Foiled again...

...by America's puritanical leanings. Some friends and I are organizing a camping trip. Our requirements: a place to have a campfire, space to hike, and the right to drink wine with dinner. That last one is doing us in. It seems that state parks up and down the East Coast (and maybe in the rest of the country, too, although we hadn't really considered driving from DC to Colorado for a weekend of camping) have been banning alcohol at their campsites. I understand their concerns about rowdy drunks, but I'm frustrated that once again there's little room for reasonable alcohol consumption in public. I have a drink every night with dinner, and it's become an accepted part of the meal for me. It's like they banned bread at state parks. Sure, I could plan meals to only feature potatoes and rice, but why?

In happier news, Andrew now has his motorcycle license. My family is so proud. For them, this is a bigger sign that he's joined the family than that silly marriage ceremony.

The sinking feeling when you hear that click

Door locks and I have a long and rather troubled history. One apartment I lived in had a front door lock that frequently became stuck. The first few times this happened, I called the super and the maintenance guy would come by and open the door with my key by simply turning it repeatedly in the lock - Five or ten minutes of that and I'd be in. My complaints to management fell on deaf ears, but one fine day I found myself locked inside the one-room, one-door apartment. The possibility of a tenant trapped inside a burning building because the lock couldn't be turned finally convinced them to replace the lock.

My next adventure with locks occurred when I was house sitting a few years later. I ran out of the house in my pajamas and bathrobe to grab the newspaper and let the door lock behind me. Several people had spare keys; unfortunately it was Thanksgiving and they were all hundreds of miles away. In the end, I thanked my lucky stars that I had a spare car key stashed on my car. I drove home where I could get dressed and had a locksmith let me in to the other house. (A side note: I was dismayed that a locksmith would let me into a house that I admitted wasn't mine without any kind of ID or approval from the owners.)

I've locked myself out of our current house once or twice, but luckily I have a husband with keys and a landlord who not only has spare keys but who also almost never leaves the house. Unfortunately, today Andrew was away at an all-day event and the landlord is on a trip. (You can already see where this is going, can't you?) While answering the door (wearing my pajamas and bathrobe, of course) I locked myself out of my apartment. I didn't lock the outside door, though, so I didn't have to contend with the heavy external door and multiple locks - just one oh-so-important lock. Using a borrowed phone, I called a friend who lives close by and owns tools. He also, it turns out, knows how to pick locks. In the end, the lock picking was supplemented with some well-placed levering, and I was in again.

I'm thinking of sewing spare house keys into my bathrobe lining.

Things that made me happy today

1. I have a big bunch of daffodils from Trader Joe's on my desk. Every time I look up from my computer their cheery yellowness makes me smile.

2. I crossed TWO things off my to-do list today.

3. My nephew decided to make his appearance:

(Mom and baby are both doing well.)

A spring feast

I don't know what hit me, but I was in the mood for serious cooking this weekend. I invited a friend, Mr D.,  well know for his love of food (see: pork, butchering and eating) and I made us a feast in honor of spring.

First course: homemade bread with lemon goat cheese and chives. The bread was supposed to be flavored with dill, but the 1/2 cup of fresh dill I added to the dough before baking seemed to get lost. The topping of goat cheese and lemon zest was marvelous, though, and I think next time I'll just sprinkle the dill on top. (Spring-y ingredients: dill and lemon, plus chives cut from the garden)

Second course: Cream of asparagus soup. Simple, but good. (Spring-y ingredient: asparagus)

Third course: A roasted asparagus and cherry tomato salad, topped with walnuts and balsamic dressing. (Spring-y ingredient: you just can't eat too much asparagus.)
Fourth course: Cheese ravioli and smoky tomato sauce. (Spring-y ingredients: okay, nothing. And this was actually the least exciting course, but you can't live on asparagus alone.)
Dessert course: Raspberry mousse cake. (Spring-y ingredient: raspberries) A genoise layered with raspberry whipped cream and a kirsch flavored syrup. I had been looking forward to this all week, and it was as wonderful as I hoped. It tasted like a proper European dessert, not too sweet, but rich and full of berry flavor. This was straight out of the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, an encyclopedia of everything baked. I have never been dissatisfied with a single recipe I've made from it. (Thanks for the book, Motherrocker!) 

New beginnings

We haven't seen the sun in five days, but spring is close; I can feel it. The tree right outside my bedroom window, that always blooms with outrageous red pompoms, is in full flower. And my other sure marker of spring - the weekend visit of prospective graduate students - is next week. I've always suspected the university of timing that visit so that it happens at peak bloomy-ness in Maryland. When, like me, you've lived in an overcast place like Cleveland to do your undergraduate work, and then you walk on to the Maryland campus, with blue skies blazing and flowers bursting forth, you naturally think, "It would be springtime all the time if I lived here!" This distracts you from the misery of graduate school that you are signing up for.

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I've solved my computer woes, I think. My advisor left her old laptop with our group when she upgraded; since I'm the only person who uses it, I've commandeered it. It solves a lot of my software issues because now I'll only be using one computer regularly instead of the previous four. I'm thinking of splurging for a new battery too, even if I'll only be using for the year and a half I left. The idea of having a laptop that actually works without being plugged in is rather heady. This is the third laptop I've ever had, and every one has been a hand-me-down. This has the obvious benefit that I have never paid one thin time towards a laptop, but all three have therefore had non-usable batteries. I have grand dreams of writing my thesis while sitting under trees in the front yard (which I have actually done in the past, using my husband's laptop, but that required the use of an extra-long extension cord).

Serendipity

Today I had the tremendous luck of finding something that I didn't even know I needed until I had it. Usually such a discovery would have been carefully planned by the R&D gurus at apple, but my good fortune occurred at the public library. Some background: I'm taking a course this semester, my very last required course ever, on the philosophy of quantum mechanics. So far I've understood most of the concepts, mainly because we've been discussing the quantum mechanics part of it. But I've seen the philosophy discussions looming on the horizon, and I'm a wee bit worried that at some point I'll no longer understand the lectures. While I should go to the school library and check out some dry tome on philosophy, I had avoided it thus far. But today, while I was waiting in line to check out my books at the public library, there was a display of new books. One of the featured books (which mainly concerned themselves with taxes or the economy), was a book written on precisely the philosophical topic we're discussing this semester. And it's written for the general public, which means it's readable and understandable. I'm so happy about my good fortune that I've resolved the read the entire book this weekend.

Soybeans

I made tactical error while packing my lunch today. I always have miso soup to start, and I will sometimes throw in a few cubes of tofu, as I did today. Likewise, I usually have a fruit or vegetable in one of the four bento containers. As it is the end of the week we are low on fresh veggies, so I chose edamame because I keep an emergency stash in the freezer. My mistake, though, was in choosing to make a bean curd skin salad as  my main dish, although I love it dearly. It turns out that three servings of different soybean products is just toooo much beany protein for one meal.