I want to be a ... wild foods chef

I think it would be fun to learn how to identify, harvest, and prepare the foods that grow in the wild. Our ancestors didn't grow up with a McDonald's on every corner, folks. They had to learn how to identify roots and plants and find a way to eat them. They needed to know this in order to survive.

It would be neat to learn how to identify such plants, like fiddleheads and lamb's quarters and dandelion greens. And even better, I'd like to experiment with these plants and come up with some recipes for them that taste wonderful. The words "organic," "sustainable," and "local" are often applied to food. I predict the words "native" and "endemic" will soon be popping up in the food industry.

And I've always enjoyed walking in the woods, so I could teach a wild foods cooking class, and bring my students into the woods. I could teach them how to identify native plants that are edible; then, when back in the classroom, show them how they can be used to prepare meals.

Cattail root, anyone?

Today's Lunch:
Went to a salad bar at Dayton Street Cafe. Had a salad made with various dark leafy greens, tomatoes, carrots, onion, cucumber, and sunflower seeds sprinkled with a little ranch dressing. Also had a potato roll with butter, two crackers with colby-jack, nachos, and a german chocolate bar. It was sooo good.

Slumber Party 2-Night

Tonight my friend Petra is coming home with me and she's going to spend the night at my house. I'm really excited! She'll finally get to see the house, and we're going to have meatloaf and potatoes for dinner, and then I'd like to take a walk to show her around my neighborhood, and then we're going to watch a movie. The only downside is that I won't be able to have my daily Lost fix, but I can go without it for one day.

Today's Lunch:
Sara Lee turkey sandwich on whole wheat with yellow mustard
Lay's BBQ potato chips
Apple

Zach's Laws of Cuisine

I've noticed that Zach has some particular eating habits that are so subtle that he may not even notice them. But after eating countless meals together, I've noticed that my boyfriend can be very picky about the foods he eats. So I've come up with Zach's Laws of Cuisine:

1. The food must be wet. For example, he smothers oodles of mayonnaise and mustard on his sandwiches, because otherwise they're too dry. He also cooks the noodles for his macaroni and cheese for 10 minutes so that they're mushy, then when he's stirring the noodles, butter, milk and cheese powder around, it makes this disgusting wet slurping sound.
   
2. The food must be spicy. He puts hot sauce and salsa on everything. I made a savory rice and lentil casserole, which had Italian spices in it. He doctored it up with salsa so that it was a Mexitalian meal. What the heck?
   
3. There's a condiment for everything. Our refrigerator has 4 types of mustard, 2 kinds of hot sauce, 2 types of olives, 2 kinds of barbeque sauce, pickles and relish, etc. Today he was eating leftover pizza for breakfast and dipping it in ketchup. In my opinion, the purpose of eating food is defeated when its flavor is completely covered up by the taste of condiments.
   
4. It must be coated in mayonnaise. This goes for any creamy salad, like potato salad, macaroni salad, and coleslaw. It has to be Hellmann's Mayo; no Miracle Whip allowed. And it has to be the full-fat version. I can't stand the thought of eating an entire 1/2 lb. of mayo in a potato salad, so I just don't make it.
5. The lettuce must be iceberg. Ew. No nutrition, no vitamins, awful taste. I prefer the fancy leafy stuff. He thinks it looks like a weed.
   
6. The tuna fish must be Bumble Bee. I think Zach once had a bad experience with another brand, so now he thinks Bumble Bee is the only good one out there. To me, they all taste the same. Other particular brands: Ball Park hot dogs, Heinz ketchup, Bush's baked beans, Edy's ice cream, Charmin toilet paper...
   
7. The bacon mustn't be crisp. He's one of those weird people who like it chewy. The time I broiled it in the oven, he ate it and said, "thank you baby, it's just like what mom used to make."
8. The milk can't be named after anyone. We were grocery shopping and I went to put some Dean's milk in the cart. He was like, "No! I like the other kind more!" I asked, "What's the difference?" and he said, "I just don't like the idea of buying milk that has someone's last name on it." I'm still trying to figure that one out.
   
9. Sour cream and cream cheese are too fattening to eat, but ice cream may be consumed by the pint. I've tried to reason with him on this one, but it's no use.
   
10. The juice may not be from concentrate. He's a big fan of Simply Orange. But I can't complain - it's pretty good stuff.

I'm sure we all have some eating quirks that we don't necessarily notice. Do you have any?

Today's Lunch:
Sara Lee honey-ham sandwich with yellow mustard on whole wheat bread
Beet greens (threw them away because they tasted yucky)
Apple
A few peanuts
Pretzels

The Shopping Monster

I don't know what it was, but I was in the mood to spend money on wednesday. I drove myself to work that day because I missed my van, and a couple of days before I received a $50 gift card to Williams-Sonoma as a house-warming gift. The card was burning a hole in my purse and I was motivated to go shopping.

So I left work at about 3:00 and drove to Williams-Sonoma in the mall. I am in dire need of a new large frying pan, so I looked at theirs. However, they were in the neighborhood of $150 apiece, and even with the gift card, I wasn't willing to pay $100 for a frying pan at a store that doesn't offer discounts or clearance items. I'd rather look around for a deal.

So I moved on to the knives. I have a set of knives, but they're pretty old and kind of junky. I heard that all a person really needs to get by in cooking is a decent chef's knife and a paring knife...and maybe a bread knife...I can't remember. Well, I ended up spending $50 on this Henckels Professional S Series Chef's Knife. I love it!


After making a stir-fry tuesday night in my crappy frying pan that's all warped, I decided I needed a wok. I heard on The Splendid Table about a wok store in San Francisco, where they have traditional cast-iron Chinese woks that cost only $15 apiece. So I went to website for The Wok Shop and purchased a wok. I can't wait for it to come in.

My day off

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, so I figured I would take the day off and get some things done around the house. Here's my day, in a nutshell.

• 7:30 - Zach wakes me up to say he's leaving for work. Try to go back to sleep.
• 8:00 - Officially awake. Cat lays on bed with me and I pet her. I read my book (A Superior Death, by Nevada Barr. It takes place on Isle Royale, and for that purpose was at the top of my list of must-reads).
• 8:30 - Get out of bed. Go into the kitchen, looking foward to a bowl of frosted mini wheats (the generic version, of course). Pour cereal into bowl, then realize we didn't have milk. Ate cereal with water in it. It became very mushy very quickly. Threw the last few bites into the garbage. Ate a banana.
• 9:00 - Watch Regis and Kelly.
• 10:00 - Take shower.
• 10:15 - Gather items to run errands. Place them in my little tote bag.
• 10:30 - Ride bike to doctor's office. Stop at courthouse/EMS headquarters/utilities building on the way. Pay water and light bill.
• 10:45 - Doctor's appointment. Have a heart attack when I realize I've gained 5 pounds in the last few months.
  
• 11:15 - Stop at pharmacy on the way home. While prescription is being filled, go to library and check out the first season of Lost (to see what the big freakin' deal is).
• 11:45 - Get home. Eat watermelon while watching Pilot Episode Part 1 of Lost.
• 12:30 - Start watching Pilot Episode Part 2 of Lost. Am officially addicted.
• 1:15 - Start laundry. Sort clothes while watching 3rd episode of Lost. Pause the show when the washer or dryer beeps. Munch on some veggie crackers, the really fattening kind. Eat an apple with natural peanut butter.
  
• 2:30 - Make a couple of phone calls. To reward myself, watch 4th episode of Lost. This show rocks!
• 4:00 - Eat a half sandwich of ham and swiss cheese with mustard on farmer's market potato bread.
  
• 4:15 - Realize I desperately need weights for my aerobics class at 6:30. Run to Janesville, go to K-Mart, purchase 3-lb weights and an exercise band. Also buy ice cube trays and a plastic pitcher for making lemonade.
• 5:30 - Begin doing dishes.
• 6:15 - Zach gets home as I'm getting ready for aerobics.
• 6:30 - Aerobics class.
• 7:30 - Eat some of Zach's Chinese food. Eat 2 fortune cookies. Eat some watermelon.
  
• 8:00 - Watch TV with Zach (So You Think You Can Dance?) and do random errands around the house.
• 9:30 - Go to bed.

I didn't quite succeed in doing everything I wanted to do, but doing the laundry was a major feat in itself.

Today's Lunch:
Honey-Ham sandwich with yellow mustard on whole wheat
Beet greens cooked with onion and salt and seasoned with a dash of balsamic vinegar
Apple

Lunch update: My coworker Bob said a group of people were going to the Blue Moon for lunch and invited me to join them. Since my lunch was kind of crappy, I decided to go. So I really had:
Grilled salmon with dill sauce
Mashed redskin potatoes
Roll
Coleslaw, but not the icky creamy kind - the dressing was very light and contained celery seeds and mustard seeds, which I love in coleslaw
A few french fries

Do you believe in reincarnation?

I'm involved in a public speaking club called Toastmasters. We practice giving speeches and evaluate other people's speeches to help ourselves become stronger public speakers.

This is my first speech, the Ice Breaker Speech. I gave it on 1/5/05. I think I wrote it during one of those phases where I didn't wish I'd have to work and so I compensated by thinking of what I'd really like to do. Please excuse the cheesiness of some of my lines. I wanted to sound kind of earthy.

Ice Breaker

Do you believe in reincarnation? I don’t, but sometimes I wonder if I had been born two hundred years too late. If I believed in reincarnation, I think I would have been a frontier woman in a past life. There are many reasons why I think this is true.

My family took a trip out west when I was in the 11^th grade. My mom is from Minneapolis, MN, and her sister lives in South Dakota. So we traveled from our home in Michigan up through the Upper Peninsula, through northern Wisconsin, and down to Minneapolis. Then we trekked through southern Minnesota to South Dakota, and headed over to Wyoming to see Yellowstone National Park. This trip was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. My family had traveled to South Dakota before when I was a little kid, but as a kid I didn’t quite understand how wonderful the Dakotas are. As a kid, it seemed like just another long car ride. But as a teenager, it was a different experience.

While we were in Southern Minnesota we entered the Great Plains. When we went to Pipestone National Park, I felt as if I were at home. The plains were so beautiful, with the wind whipping through the tall grass. I loved all the flowers and the clay-like soil and the trees. Somehow I felt like I was at home in the plains. When we went to Yellowstone National Park I fell in love with bison. I like the way their bodies have a funny hump on the back, and their big heads and little butts just seem kind of cute to me.

I have seen all sorts of terrain in my life – the pine forests of the Lake States, where I grew up, the mountains of Wyoming and Montana, the temperate rainforest of Alaska. However, the prairie is what I love the most. There’s just something about seeing the wind fly over the grass that makes me feel good.

Another reason I could have been a frontier woman in a past life can be seen in my hobbies. One of my favorite pastimes is cooking and baking. I have heard other women my age say, “I can’t believe you’re so domestic,” like it’s a bad thing. But I truly enjoy preparing food. To me it’s a means of survival.

I like reading books about survival, such as “The Bounty Trilogy,” and a book called “Hatchet,” by Gary Paulsen. “Hatchet” is actually a book for young adults, and I read it in high school. It’s about a 12-year-old boy who is the only passenger in a small-engine airplane flying over Canada. When the pilot has a heart attack during the flight, the boy must land the plane and survive alone in the Canadian wilderness with only his hatchet to help him. This book had a great amount of impact on me, and after I read it I wanted to learn how to survive in the wilderness. I built myself a shelter on my parents’ property by cutting down small trees with a hatchet (like the kid in the book) and I tried making a fire using the spindle method, but all I got was smoke. I hiked 4 miles a day in the woods, did a lot of camping and tried hunting, though I never shot anything.

When I think about these experiences, I make a lot of connections. I love the prairie, I have a passion for cooking, I enjoy the outdoors, and I like to be self-sufficient. I would be content as a woman working to raise and nourish a family.

Right now I am a college graduate working on a master’s degree, and I plan to continue my education with a PhD in forestry. I’m sure there are and have been women out there who would love to have the opportunity to go to college and get a degree and have a career, but who haven’t been able to do so because of extenuating circumstances, such as financial situations, family obligations, and other holdbacks. Maybe their only option was to get married and start a family. And I’m sure they were fine with the direction their life took, but doesn’t everyone deserve a chance to follow their dreams?

I also have a dream. I like what I do at the FPL, and I love math and science, but I’d be happy as a homemaker. It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? I almost feel bad, like I’m wasting the wonderful opportunities that I’ve had by wanting to do something else. So when I think about the way our society has changed in the last century or so, I think I might have been more content being a woman from 100 years ago, where it was a woman’s duty to raise a family, tend a house, put food away, and keep a garden.

I love the prairie, I love survival, and, as I was discussing my future with my financial advisor the other day, I said I “just want to be a grandma and bake cookies all day.” Does this mean I should have been born in another century? When I think about my future, I also envision the past. I hope I can be like my ancestors, living on a homestead on a wild prairie of waving grass, supporting my family.

Now, when I look back on my speech, I realize I probably wouldn't have been happy 100 years ago because I'd have to answer to a man for my whole life. Plus I wouldn't have the rights that women have today. But still, the fundamental idea is clear.

Today's Lunch:
Honey-ham sandwich with romaine lettuce and yellow mustard on whole wheat bread
Spinach salad with Newman's Own Balsamic Vinaigrette
Watermelon

Capital Times Article

Here is an article from the local newspaper about my workplace. It's an interesting article because it discusses some of the issues going around at the Lab and the viewpoints of some of the employees, including union members. I actually enjoyed the article because, even though its title and focus regard the budget crunches that we're going through, it still gives the public an idea of what the Lab does. And there were some research topics mentioned in the article that I didn't even know we did, so I was happy to learn about them.

I'll admit there are some negative attitudes about our situation, and it's easy to get swept up in the catastrophic "the Lab's going to die" attitude. Yes, it stinks that we don't have as much "manpower" as we once did, and now people are going to have to work harder. But things can be quite cushy here and maybe it won't be so bad, after all.

If you do read the article, please note that the numbers the authors used are incorrect. They quoted the Forest Service's budget of $267.8 million per year, not the lab's. The laboratory's budget is $19.8 million, down from $21.6 million in 2004. Next year's budget is $19.4 million.

Today's Lunch:
Peanut butter (natural) and jelly (strawberry) sandwich on whole wheat
Spinach salad with Newman's Own Balsamic Vinaigrette
Apple

Paranoid or just cautious?

For the past month I've been listening to the audio version of Hour Game by David Baldacci. It's one of those detective thriller stories starring, as these books usually do, a policewoman with brains and beauty, and her male co-worker. They're trying to find a serial killer in a small Virginia town. The book is pretty good; it retains elements of surprise while still following the normal pattern of most detective books (serial killer, beautiful woman, shady witnesses, pushy cops, subplots, etc.) Parts of the book are written in the viewpoint of the serial killer, and how he goes about finding his victims and killing them.

In one scenario, the killer sees a woman at an ATM. He waits for her to finish using the ATM and watches as she throws her receipt in the trash near the machine. After she gets into her car and drives away, he laughs to himself at her stupidity for throwing the receipt away in a public place. He walks up to the trashcan and discreetly retrieves the receipt. He looks at her name, and decides she will be his next victim. Later on that night, he breaks into her house and kills her.

This kind of spooked me. I wouldn't say I'm normally a very cautious person, but I'm not totally careless, either. When I go to a gas station, I usually pay at the pump. Before I would just throw that receipt away in the big trash receptacles that are between pumps, but now I hang onto them. Same goes for ATM receipts, unless the ATM has one of those "security" garbages with the tiny little slot for your receipt that no criminal could possibly stuff their hand into.

And another thing I noticed was that at some smaller gas stations, like the mom and pop kind, some of them even print out your entire credit card number on the receipt. I had never noticed that before. So I'm just cautioning you to be aware of that.

So I don't like to think that a serial killer is going to select me as his next victim just because I'm careless with my ATM receipts. But I also wouldn't want some creep stalking me after finding out what my name is. OR how much money I have. Or the amount of money I spend.

Today's Lunch:
Club sandwich - mesquite turkey, 2 slices of bacon, baby spinach, and Miracle Whip Light on whole wheat bread
Carrots
Apple
Brownie

Office tour

Well, I know you've been dying to know where I spend all my time every day. Here are some photos of my office.

This is a photo taken from the doorway. It came out dark, so I was messing around with the brightness and contrast buttons in Microsoft Photo Editor.



Here's a photo taken from the back of my office. Notice the nice wood floors!



This is my favorite picture. This little Smokey figurine came with my office. Isn't he so cute?



My former boss had everyone's picture laser-printed onto a piece of wood.



I got these advertisements out of a 1961 magazine that I found in the attic of my old apartment in downtown Houghton.

Did you know... ?

I thought this was cool so I stole it from Danielle.

Did you know...?
Four jobs I've have had in my life:
1. Pizza delivery driver
2. Nighttime campground ranger
3. Bouncer at the ExUrban in Houghton
4. Research person
Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Braveheart
2. Back to the Future 1, 2, and 3
3. Titanic (yes, I know that's so.. trite.. but I really do like that movie)
4. Napoleon Dynamite
Four places I have lived:
1. Crystal Falls, MI
2. Grayling, MI
3. Madison, WI
4. Evansville, WI
Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. King of Queens
2. Yes, Dear
3. Medium
4. Gray's Anatomy
Four places I have been on vacation:
1. The UP
2. Florida
3. Yellowstone National Park
4. Anchorage, AK
Four websites I visit daily:
1. gmail
2. Blogger.com
3. All my AGD links!
4. Daily bulletin at work
Favorite foods:
1. Meatloaf
2. Cottage cheese with potato
3. Pizza
4. Enchiladas
Places I would rather be right now:
1. Home on the couch with my cat in my lap
2. Parents' house
3. Camping
4. In a meadow, enjoying the sunshine and reading a book

Today's lunch:

• Leftover piece of pork shoulder baked with thyme-sage-salt-pepper rub
• Baby redskin potatoes, plain
• Veggies. The same veggies I've been eating all week - yellow pepper, carrots and celery (ran out of cucumber), with dip
• Brownie

My redneck boyfriend

I'm in a co-ed softball league at work, and we have our games monday night. I'm a pretty decent player, but somehow our manager stuck me in right field. So I make the most of it by backing up first base on every single play.

Anyhoo, Zach comes to watch my games when he can. Monday we played at 7:00, and Zach got off of work at about 6:00, so he was able to come cheer me on.

Here's what I remember from the game:

Zach wearing Carhartt overalls with no shirt on beneath. A dirty hat. Work boots. Those mirrored wraparound sunglasses with the multicolored lenses that you see NASCAR drivers wearing.

And for most of the game, he was standing against the fence near the right field bleachers yelling, "Fire up, Pilon!"

I laugh just thinking about it.

On tuesday at work my teammate Bob was like, "your boyfriend is a riot." He sure is, Bob.

Today's lunch:
Mesquite grilled turkey sandwich with swiss cheese and yellow mustard on whole wheat
Veggies and dip (carrots, celery, yellow pepper, cucumber)
Lemon bar

Much better now

So my project at work right now is to determine exactly how much moisture is inside a building and how it relates to the humidity in the air of the building. So I've spent the last three months looking at papers trying to find equations people have come up with to find the amount of moisture in the air due to:

• People breathing
• Animals breathing
• Plants respiring
• Humidifiers
• Cooking
• Dishwashers
• Evaporation from wet surfaces
• Showers/baths
• Combustion of natural gas

My boss and I have weekly or bi-weekly meetings to discuss my progress, and I've been feeling incompetent because for the last few meetings I didn't really understand anything he said. So at the end of our meeting I told him how I was having trouble understanding, and I started crying, which is always embarassing but I am starting to realize it's inevitable.

So we had a little meeting last week where we discussed the fundamentals of humidity and vapor pressure and all that good stuff, and we discovered that we both think of things in different ways. He used to show me charts and equations, which he understands really well, and I'm more of a visual person. I have to see a picture of what's happening. So at our meeting he drew pictures and used real-world examples instead of the usual theoretical crap, and now I finally understand. It feels so good to not be confused, and I've been able to get work done and I can concentrate and I just feel so much better about myself.

Today's lunch:
Crappy peanut butter (natural) and jelly (plum) on whole wheat bread crusts (nasty)
Veggies and dip (carrots, celery, yellow pepper and cucumbers)
Brownie
Doritos

Tree sweater

A young lady in Seattle noticed a sad-looking tree outside her apartment building. On one rainy evening she thought the tree looked tired and cold and wet, so ... she decided to knit it a sweater.

Here is the sweater she made.



Here's her website, in case you'd like to read the entire story. Now I want to find a tree to make a sweater for.

On another note, today at work we had an ice cream social where we paid $1 for a bowl of ice cream with some toppings on it. It was delicious.

Today's lunch:
Leftover hummus with whole wheat pita bread
Veggies and dill dip (carrots, celery, radishes, cucumbers, and yellow peppers)
Ice cream (from Schoep's, a Madison company - woo hoo!), with butterscotch sauce and chocolate sauce

What year do you belong in?

You Belong in 1974

If you scored... 1950 - 1959: You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in! 1960 - 1969: You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule - oh, and drugs too. 1970 - 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you're partying or protesting, you give it your all! 1980 - 1989: Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day. 1990 - 1999: With you anything goes! You're grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It's all good!

What Year Do You Belong In?

Today's lunch:
Hummus on whole wheat pita bread (the hummus recipe is on the AGD recipe blog)
Veggies and dill dip (carrots, celery, radishes, cucumbers, and yellow peppers)
Lemon bar

Seasonal depression?

I haven't been feeling well lately. It seems like there's a bunch of noise in my mind; it's constantly buzzing, and I have a difficult time concentrating. I also sometimes feel like crying for no reason at all. And I'm hypersensitive at work - it seems like the smallest things affect me more than they should.

So I got in touch with a therapist about this. In our brief conversation over the phone, I told her that it seems strange, but in the springtime I start feeling depressed. I've heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), and I always thought it happened in the wintertime, due to the lack of sunlight. But my new therapist said that it can happen in the springtime, as well. I found that to be really interesting, so I looked it up online.

It's called Summer Depression, and it usually starts in the spring. I read somewhere that it's from a lack of serotonin, while winter depression is from a lack of dopamine. I read that sometimes people get it because they're somewhat depressed in the winter, and they're expecting "new beginnings" in the spring and hoping their life will improve; but when it doesn't, they just get more depressed. I'm not sure if this is the case with me; at least, not consciously.

Looking back on the last 7 years of my life, I've realized that I do become kind of depressed and restless in the springtime. Historically, this is the time of year where I usually dump boyfriends, feel like changing my job, feel like doing something new... maybe I can blame my crappy grades on the difficulty concentrating. :P

Anyhow, I made an appointment with the therapist for next week, and then I have to see my doctor as well, since I have an HMO. So hopefully this will all get cleared up and then I can work more productively and just be happier with my life.

Today's lunch:
2 pieces of leftover pizza (same as yesterday)
apple
lemon bar
I brought some salad with me, but the package said to use by May 28 and it looks okay but doesn't smell too hot. So I think I'll throw it away.

Some links..

Hey Mozilla freaks! Did you know you can pick out templates to change the look of your browser? Check out this link. I chose one that has cats as all the buttons on the navigator bar (see here).

Hey cat people! Check out this website: www.stuffonmycat.com. People put things like clothes on their cat, It's freakin' hilarious. I thought this picture was funny.



I submitted this picture of Blackie, my parents' cat. We put one of those footies you get at the shoe store on him like a robber. I haven't heard back from the stuffonmycat people yet, but I hope he makes it on to the site!



Also, you can find blogs about certain topics using Sphere It. So if you want to find a blog about, say, toilets, you could go to Sphere It and type in "toilets," and blogs that mention toilets will come up. For example, I looked up The Splendid Table, my favorite radio program, and Lesley's blog entry about the Niman Ranch popped up, since she referenced the Splendid Table website. And I hadn't yet read that blog entry, so at first I didn't realize I knew who the author was. Then I was like, "holy shit, that's Lesley!" It was pretty groovy.

Today's Lunch:
Two pieces of leftover pizza from local pizzeria with pepperoni, green pepper, and extra sauce
Apple
Baby carrots

Pet peeve of the week - Part 1

After spending countless hours in airports last weekend, there was one thing I noticed that they all had in common. No, it's not the dried-out pizza. Or the huge selection of celebrity-focused magazines. Or the $6 value meal at Taco Bell. It's the bathrooms.

I noticed that the toilets seem more like bidets than regular toilets.

Now I'm sure other women out there have enocuntered this. If you're like me, when you go to a public restroom, open the door to a stall, and notice droplets of water all over the toilet seat, you try to find a better, cleaner, dryer stall. But in the Baltimore-Washington International airport, there weren't any. The most difficult part of handling this situation is trying to determine which toilet had been used the least, and if the droplets of water all over the seat are actually toilet water (gross) or someone's urine (disgusting). I also hate it when I accidentally sit on one of those toilet seats and my ass gets all wet. Yuck.

Now, I'm not usually a very picky person when it comes to relieving myself. I've used countless fraternity toilets, which probably have more diseases on them than Ron Jeremy, and I've used a lot of outhouses without even thinking twice. But I really can't stand it when my bum gets all wet from sitting on a toilet seat with water or pee on it.

Today's lunch:
Lunch with old Radisson boss. Maybe hamburgers, maybe mediterranean food.

A Jewish wedding

Zach and I attended his cousin's wedding in Baltimore last weekend. The plane tickets were only $250 and his parents were going to pay for the hotel room, so we were able to afford it.

Okay, so these people went ALL OUT for the wedding. The family is Jewish, and the couple getting married has been living in Israel for the last two years. So the bride's mom basically did all the planning. We got there friday, and friday evening was a Jewish holiday so we had dinner together (after sunset, of course). All the food had to be cold, since Jewish people are not allowed to cook or do any work while celebrating a holy day. Another custom is that meat and dairy can not be mixed during any meal, so most of the foods contained meat only - no cheese. I also had wine (Kosher wine) from Bordeaux for the first time. I've been dying to try Bordeaux wine for awhile. It was delicious.

Then on saturday was the rehearsal dinner, complete with an open bar, appetizers, entree, and dessert. It was held at a posh seafood restaurant, and about 70 people were there. Zach's mom is somewhat of a party animal and stayed out late with "the boys" while the rest of us went back to the hotel.

Sunday was the actual wedding. It was held at a historical mansion-turned-bed & breakfast (Belmont Conference Center) and was outdoors. Just before the ceremony, the rabbi conducted a ceremony where the groom places the veil over the bride's face. This goes back to a biblical story where Jacob marries Leah instead of Rachel because she had a veil on her face and he didn't know he was marrying the wrong woman (this was portrayed in The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant, which is a very good book.) So now the custom is to prevent this from happening by having the groom confirm who he's marrying.

The ceremony was short and sweet, the way I like it. It concluded with a passionate kiss and the groom stomping on a glass (this represents the fragility of marriage and life, I think).

At the reception, Zach and I were seated with the friends of the bride and groom. Okay, this was crazy. All these kids are going to Harvard Law this fall. And then we found out that the bride got a full ride to Harvard, is fluent in Mandarin, Hebrew, and other languages, is a double black-belt in karate, and plays the flute, among other things. Zach and I felt like the rednecks of the wedding. Here we are, a couple of foresters from Wisconsin, among all these motivated, Ivy-league young people. But we weren't too offended - I think most of these kids' parents kind of "lead" them in a certain direction. It doesn't hurt to be loaded, either.

Monday morning we had brunch at the bride's parents' house. Then we caught our plane and came home. It's so nice to be back in Wisconsin. This state is so beautiful.

Today's lunch:
Leftover pasta from last week (whole wheat penne with lemon chicken pieces, cauliflower, red pepper, and kale with a little bit of grated asiago cheese)
Baby carrots
Pickled beets
Fruit cocktail

Doing the same thing for 30 years would have the same effect on me...

I've noticed at the Lab (where I work) that a lot of people have worked here for a long time. Like, decades. And they've been doing the same research ever since they started. Hey, I can understand why people would want to stick around here. It's a nice, cushy government job with good pay and good bennis. And as researchers, people can basically do whatever they want, as long as it's publishable.

But what I've also noticed, as a newer worker here, is that people who have been conducting research on the same topic for 30 years kind of forget what it's like to be new at everything. I've had two situations where I told someone I had no idea what they were talking about (in an embarassing tearful way), and they were surprised because they've been doing their work for so long that they've kind of forgotten what it's like to not know it. And it's almost like they have to consciously take their level of thinking down 13 levels to put themselves in a newcomer's shoes. I think that's difficult for a lot of people to do. It's like a calculus professor trying to teach someone addition.

Today's lunch:

• Leftover pasta from dinner (whole wheat penne with lemon chicken pieces, cauliflower, red pepper, and kale with a little bit of grated asiago cheese)
• Baby carrots
• Popcorn
• Coconut cupcake