Matzoh Ball Soup!

ingredients in bad lighting

eggs from Erin's farm!

chopped vegetables for stock

matzoh balls!!

soup in a soup colored bowl obscured by steam

Spring Cleaning!

I got my bike out of the basement because the weather took a turn toward the bike commutable!  Yes, I know one can bike commute all year, but I considered that to be way too close to death for my liking.  I feel so speedy now!  It's twice as fast as walking, so now I can procrastinate leaving for school 15 minutes more.  Yay!  Above you can see my makeshift bike stand, otherwise known as the terrifying staircase up to my apartment.  I scrubbed and scrubbed my chain, cassette, chain rings and chain some more.  Now Tasha's drivetrain is as clean as I can get it, relubed and ready to rock!

Back to School

Spring break has come to a close, and now I have to do stuff again.  Awwww

One of my classes is bordering on unreasonable (though I'm not sure from which side of the line), and I have a big project due this coming Monday.  There is also all the normal stuff to do...  I need to work my booty off to make sure that I don't have a bunch of lingering work while Kyle is here this weekend.  So, with motivation like that, I should be able to knock it out :)

It Never Sleeps... or something

Yesterday, after Kyle was out of work, we decided to do a bit of exploring the city...  And since I was in charge of picking what we were going to do, we explored it all tourist-like :)  The main lesson of our "adventure" was that the whole "city that never sleeps" tag is inaccurate.  It mostly sleeps, just like any other city.
Our first intended stop was a store that was closing just as we arrived, and we got booted shortly after entering.  Luckily, we were booted onto the doorstep of a pizza place!  We both got calzones, which were really more like excuses to eat an absurd (truly absurd) amount of cheese.  It was soo delicious and soo much cheese that after finishing our food, we had these "wow" looks on our faces and could not help but bring our conversation back around and around to the lots-of-cheese topic.
Once the trance had broken, we decided to head (from Brooklyn) into Manhattan to wander around.  Despite the shortcomings of the GPS service on my phone (someday the technology will get the whole left vs right thing sorted, I'm sure), we found Central Park.  We parked in front of the office/residence(?) of the Pakistani ambassador and his neighbor the mobile police HQ HQ, got out and started walking.  Soon, our mission became clear: we must find a bathroom.  I think it was about 11pm, and everything was closed.  We quickly walked many blocks in search of proper facilities.  Times were desperate! 
**aside**
This is one thing that I really don't understand about cities.  How is it that you gather people into really crazy concentrations and then fail to provide any access to restroom facilities?  None of the businesses offer public restrooms either.  As the book says, "Everyone Poops."  We can't just turn that off because there are no bushes to squat behind.  I think this is the reason that cities, in some places, smell like pee.  It is a simple design flaw.
**end aside**
On this journey, we saw the New York Athletic Club, a fancy and elite athletic club, home to some impressive fencers.  Their building is fancy and directly next to Central Park, *oooh*.  Kyle told me that they forced him to use the back door when he went there; they have a policy that one may not enter through the front entrance unless he is wearing a suit.  You've gotta have standards? 
Then we found ourselves on Madison Ave, and I found myself coveting lots of stuff and getting very excited.  Some of you may know that I stopped subscribing to fashion magazines in a effort to lessen my materialistic snobbery.  Those of you who did not know me before the gradual weaning may be surprised to learn that it was a wild success.  Yes, it was that bad before.  Anyway, Madison Ave was like a three dimensional fashion mag.  Also, it did not contain any bathrooms. 
After searching the interiors of a few promising, but ultimately bathroom free, little stores, we caught sight of Times Square and decided to follow the light.  As we did, we spotted a big, shiny boxcar diner.  Perhaps we could complete our quest!  We entered, and found it to be... well, not your typical boxcar diner.  Cloth napkins, waiters in tuxedos, etc.  It was one classy boxcar.  At the entrance there was a little placard stating, "Restrooms for customers only!"  Above that was the dessert tray.  Perfect!  We were seated by what looked like a hipster forced into a tux and got the menus.  I ordered the double layer coconut cake and kyle ordered an old-fashioned vanilla milkshake.  They turned out to be a gigantic piece of TRIPLE layer coconut cake and approximately 3 vanilla milkshakes.  This was a good night.

 As you can see it was served with a huge dollop of fresh whipped cream!

We left the diner, with me grinning joyfully and happily, a to-go container of leftover, super delicious coconut cake in hand, and went deeper into the heart of Times Square.  I found it to be kind of eerie.  I think that was in part because it was very familiar but really only from TV and movies and because it was a daylight amount of light in the middle of the night.  We gawked about like tourists (yay!) for a little while, wondered at the possibility of seeing a play during my visit, and were offered many Roolex watches and Louie Vuitton handbags.  It was everything you might expect Times Square to be.

As our sugar high ended, we decided to walk back to the car, through Central Park, and the night came uneventfully to a close.

Different

The east is very different from the west.  This trip to NY has been my longest exploration of the northeast to date.  One might count parts of the roadtrip out to Burlington.  However, as Kyle will tell you, I slept for most of the NE part of that. 

My drive was pretty easy because I got into the zone, the driving zone.  I was glad about this, because I was having a hard time finding the driving zone when we were coming over from pdx and was afraid that I might have lost it.  Perhaps it only kicks in 100% when I am alone in the car?  I am not sure. 
I knew I was not out west anymore when my directions from google included "go through Massachusetts and Connecticut."  I saw 5 states (saw but did not enter NH) yesterday and didn't even use a full tank of gas!  The final evidence that I am on the other side of the Mississip' came in CT when I saw THREE warning signs that there would not be another gas station for a full FIVE MILES!  I found that to be hilarious.  I really wished that I could take a picture, but there was no safe way to do so. 
As I drove south, I found that people had less and less interest in what the actual speed limit is.  It has been a while, but my Michigan driving upbringing kicked in.  Before long, I felt pretty comfortable with the fact that I was surrounded by people that seem to think there is some benefit to hurrying.  I adjusted my speed according to the rules that I developed in Michigan, so that I would not be annihilated for following the speed limit.  These speed rules, sadly, do not conform to an equation, but would look something like this.

As you can see, I am quite conservative.  I am content to drive the speed limit, but this is a kind of a "When in Rome... OR ELSE" situation.  As I approached the city, I was starting to get a bit nervous, mostly about parking in Manhattan and a little bit about the legendary traffic.  Both were not a problem.  It was post-primetime for driving.  There were a lot of sensory inputs and it was kind of like being in a video game: taxis everywhere, lights of all colors, kamikaze cyclists, bold pedestrians and tunnels!  And parking was easier than Ann Arbor.

In the end, I got two great rewards (trophies to continue with the video game idea, I suppose) dinner and Kyle!  Yay!