Gingerbread gents

Over the weekend we tried building on the Winter festivities by hosting a mini Christmas party. Since I only have a few friends remaining in MA, I had both of them for dinner (which I botched, as usual), then we spent the rest of the evening baking and decorating gingerbread guys. Apparently there were gingerbread women in there somewhere--they were hard to identify because they were not wearing skirts, like good women should ;o)

Concentrating!

Patty's people were quite impressive. Bert and Ernie?

Seth and... St. John the Baptist??? Why???

Bo's modern art-inspired (Mondrian, perhaps?) guy in one hand and a snowman in the other.

Piet Mondrian, Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930. It is uncanny!!!

I couldn't get the self-timer to work...

Watch out, Seth--these are my new men!

Seth's and my complete gingerbread civilization

Dinner guests

Thanksgiving week has been progressing nicely, and I can already tell it will be really hard getting back to school tomorrow to wrap up the last two and a half weeks of class before finals. I really hate these 15 week semesters.

In the days leading up to the time when turkeys really should be laying low in hiding, we were graced with the company of our group of twelve! In the early morning before Thanksgiving, they were right in our neighborhood again, even wandering up to our front porch! As charming as it was, I couldn't help but to feel bad knowing that they really ought to be out in the woods, not dodging traffic and going door to door looking for handouts. (Our neighbor was tossing them bread from her front steps, but thankfully other than that we haven't seen people feed them.) At least they seem to be doing well and their numbers have not diminished since we first saw them a couple weeks ago.


The next day, we ate one of their domestic cousins at the home of Bud (Seth's uncle) and Jean. They had all their kids over, including Seth's cousins Karen, Beth, and Mark and their families. It was nice to see Gina, Mark, Adah, and Kate again. Besides spending a day with Gina and the girls in Raleigh over the summer, we hadn't seen the gang since they moved to VA about a year and a half ago. We were also happy to see Chrissy and her family, even though they live practically down the road. It was such a great time catching up with our 'New England family'!

Jean putting the finishing touches on the 7 or 8 types of sweet potato and squash (YUM!)

The kids' table with the respective parents

Like so many others, this weekend we put out our Christmas decorations, ours being particularly sparse and mediocre (the showpieces include a large Santa Clause candle and about 10 nutcrackers of various sizes). However, with the weather persisting in the 60s--interrupted by a small scattering of days in the low 40s--it feels rather out of season...

Turkey Time

It is nice to be in the US, where Thanksgiving and the over-marketing of Christmas really help to make the holiday season festive (I am being only slightly critical here; I really do love this time of year in this country!).

One of the nice surprises is that a few of my classes/labs will not be held this week, which means I only have ONE class during these NINE days! Besides the pesky distraction of a project and exam to prepare for, I am totally on Turkey Time :o) So, I finally have some time to go through the massive cookbook my parents got for me as a late birthday gift (they waited to order the second edition which just came out a month or so ago). It is 1500 pages of Italian cuisine, but with some other influences, mostly French.

Here is the grand-daddy of cookbooks, The Silver Spoon.

Two nights ago I made eggplant fricassee (stewed eggplant with an egg-lemon sauce--must be French), and last night we had spinach ricotta gnocchi (the picture shown here in the book; I was too lazy and hungry to photograph the dish before eating it, hah).

Besides cooking, Seth and I spent an evening watching a show suggested by my microbiology professor. Thankfully it aired on PBS, which meant we could watch it streaming off the internet (this is very nice for those of us who are TV-deficient). It is a wonderful and extremely fascinating story called My Life as a Turkey (click the link), about a man who becomes the mother of 16 wild turkeys. After watching it I can't stop thinking about those 12 that live in our neighborhood!

A weekend away

Two weeks ago Seth went off to sunny California for the annual AMS meeting. While he was spending 5 days scoping out the sea lions, hippies, and Occupy protesters in San Francisco and Berkeley I was home hitting the books, working on presentations, and studying for exams. It is always strange being home alone for more than a few hours at a time (especially without Lorenzo for company), but the busy week was broken up with my own trip out of town for the annual church retreat to Vermont. It was mostly time to relax, gawk at all the wonderful scenery, and do some hiking up Magic Mountain (yes, that is its real name!).

Near the summit of Magic Mountain

Heading back down--it was steeper (and slipperier) than I recalled!

It was also pretty wet, so we let the pastor go first.

Sammy, who just came from Rwanda, saw his first icicles.

We were glad to return to the lodge before sunset (ie 4:20pm)

Everyone was busy painting on Sunday morning

Don't be fooled by the bunnies

Tricks and Treats

So, as predicted, there was indeed another, larger, round of snow that hit last weekend. It dumped about 6 inches of very heavy, wet snow, not unlike what North Carolina might get in January. That, combined with the dusting we had two nights prior, smashed the previous October snow fall record of a whopping 1.25 inches. As strange at that was, many of the trees here still have their leaves! They began changing colors like they were supposed to back in mid-September, but they should have all fallen by mid-October. I'd reckon at least half the deciduous trees still have branches full of leaves, many of which are still green!! It is like we are frozen in time! This made the snow last week especially annoying because icy, snowy branches are rather heavy, and many downed branches and trees blocked roadways and toppled power lines. Our run Sunday morning through Prospect Hill seemed risky (we could hear the cracking of trees and limbs all around us), but the rare spectacle of the fresh snow combined with colorful fall foliage drooping downwards into long tunnels was also extremely beautiful. I am still kicking myself for not bringing my camera!

A splendid February morning

Oh wait, it is still October...

The snow didn't last long and by Monday we were certainly good to head to Salem for some Halloween fun. I decided I had to do pull together some sort of costume again this year so I joined an estimated 25% of all other girls and I put on some cat ears. At least I made my own. As lame as the costume was, I am sure I was warmer than the other 75% of the girls out there!

Salem!

This guy we found slinking around had the coolest mask
Some more very awesome and spooky costumes

Salem always has these religious people strutting around and shouting things. I never know if they are in costume or if they are the real deal, which would be infinitely more creepy.

We found where all the high schoolers were hanging out

How cute!

I loved these big, fuzzy horses. They looked so warm.

A quick Fall

I can't believe how quickly we have flown through Fall. Just three weeks ago it was in the mid-80s, and last night we had our first snow! Ok, more like a wet, 'wintry mix', but there was definitely snow on the ground and a thick layer of ice on the car this morning. More is predicted tomorrow... and it isn't even Halloween yet :o( At least I can confidently say that it was colder in Florence this time last year. Also, we can actually turn on our heater in our Waltham apartment before November 1st if we so choose, and we won't have to sell a kidney to fund its use. Thank goodness for cheap American energy.

First 'snow' of the season

Cool ice designs on the passenger window (as a daily commuter I officially have to start thinking about scraping ice and snow everyday... ergh).

The past couple weeks have been pretty busy. Not hard, but busy. Now that mid-term week has passed I can finally do house chores again, catch up on little things, and maybe even bake something for Halloween.

Like I mentioned before, my classes are really not hard, but they do require a little bit of time. Here is how I spend a couple hours of my life every week, slaving away in my food and culture lab:

After all that hard work we get to sit down and pig out! (This meal was our first project.)

I have heard that this is the 'fun class'. Even the following courses that have food labs are rarely described so nicely. When the semester ends I will have to look at these pictures every now and then so that I can remember these happy times.

While we get to eat home cookin' in the food lab, the campus squirrels are on the typical college diet.

Great music at Fall Fest

We were watching the clouds this weekend and kept our fingers crossed that the rain wouldn't continue past Sunday morning. The Waltham Library was hosting the second annual Fall Fest, organized by REACH (an organization aimed at preventing domestic violence), and Seth was given a spot to perform at the community event. It was supposed to be Saturday but it was called off due to threats of rain, so it was held yesterday instead, under cloudy skies.

It was the first time Seth had played out in a while, but he sounded fantastic and seemed to get back into it so naturally. Our next step is to find some places in the neighboring towns that have live music so he can make his way back into the scene. Unfortunately the pickings are rather slim around here, but what good it is writing so many wonderful songs if no one gets to hear them?

(Most of the people were in the other half of the lawn,
where all the events were taking place.)