-new lab), falling off a chair and dislocating my foot, organizing data for a paper I'll be second author on to be submitted soon, making a poster of said data, going to Washington DC for Neuroscience and a pre-conference conference and squeezing in time with non-neuroscience friends and family (which was all super fun), getting some sort of terrible TB/Bubonic plague hybrid death cough (slight exaggeration), trying to write animal protocols and get set up for some fun but complex experiments and hosting my family for our first thanksgiving all together in seven years. CRAZY TIMES!

We haven't done Thanksgiving together in a while-when I was in grad school and my sister in a volunteer program, it seemed silly for us to spend money on two different plane trips to Ohio in a four week period. And we haven't had We had a ritual trip to my Dad's family's farm when I was a kid, but after my Granddad died when I was a teenager we lost those traditions and Thanksgiving became a quieter affair. Given the extravaganza that Christmas is at our house, it made sense that Thanksgiving would be the holiday to go. So for years I went to thanksgiving with the families of friends from college who lived in Atlanta, or to Bastard thanksgivings with friends from school or church. And those were all great but not the same as family. So now that Biffy and I both have steady paychecks and apartmenst with room for more than two guests we decided to restart family thanksgivings.

I am so lucky to have a great family who I love spending time with. The four of us get along ridiculously well, and have a good time whenever we are together.  They're as weird and quirky and sarcastic as I am, and they make me laugh like no one else can. We spent the weekend cooking and eating, exploring the neighborhoods around my home and work, going to art museums and parks, watching movies and just being together. It was great, and I'm sad the weekend came to an end.

Biffy watches, judges, as dad cooks 

The only picture of the Turkey. It was delicious. Approximately 2/3 of it is still in my fridge. 

I don't even know

Gazing at the bay

In which my sister threatens my future children with Twilight

Elizabeth: how psyched are you for Breaking dawn?

me: yeah

I am Not Psyched for Breaking Dawn

I hope the fake vampire baby kills bella

Elizabeth: aren't you excited for the Super Sexy Super Violent Post-marital Vampire Sex?

Which god approves of?

because it results in a violent vampire baby?

that will immediately fall in love with a warewolf?

upon birth.

me: right

well. no. I am not

that is all abnormal

and creepy

and I disapprove

Elizabeth: which part?

because these are lessons I would like to impart upon your teenage children.

I am totally

100%

going to give your firstborn daughter twilight.

when she turns 12/

and then? Interview with a vampire.

me: I am totally

not going to allow my firstborn daughter

to seee you

Elizabeth: I'll get your husband's work mailing address.

me: ok, now you are being creepy

Elizabeth: ohh, now I am creepy.

mouse genocider.

Books, August and September

In addition to the books listed below, I also re-read all seven Harry Potters and the three Hunger Games, which do not count because I have read them before.

52. Vaclav and Lena Hayley Tanner This one took me a while to figure out how I felt about it. It is a sort of hipsterish book, and it seemed sort of rosy about the prospects of abused and neglected immigrant children. So that sort of annoyed me. But it stuck with me, jostling aroung in my head and my heart, long after I finished it, and I realized that it is not realistic fiction, but very much a Brooklyn fairy tale. And once I saw it that way, I knew that I loved it and re-read it before returning it to the library. If you can get past the affected style, it's definitely worth a read
51. The Submission, Amy Waldman  
50. Divergence Veronica Roth For fans of dystopian fiction for teenagers (which, uh, certainly wouldn't be me...), this is a good one.
49. Fragile Lisa Unger
48. Rules of Civility Amor Towles Loved this one. It was a decent enough story, but what really impressed me was the way the book captured a time and place and character so well.
47. Before I go to Sleep SJ Watson
46. The Hangman's Daughter Oliver Pötzsch
45. The Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie. For sister book club. I read the majority of it while trapped inside with no electricity by Hurricane Irene. Not bad, I guess, but I like Rushdie in short-story level doses. A full novel and he becomes too much
44. Everything is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer A good story, funny and sad, but I always find the quirkiness of Foer's characters sort of forced and annoying
43. Love that dog/ Hate that cat, Sharon Creech These are not, technically, books for grown-ups. They are books of poetry for kids, but so so so cute. Together they equal one very lightweight grown up book, so I am counting them
42 . Bel Canto Ann Patchett My boss recommended this book to me, and it was awesome! I liked this even more than I liked State of Wonder. (Which was a lot!)
41.The Snowman, Jo Nesbo Ok, so last time I told you that Nesbo was the shit and you should read him? Don't read this one. There's a point in every detective series where the author gets bored and starts creating ludicrous plots where the bad guys are not going after the famous detective because he is on to them and about to unravel their nefarious scheme, but because he is so, so so famous and brilliant. This is usually the tipping point of when I stop reading a given series, and in the case of Nesbo, this is that point.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
40. State of Wonder, Ann Patchett
39. In the Garden of Beasts, Eric Larson
38. The Redbreast, Jo Nesbo
37. Caleb's Crossing , Geraldine Brooks
36. Nemesis, Jo Nesbo
35. The Devil's Star, Jo Nesbo
34. The History of Love,Nicole Krauss
33. East of Eden, John Steinbeck.
32. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
31. A Discovery of witches, Deborah Harkness
30. Cutting For Stone, Abraham Verghese
29. 22 Brittania Road, Amanda Hodgkinson
28. The Tiger's wife, Tea Obreht
27. Swamplandia!, Karen Russell
26. The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis
25. Galore, Michael Crummey
24. Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Kielson
23.Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 22. Great House Nicole Krauss
21. The Children's Book A. S. Byatt.
20. Room Emma Donaghue
19. The Lady Matador's Hotel Cristina Garcia
18. The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall
17. Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
16. The Wordy Shipmates Sarah Vowell
15. The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America's great Migration, Isabelle Wilkerson
14. Little Bee Chris Cleave
13 Fool Christopher Moore
12. A Dirty Job Christopher Moore
10. Lolita Vladimir Nabakov
9. Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart
8. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova.
7.Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood.
6. Faithful Place, Tana French.
5. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read them, Elif Batuman.
4. Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri.
3. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell.
2. Bite Me, Christopher Moore.
1. Devil in the White City Eric Larson.

The Disco ball story

SO. This is my discoball. I bought it last week, because after drinking somewhere between 2 and 5 glasses of wine, I decided I wanted candy and also that I needed cash for a taxi home later. SO I ran across the street to the drugstore, which I found very confusing and ended up in the halloween aisle, where they had wonderful little five dollar disco balls that spin and have lights! so very cute, so very shiny!
SO I bought one, and also gummi bears, and also a pack of cigarettes, of which i smoked approximately six, which made my mouth feel like I licked a forest fire. Don't smoke kids. Of course, if you are going to smoke, six cigarettes every 3-4 years is not a bad number, I guess.

Now the disco ball lives on my amplifier, as a reminder that there are no decisions or tasks I can be trusted with when intoxicated.
THE END

end of the dumbphone era

I have officially upgrade to a smartphone, like everyone else in America (beside my parents and Keri). Woohoo!

I'd imagine that not much will change, except that say, when I go out for a glass of wine with friends and end up buying a $5 rotating discoball at walgreens at midnight, I'll be able to tell everyone about it instantly. So, more posting on facebook when drunk is what I'm expecting.

Less Smart Cat

I, like all spinsters, have two cats. Actually, most spinsters have 19 cats, but whatever.

The older of the two, Layla, I got after hurricane Katrina. She's a sweet cat, if a little anxious and senile at this point in her life (she is 14! that is like 100 something in cat years!) She is my favorite, but her generally calm and cautious nature makes her poor blog fodder.

The other cat, Sylvie, I have had for three years. She is...special.

This is her in the bathtub. She spends a lot of time there. She continues to spend time there, even after jumping in when it was full of water, and completely wiping out.

This is her stuck in between the window and the screen. One of the basic housecat skills she lacks is detaching her claws. This happened approximately 3 times a week until I gave up and stopped opening windows.

Despite my best attempts, she has failed to learn the following associations
1) get on the table=sprayed with water
2) get on the counter=sprayed with water
3) get on stove=sprayed with water+yelling
4) step on red burners on the stove=hot feet (this has happened three times. THREE TIMES. She' quick, though, so no serious injury)
5) jump onto stove without looking and into a pan of oil=hot feet
6) Sniffing tea kettle=steam in face
7) Getting on stove and sticking paws into pots=hot paws, yelling, sprayed with water


The one thing she has managed to learn, quite well, is how to turn on my bedroom light. She very clearly understands that hitting the switch with her head=light on=playtime. She does this usually around 2 AM, and it is definitely NOT playtime, but she is so proud of herself and chirpy and happy. I feel a little guilty for moving stuff around so she can't hit the switch-it's her only accomplishment, ever. But not that guilty.

Despite her (many) deficiencies, she's a world-class snuggler, and highly thermogenic (which comes in handy in the New England Winter. For now, I'l let her stay.

Bring it, Irene

doritos, oreos, beef jerky, bread, wine, gin, approximately 8 liters of water.

In other disaster news...

Earthquake!

My sister insists that I write something on the blog, however; I have been exceptionally boring lately. Today, though, we had an earthquake! It was pretty uneventful, frankly. I noticed that there was some shaking, and saw my electrodes moving back an forth on the monitor on my rig (vibration isolation table: fail) and lost my cell. I didn't really know what it was though until I checked the news a few minutes later. Surprise! It's an East Coast Earthquake! No one else in the lab believed me when I told them, as they have working air tables.

And that has been the most exciting occurence of August.

not even close to 100 books, June and July.

I feel like I read a lot more than this, but I got really bad about keeping track of what books I read. (Edit: I remembered one more!) Here is what I can remember from June and July

40. State of Wonder Ann Patchett A lovely book about scientists!
39. In the Garden of Beasts Eric Larson
38. The RedbreastJo Nesbo Did you finish the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books and wish that there were more books set in a frozen dystopian socialist nightmare with sex crimes and ne-onazis around every corner, but maybe with better editing and characters instead of obnoxious unrealistic caricatures? Then you should read the Harry hole books by Jo Nesbo. (Seriously, they are really good!)
37. Caleb's Crossing, Geraldine Brooks
36. Nemesis Jo Nesbo
35. The Devil's Star Jo Nesbo
34. The History of LoveNicole Krauss Beautiful!
33. East of Eden John Steinbeck. For sister book club. Love steinbeck, love this book

32. The Crucible Arthur Miller
31. A Discovery of witches Deborah Harkness
30. Cutting For Stone Abraham Verghese
29. 22 Brittania Road Amanda Hodgkinson
28. The Tiger's wife Tea Obreht
27. Swamplandia! Karen Russell
26. The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis
25. Galore, Michael Crummey
24. Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Kielson
23.Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 22. Great House Nicole Krauss
21. The Children's Book A. S. Byatt.
20. Room Emma Donaghue
19. The Lady Matador's Hotel Cristina Garcia
18. The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall
17. Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
16. The Wordy Shipmates Sarah Vowell
15. The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America's great Migration, Isabelle Wilkerson
14. Little Bee Chris Cleave
13 Fool Christopher Moore
12. A Dirty Job Christopher Moore
10. Lolita Vladimir Nabakov
9. Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart
8. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova.
7.Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood.
6. Faithful Place, Tana French.
5. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read them, Elif Batuman.
4. Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri.
3. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell.
2. Bite Me, Christopher Moore.
1. Devil in the White City Eric Larson.

Sunscreen fail

I went to the beach today! it was great! Not the awesomest beach in the world, but secluded and not busy ( a miracle considering it is approximately 2349809234 degrees with 7 billion percent humidity on the east coast today). I did not take pictures of the beach becacuse I forgot my camera. I did however, take pictures of my hilariously ineptness at applying sunscreen. On the plus side, my sunscreen works because the protected area of skin remained the shade of bluish white that I pride myself on, even in winter. On the minus side, I missed about 50% of my legs.

Also, I wore giant sunglasses. You can tell, because I now have giant white circles on my face. ( excuse the cheesy myspace style portrait and excessive sweat)

not quite the jersey shore- level goggle lines you see on faces in federal hill, but pretty obnoxious.
God bless aloe+lidocaine, in an aerosol can.
And now, i am going to a movie. I don't care which one.

Not to brag

But I win at dinner:

Grilled cheese with brie, argula and fig jam, carrot salad with lemon and mint!

90% awesome, 10% epic disaster

So I went to Boston for the Fourth of july! It was such a cool place to be on the fourth-surrounded by people in their very best flag t-shirts, wandering about historic churches and meeting halls where the whole party got started.

The day was almost entirely awesome-we wandered around the parks and markets and the riverfront, stopping frequently for drinks and food. I tried mussels (a brave step for someone who vomits at the smell of most seafood). We ended up at a Mexican restaurant in Cambridge where we had an actual dinner accompanied by some ill advised tequila shots. Dark fell, and it was time to head back to boston for the fireworks. And then things went south. Due to a lot of factors, mostly involving drunken belligerence, we walked back to boston. Despite my repeated warnings that we only had 45 minutes after the fireworks ended to get back to the train station to get our train back to Providence, and thus we needed to watch the fireworks from the riverfront subway stop, we did not take the short, five minute subway ride back to the riverfront, but instead walked. The map below shows our path. You may have trouble seeing the scale, but our trip was nearly five miles (after wandering around boston for most of the day).

I've helpfully illustrated with self-explanatory symbols the points where my feet started to bleed, the point where we stopped to watch the gorgeous, gorgeous fireworks over the river, and the point where I realized that the cop had misdirected us to a much further subway station than we wanted, that we were likely were going to miss our train, that I was going to have to sleep in my clothes on a couch of a friend of a friend and turned into a total bitch. We did indeed miss the train, slept on spare beds at the home of a friend of a friend, took the six AM train back to providence and drank gallons of water. My feet are still bruised and shredded,and today is the first day I can walk relatively painlessly. Not the best fourth of july ever, but far from the worst and certainly one to remember.

Important interruption

You should really go make this pea pesto immediately. Reason one: it is awesome. Reason two: It is super easy and takes very little effort. This is cuisine for the lazy, you barely turn on the stove. Trust me, my other accomplishments this weekend include an accidental six hour nap (i think I'm getting sick? or depressed? i don't know! I don't feel sick or depressed but six hour naps were the earliest signs of both mono and crushing barely treatable depression! Maybe it's a summer cold), dozing off during church (but I went to church!), and reading a 460 page book in one (long) sitting.

So, we have now established that this should be made immediately. Well, first you should go to the farmer's market and get freshfreshfresh peas. Do not mess around with frozen, or heaven forbid, canned peas, as they are both nast-o and should be banned from the planet. Is there any food that is as ruined by processing as beautiful sweet peas?

Now, as usual, I modified the recipe. Making anything from Smitten Kitchen puts me into this intense conflict between my belief that Deb (aka the Smitten Kitchen lady) can do no wrong and my complete and total inability to follow directions without tweaking them. So, for this recipe, the biggest change was adding mint-roughly half the amount of fresh mint leaves as peas, I guess? I think this really enhanced the flavor of the pesto-mint and peas are perfect together! Other little changes you can take or leave: I doubled the garlic because I don't plan on kissing anyone tonight, cut down on the cheese because I like pestos with less cheese so I can sprinkle more on top (also becacuse I was using my good expensive parmigianno reggiano and a little goes a long way). I swapped in some almonds for the pine nuts because I could!

This is the most amazing thing I've eaten today. And that includes an Egg Mcmuffin and chocolate-peccan banana bread.

Team Coco

Conan O'Brien's commencement speech at Dartmouth. All of it funny, but the last ten or so minutes are particularly good.

lovely weekend

This weekend was extra amazing, because my dear Edie came to visit me! We had lots of fun eating, drinking wine, exploring Rhode Island, and drinking more wine.
Saturday started with pancakes and bacon for breakfast!

Followed by coffee and shopping on Thayer, where we bought these spectacular, genuine diamond friendship rings for five whole dollars. Guess who broke hers within three hours?

We went to Federal Hill for delicious Italian food and wine, including a baked goat cheese and san marzano tomato appetizer that was among the best things I have ever eaten. This is a crappy picture, but Federal Hill is super pretty

Post-wine portrait

On Sunday, we went down to the Bay, stopping off at Greenvale Vineyards.

What a hideous place to spend an afternoon.

Next onto Newport, where we walked along the cliffs, and then sadly I dropped Edie off at her conference.

It was such a fun weekend-I loved having a visitor to explore my new home with! I'm a little sad to go back to normal life again. Luckily, Edie and I may have time to rendezvous for lunch on friday before she heads back to alabama, so there may be more adventures to come!

Things!

a) I bought a TV and a cherry pitter this weekend. So far the cherry pitter has seen more action

b) As I have two (2) friends in providence, I do pretty much whatever they are interested in. One friend is canadian and way into hockey! So I've been watching the Stanley cup finals at bars. I have been to the bar 3 times in the last week. I've been out past midnight 3 times in the past week. Needless to say, this does not normally happen, no matter how many friends I have. It has generally been a blast, and I've met lots of people and expanded my social circle and will maybe someday have more than two friends.

c) We have undergrads in the lab! They are three girls, aged 19. That's nine years younger than me. Which means that when I was in college they were in middle school. When I was learning to drive, they were in first grade. I feel old.

d) It is going to be 98 and humid here on thursday. That's Alabama weather, and I do not approve

Less than 100 books, April and May

At this point, I am obviously not going to make it to 100 books, as I would need to read 19 books in June to get back on pace. Curse having a "real life".

32. The Crucible Arthur Miller For PSBC. Reading plays makes me want to be in a play
31. A Discovery of witches Deborah Harkness You know how before I said I don't finish books I don't like? Not true in this case. This book is awful. Don't read it. It has an interesting enough story (why I finished it). But. Is there something about vampire books that makes authors tell you things instead of show them? In regular books you are supposed to show, not tell. The characters are awful. I hate them all and wish they would die. Also, this book is about vampires. Don't read it.
30. Cutting For Stone Abraham Verghese
29. 22 Brittania Road Amanda Hodgkinson
28. The Tiger's wife Tea Obreht amazing! It's a pretty quick read and so wonderful. One of my favorites ever.
27. Swamplandia! Karen Russell also amazing! Story of a family who runs an Alligator wrestling theme park in the swampy part of Florida. I loved it. It's told from the point of view of a 13 year old, and the author does a great job of tricking your adult sensibilities into not seeing danger until she does.
26. The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis For PSBC's continuing Devil and God series. We found CSL to be an insufferable douchebag.
25. Galore, Michael Crummey Galore is beautiful! If you've read 100 Years of Solitude, it's a similar winding family tale told with magical realism, but in a very different setting.
24. Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Kielson
23.Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides This one is really good, but tricky. There is incest and hermaphroditism, and you have to get over any icky feelings you have about it immediately. If you do, it's a great book. Another one that goes on the all time favorite list.

Previously
22. Great House Nicole Krauss
21. The Children's Book A. S. Byatt.
20. Room Emma Donaghue
19. The Lady Matador's Hotel Cristina Garcia
18. The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall
17. Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
16. The Wordy Shipmates Sarah Vowell
15. The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America's great Migration, Isabelle Wilkerson
14. Little Bee Chris Cleave
13 Fool Christopher Moore
12. A Dirty Job Christopher Moore
10. Lolita Vladimir Nabakov
9. Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart
8. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova.
7.Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood.
6. Faithful Place, Tana French.
5. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read them, Elif Batuman.
4. Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri.
3. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell.
2. Bite Me, Christopher Moore.
1. Devil in the White City Eric Larson.

not grown up

Elizabeth: I had bread and olive oil and grapes
me: grapes or wine?
Elizabeth: and I was like, hey! this is healthy!
and then I was like, wait. Maybe I need to not think that is healthy before I am grown-up enough to have children.
Grapes AND wine
me: ahhh!
I mean, it's not bad
are you having children soon?
Elizabeth: no.
but I mean.
it's good to remember these moments
when I get baby fever.
me: yeah
Elizabeth: it's good to be young and unattached
and very good for the potential child.
me: when I am like "I want a baby right now" I think "ok, I just took ap icture of my cat in a suitcase from a trip i returned from a week ago that is open in the middle of the living room because I have been pulling semi-clean clothes out of to wear all week. no babies"


ADDENDUM, because biffy is hilarious:

Elizabeth : I kind of want to make "Good news! I bought a box of wine! Love, biffy"
my new email signature.

Lovelovelove Adele

Sorry Internet

Well, it has been a while. Since Easter, I've been some what preoccupied. I had a surprise two-to-ten page proposal to write a for a training grant application (I ended up with six pages, heavily borrowed (with permission) from the boss's grant) with about three days notice. Good news is, I got the slot so I have a guaranteed job for two more years-a rare thing even for a postdoc in today's gross funding climate. Doesn't really quiet my growing anxiety about what I'm going to do after those two years (well, ok, probably get another grant and continue to postdoc for a few more years, but after that...???). I moved rigs, which gave me valuable experience troubleshooting noise. My old rig had a giant poster of canada, was directly below the room where they did tests on monkeys, and shared space with the morris water maze. My new rig has windows! that I can see the bay from!, no monkey sounds/smells, no behavioral equipment and is in the same room as the rest of the lab.
I also went on a too brief vacation with my family-my parents and sister and my mom's brother and his family, which I'll have pictures of soon. I will say that I love my family-we're all brainy and sarcastic and giant nerds. We had a snarky conversation name dropping propaganda films from three different eras within ten minutes of me getting off the plane. We do uncool things like puzzles and board games and build giant sandcastles and watch the tide come in and smash them and have so much fun. I love it.
Now I'm back to work and real life, looking forward to exploring more of RI now that it has thawed!

Chocolate Bunny Resurrection

Anda (my providence BFF) and I cooked a full Easter dinner for 15 people today? It's a long story. It was awesome, and I am tired. Anyways.

In an Easter Miracle, my annual chocolate bunny died a terrible death at the hands of a chef's knife, but was blessedly resurrected in the form of chocolate-banana bread pudding. With Caramel Sauce!

my mom is awesome at gchat

I love my mom...

Carol: I just discovered the emoticons :D
there's no stopping me now :P

me: oh goodness
you are making me laugh
and my ribs hurt!

Carol: And on that note, I'll say goodnight. :-/
me: good night mama
<3

Mom: Love you <3

the world is blossoming

At the risk of incurring another foot of snow, it appears I survived my first New England winter. The snow is melted, it's been raining daily, and within the last week the trees have started to bud and blossom. Early spring is always my favorite time of year-I think because those first signs of life are something you need so badly at the end of winter. I'll put up pictures a little later-I couldn't take any today becacuse of the rain.

And so four months into my life here, I am alive and well. Work is great, after the first few weeks on a very steep learning curve I'm patching like a champ and almost done with my first data set. I love the project, the lab, my boss-of course there are frustrations and late nights and days when I write "SORROW AND RAGE" in my lab notebook, but on the whole it is good and satisfying. I'm still adjusting to being a lab where the attitude is to work hard, do good science, and have a happy and healthy life outside of that. In my old life, it was more do good science and just because it is Sunday doesn't mean you can leave before six. So that is awesome.

I am remembering how achingly slow it is to build a life in a new place, particularly if you are a cold-natured person like me. There are certainly days of crushing loneliness. But I'm doing the things you are supposed to, and I have faith it will come in time. I am going to take some continuing ed drawing classes at the art school in the fall. I transferred my church membership, although I have only attended services a few times, because 10 AM is early, y'all. I joined the department intramural softball team. Twenty-four hours after the first practice, my body feels like there must have been a part of practice where I was run over by a truck and then everybody hit me with bats and I blocked out the memory of it. There are little things that are settling into routines of friendship-the grad student in the lab and I cook dinner together once a week, and others have started joining us on occasion. We're all having easter dinner on Sunday.

I still love my apartment, but am completely overwhelmed by making it mine and have sort of stalled on unpacking the last five or so boxes. It is still very empty, although I am hoping to paint and buy furniture for the living room in the next month or two. I have no idea what I am going to do design wise-I love doing this stuff but am paralyzed by the blank slate. Guest room, I hope to get set up maybe later this summer-so I'll be ready for visitors soon!

100 books-March

I had high hopes for March, but as I am now basically competent at my job, I find myself expected to "know the literature" and "produce data", activities that limit my reading time. And so, March was a bit of quiet month for reading...I"ll have to work hard to catch up in April!

22. Great House Nicole Krauss This book makes you work for it, but I think it pays off in the end. It is a lovely, winding meditation on memory and permanence.
21. The Children's Book A. S. Byatt. I should say that I rarely finish a book that I am not enjoying while reading. Unless it is for PSBC or one of those good-for-you, suffer through it classics, if I start to feel like the book is becoming a chore, I usually put it down. So any book I finished is one that I felt deserved to be read all the way through, and that is an endorsement by itself. That said. This book was SO LONG. and had SO MANY CHARACTERS and SO MANY STORYLINES that I wondered if it had been edited at all. Parts were magical and engaging, while others seriously dragged. It took me over a week to read (part of the reason for my slow progress this month). A week! I read books in hours or days, not weeks!
20. Room Emma Donaghue This was more like it. I got the book from the library on a saturday, came in, sat down in my reading chair, opened it and didn't get up until I turned the last page two hours later. Excellent
19. The Lady Matador's Hotel Cristina Garcia I've loved Garcia since Biffy and I read Dreaming in Cuban for PSBC last year. This one didn't blow my socks off like that one did, but it is a nice quick little read.
18. The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall I liked this much more than I thought I would. Going through it I really didn't know what to make of it, but at the end I thought "huh, that was really good" It's an offbeat but sweet book about grief and love
17. Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee Sort of the opposite-a brisk engaging read, but at the end I wasn't sure I really liked it


Previously
16. The Wordy Shipmates Sarah Vowell
15. The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America's great Migration, Isabelle Wilkerson
14. Little Bee Chris Cleave
13 Fool Christopher Moore
12. A Dirty Job Christopher Moore
10. Lolita Vladimir Nabakov
9. Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart
8. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova.
7.Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood.
6. Faithful Place, Tana French.
5. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read them, Elif Batuman.
4. Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri.
3. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell.
2. Bite Me, Christopher Moore.
1. Devil in the White City Eric Larson.

Gloves are always an option

Things I got on my fingers yesterday, in order of painfulness:
1. molten plastic
2. 0.5 N HCl
3. Superglue
4. Rat Blood

Favorites

Phoenix! A band from France? Either way, this is peppiest song about the depths of depression I have ever heard.


Florence+The Machine. I love The Dog Days (trippy video here), it makes me so happy! I also like some of her less-well know stuff- the rawness of Howl or the weird mythology of Rabbit Heart:


Help I'm Alive, Metric. More peppiness!!!!

Sister weekend

I went to Minneapolis for the weekend to see my little sister. It was a whirlwind visit, involving four take offs and four landings and slightly less than 48 hours on the ground, but so worth it. I reverted to my old self and took very few pictures, alas. Highlights included, columbian plantain pancake breakfast with her friends, a tour of her non-profit's shiny new building. As director of client services, she has an office with a door that locks, which is evidently quite the status symbol. To fulfill our family goal of never, ever taking a vacation without learning something, went to the Mill City Museum. We went to the Midtown Global market and admired the booths of crafts and food set up by latino, asian, african, and swedish vendors (it is minnesota, after all). From there we went to Minnehaha falls, which was frozen solid and pretty awesome.

We were not brave enough to go down to the falls like the people in the picture. There were treacherous, snow covered stairs, and we are not particularly coordinated girls.

We made pizza and went to the bar for the most midwestern of foods, Totchos. That's right. Tater tot nachos. Also note that this photo demonstrates two things. 1) that we are incapable of taking cute pictures together and 2) we look nothing alike.

Also at the bar, dinosaurs, lizards, neurons, mice, and opposums were drawn on napkins as part of a spiraling game of telepictionary .

Sunday was brunch in Uptown, the art museum, a few vintage clothing stores, greek food for lunch, a trip to Target-although not the two story target with the shopping cart escalator, just the normal neighborhood Target. Then it was off to the airport and sister separation once again. My flight back was kindof a nightmare, delayed and almost missing my connection, which was also delayed and had poorly working airvents and smelly hipsters, and had to make three attempts to land due to wind and then had to sit twenty minutes and wait for a gate. I got back to my house around 1:30 AM this morning. I am, of course, beyond tired.

Someone in Biffy's hippie neighborhood nailed a bunch of wooden hearts to the trees on her street. It is a protest, she says, perhaps against Dutch Elm Disease(?!?!), or turning the street into a bike boulevard. I didn't see it until we were leaving for the airport, so in my mind it is a protest against having to fly away from those you love.

100 books-february update

My reading quest continues! I am slightly off pace, but February was a short month.

16. The Wordy Shipmates Sarah Vowell
15. The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America's great Migration, Isabelle Wilkerson
14. Little Bee Chris Cleave
13 Fool Christopher Moore
12. A Dirty Job Christopher Moore Funny, funny, funny. I love Christopher Moore. He's biting and irreverent and bawdy, but still treats his characters with a deep tenderness. There are two of his best, I think
10. Lolita Vladimir Nabakov An interesting book. Certainly a disturbing subject told by a monstrous and unreliable narrator who stays just a few steps away from being likable. A hard book to read-of course in terms of subject, but also a very high reading level. I can't remember the last time I had to look up words while reading a novel. An engaging story and exquisite use of language, which I'm always a sucker for.
9. Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart


Previously:
8. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova.
7.Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood.
6. Faithful Place, Tana French.
5. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read them, Elif Batuman.
4. Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri.
3. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell.
2. Bite Me, Christopher Moore.
1. Devil in the White City Eric Larson.

Passive-Aggressive Maps

My upstairs neighbors helpfully left me a map of where I should park my car when it snows, or when it isn't snowy. They also printed a huge sign that said "DO NOT BLOCK DOOR" (My car was not, in fact, blocking the door), put it in a sheet protector, and taped it to the door. Then tried to pass it all off on the landlord (it wasn't-among other things, the landlord knows that there are supposed to be six parking spaces, not five).

My neighbors are assholes.

Birthday Weekend

I turned the big 2-8 on sunday, and had a wonderful weekend celebrating the oncoming rush of middle age. I usually do pretty low-key birthdays, and expected it to be more low-key than usual as I am in a new city and can count the number of people I know on two hands. But it was lovely, My lab surprised me on friday with ice cream cake at lab meeting, and some of us went out after work. On Sunday, I went to see The King's Speech and to dinner with a few people, and talked on the phone until I was hoarse.

In the meantime, I filled the weekend with the things I like to do-cooking, of course, reading, and curling up with the simple cat and the helper cat for some quality time

When I cook, I like trying things I've never done before, so this week I tackled two: ricotta cheese and croissants. The cheese was very simple, and way better than store bought. I used it to make lasagna for dinner:

Croissants were harder and very time consuming, but not as bad as I expected them to be. They turned out great, delicious and buttery. And now I have 6 regular croissants and 15 pains au chocolate (pains aux chocolate? I don't remember french grammar) wrapped in foil in the freezer to be toasted on those mornings when I need a treat just for getting out of bed! Happy birthday to me indeed

100 books in 2011

As a goal for 2011, I want to read 100 books. This should not be very hard for me, as I read pretty fast. So to make it more of a challenge I am not counting books I have read before (unless they are for PSBC, as we read deeply and in depth) or books written for teenagers.

My progress so far, with my notes:

1. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova.
2.Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood. This one is so, so, so good. The Sequel/companion to Oryx and Crake, which I read in December. Margaret Atwood is maybe my favorite author.
3. Faithful Place, Tana French. Sort of sequel to The Likeness and In The Woods, which were beautifully written but bleak as hell. This one is cheerier (although still dark) and a better story, with the same lovely words.
4. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read them, Elif Batuman. Funny! Not sure how enjoyable it would be to someone who doesn't read russian books, but I loved it.
5. Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri. I read half of this in december, but it was hard so it counts.
6. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell.
7. Bite Me, Christopher Moore. Also very funny.
8. Devil in the White CityEric Larson.

Haiku

My sister and I email (almost) every day. Needless to say, with both of us in big-girl* jobs, they can get a little repetitive. Today we described our days in haiku.

E's day:

Heart Ninth Ward Awards
I have a sinus headache
Macaroni and Cheese

Mine (I did two!):

Woke up late today
Pandora thinks that I love
the crap band coldplay

It is not snowing!
one cara cara orange
was my meager lunch



*postdoc counts as a big girl job, right?

Things I cooked this weekend

1. Bess Feigenbaum's Cabbage Soup

There's always something about cooked cabbage that I don't quite like-I don't know what it is, it isn't the taste or texture. Anyways, I decided to give this soup a shot and found it pretty good! very filling and rich, despite having no meat or even broth in it. Just a lot of tomatoes and cabbage. I simplified a little by cutting the carrots and onion super tiny in the food processor before I started and using crushed rather than whole tomatoes so I could skip the immersion blender step. I added some chopped dill at the end, and topped it off with creme fraiche. It's deliciously unique tasting, and while there is still that weird cabbagey-ness, it was diminished enough that I had some leftovers for lunch today and froze rest instead of immediately removing all traces of the dish from the house like I did last time I cooked cabbage.


2. Cardamom-Oatmeal pancakes, adapted from here

While they look beautiful in the NYT pictures, and sound simple enough in the recipe, these were a pain in the ass to make. I think the recipe made seven or so pancakes, and I had two that turned out well. Those two were delicious, but the other five were soggy on the inside and burnt on the outside and just gross.

3. Pumpkin bread with chocolate chips and pecans, for my lab. I told them offhand that I baked when I was stressed out, and they have since been threatening to ruin my experiments or sabotage my rig to build stress and induce baking. This will hopefully ward off such talk for a while.

4. Tagine-style Chickpea and fruit stew with cilantro-mint couscous.

My own cobbled together recipe-another vegetarian dish, warm and spicy and filling. Good for cold winter nights!