A Summer for one

It has been exactly one week now since Seth left for a 2+ month stay in Seattle.  For the past year and a half he had been dreaming about leaving for the Pacific Northwest every time the temps tipped over the 75 degree mark.  Finally, he made it!  I am staying here, holding the fort in Waltham.  This will actually be the longest I have ever been by myself.  In college I had roommates; in Australia I always lived with other people; and since moving to Waltham (and Italy) I have only been on my own for just a few days at a time, usually when Seth would go to a conference for a long weekend.  Not having a companion makes me really wish I had a pet to borrow for a little while!  Actually, I am watching our neighbors' cats this week, so I expect I will be spending my evenings watching lots of TV shows with kitties on my lap!  I am a true cat lady.

Now that I only spend a fraction of the time cooking--one dish is enough to feed me for several days--I have more time to focus on other things, like catching up on reading and summer assignments.  I also can use this alone time to try out some modified diets, so I am going gluten-free for a little while; Seth would have no part in swapping regular pasta with rice or corn pasta :P.  This is a 'suggested exercise' to help dietetics students better understand and counsel people on modified diets.  So far it is pretty easy, except I do miss my peanut-butter honey toast in the AM :o(

Now to figure out what to do for the 4th of July.  All my friends (actually, shall I say both my friends?) already have plans.  It isn't too fun to have a cookout with a single veggie burger on a gluten-free bun then go watch fireworks on your own.  :-/

A Texas first-timer

Despite summer classes, I continued finding little escapes from Waltham (although I do love this city) by paying a visit to my brother's family just outside of Houston.  I had never been to TX before so although I was a little worried about what I would find (perhaps rattle snakes carrying guns, fanatical bible-thumping mega churches, or the worst: George W. Bush?) I was also excited to explore a new place.

It turned out that Houston was not too foreign and actually was a bit similar to Raleigh.  Although the topography was rather flat and uninteresting, I was surprised by the people.  At least compared to the Boston area, there was a bit more diversity and folks in general were quite friendly.  I actually felt jealous of Houston's large Vietnamese population, the heavy Mexican influence, and the good, cheap food (Tex-Mex and BBQ hasn't yet made its way into New England, unfortunately).  It would have been fun to see some other locations in TX, but those will have to wait; it is a big state.

I had the pleasure of going to Carter's class party on the last week of school

Sawyer did a good job entertaining himself, for a little while anyway :P

Carter cleaned house with 3 awards during the kindergarten awards celebration

The Landstrom Family, ranchers of Monarch butterflies

We had frozen yogurt to celebrate the last day of school.  If you look closely you can see that Carter has a kid-size forehead vein, just like his aunt!  (poor guy)

Just around the corner from the house is a VN restaurant (Pho Vy) owned by an old friend of Mom's from Vietnam.  She also had at one time been married to Mom's cousin.  It is nice to have some family connections in the area :o)

Visiting my favorite section of the Natural History Museum in Houston

We went to Spring Creek BBQ to celebrate Andrew's early birthday   

BBQ is one of the primary forces keeping me from becoming fully vegetarian.  Here I got to try some good ol' Texas brisket, which made me very happy.

The creepy 'ice cream man' that goes through the neighborhoods.  The jingly music was right but the seedy van was very wrong.

Happy birthday to my much, much older brother ;o)

 

 

On our last day we went to visit Andrew at work at the Texas Medical Center.  Here he is in his natural habitat.

Chuy's has some of the best Tex-Mex Houston has to offer, so it was a great final impression to take back home