the weekend -- dancing friends and domino friends
I am turning into such a hippy. Yesterday I biked to the grocery store, bought vegetables and rice, and packed it neatly into my Trader Joe's cloth bag -- avoiding the accumulation of plastic bag has become somewhat of a personal crusade because of the large number by my fridge from all sorts of moving-related shopping trips. This evening before rapper practice, it's the produce store for more vegetables and Trader Joe's for Luna bars.
Friday night -- no comments on Serenity yet. Afterwards, loveschak and I had dinner at one of the Thai restaurants around 40th St.; I think it was the Thai Singha House. I had the salad with beef slices on lettuce, red peppers, red onions, and a lime dressing, as well as a vegetable spring roll and my usual Thai iced tea. The salad was tasty, but there weren't as many interesting dishes on the menu that jumped out at me, like the nearby Thai place I went to with ceciliaregent, whose name I currently forget. We headed towards Old City to hang out with the YH-related group, first at Society Hill for a few drinks, then at Petit 4 for chopping fruit and watching Marty bake. [tried: chocolate mousse cake] I enjoyed seeing everyone, since Thurs. night didn't happen this week, but I was exhausted and quiet. I should've headed home earlier and actually gotten a decent amount of sleep that night, because I knew I had an early and exhausting morning planned for Sat.
Saturday was the Morstein workday! I took the 100 to meet J -- we did some grocery shopping for K, and when we got back to their house, I got to hold Elena (the youngest member of my non-lj friends-blog-list ;). She's smiley, alert and interactive, even more than the last time I saw her a couple weeks ago; she gives me hope I won't avoid babies for ever, heh. Anyway, I'm actually rather fond of this event -- getting up early for donuts and coffee is fun once in awhile, as is working outside. It's always a small but pleasant group, too -- Don (missed him last year!), J, the local Hurd men, etc. This year was particularly pleasant -- the weather was gorgeous and the tasks (slashing/sawing down privet shrubs, cutting the branches into segments to load into carts, and burning them) were discrete, easily manageable, and rather enjoyable. I especially had fun riding in the golf cart (of course!) and manning the fire for one load of branches -- it was a low but intensely hot fire, since it'd been burning for a couple hours, and it had a good wood-burning scent. I also had fun chatting with Jennifer, something I don't get to do very often; she told me about the book-binding course she's taking at UArts.
I also got to talk for awhile with K, since she drove me back to 69th St. Once I got back to my apartment, I took my bike down to the bike store near Chinatown/convention center to buy a bike lock! Exciting!! Now I can bike other places besides work. I also need to pick out a helmet and biking gloves very soon, both of which are equally practical and even more exciting. After leaving the bike store, I got a bunch of phone calls, which made me feel well-connected; the upshot of it all was that Cameron and I decided to go to GCD's First Saturday.
That turned out to be a truly excellent decision, because it was a lovely dance. I can't get over how much I enjoy English dancing now; I've been excited about Playford every time I think about it, after the wonderful time I had last year. Anyway, Saturday evening was just...lovely. stowaway_geek and Susie on fiddles, supported by jMR on piano, provided incredible music; I wasn't wowwed by the style of the caller, but the dances he picked were absolutely first-rate. I got to dance with some of the few English dancers I know (a dance with Jenny is always fun and stylish, and I did Apley House, theoretically one of the English dances I should know almost by heart, with Sam), and meet/dance with others that I'm looking forward to dancing with more in the future! There were rip-roarin' fun dances, like Cumberland Squares with its basket, and unbelievably elegant dances, like the Mr. Beveridge's Maggot I did with Eric.
TOJ kindly drove Cameron and I back to Center City, and I stopped by Petit 4 again, where I sifted like 50 lbs of confectioners' sugar. [tried: eclair. loved the pastry cream, of course, but I agree with Louisa that the pastry shoe is too doughy] Sadly, I was too exhausted to hang out, so I left after sifting. I had perfect timing -- as soon as I walked up to Walnut St., a bus was passing. A guy I'd met at Rachel F's house-party had sent me some txts, so I called him and chatted for awhile -- goodness knows if my sentences even made sense by then, even though it was only 2.
I slept most of Sunday, went grocery shopping, and meant to start on seasoning 'my' wok, but Marty was driving out to Swat to make a delivery, so I went to hang out. Evenings at YH are always fun. :) I brought the rest of the oatmeal cookies that I made for the bridal shower of one of the attorneys on Fri., the firstfruits of my new kitchen. flurious was making jambalaya, and Louisa made chocolate chip & pecan cookies. There was dominoes, although I wasn't focusing on it as much as I could've, so grumpy_sysadmin and I lost by like 170. (We actually beat the crack duo of Raf and Louisa last time!)
I'm not sure why I actually wrote a journal entry on this past weekend. I'd thought about going home but ended up staying in Philly and had a good time doing all my current favorite things, although (mostly because I was exhausted, I think) it wasn't as spectactularly fun as last weekend with the martini party and brunch at Le Beau Monde. ::shrug:: I guess I just had time at work today, so I decided to just type it up. I think I was so amazed by the English dance Sat. that I wanted to write about it, and I just did the whole weekend while I was at it.
I have a holiday tomorrow. :)
Friday night -- no comments on Serenity yet. Afterwards, loveschak and I had dinner at one of the Thai restaurants around 40th St.; I think it was the Thai Singha House. I had the salad with beef slices on lettuce, red peppers, red onions, and a lime dressing, as well as a vegetable spring roll and my usual Thai iced tea. The salad was tasty, but there weren't as many interesting dishes on the menu that jumped out at me, like the nearby Thai place I went to with ceciliaregent, whose name I currently forget. We headed towards Old City to hang out with the YH-related group, first at Society Hill for a few drinks, then at Petit 4 for chopping fruit and watching Marty bake. [tried: chocolate mousse cake] I enjoyed seeing everyone, since Thurs. night didn't happen this week, but I was exhausted and quiet. I should've headed home earlier and actually gotten a decent amount of sleep that night, because I knew I had an early and exhausting morning planned for Sat.
Saturday was the Morstein workday! I took the 100 to meet J -- we did some grocery shopping for K, and when we got back to their house, I got to hold Elena (the youngest member of my non-lj friends-blog-list ;). She's smiley, alert and interactive, even more than the last time I saw her a couple weeks ago; she gives me hope I won't avoid babies for ever, heh. Anyway, I'm actually rather fond of this event -- getting up early for donuts and coffee is fun once in awhile, as is working outside. It's always a small but pleasant group, too -- Don (missed him last year!), J, the local Hurd men, etc. This year was particularly pleasant -- the weather was gorgeous and the tasks (slashing/sawing down privet shrubs, cutting the branches into segments to load into carts, and burning them) were discrete, easily manageable, and rather enjoyable. I especially had fun riding in the golf cart (of course!) and manning the fire for one load of branches -- it was a low but intensely hot fire, since it'd been burning for a couple hours, and it had a good wood-burning scent. I also had fun chatting with Jennifer, something I don't get to do very often; she told me about the book-binding course she's taking at UArts.
I also got to talk for awhile with K, since she drove me back to 69th St. Once I got back to my apartment, I took my bike down to the bike store near Chinatown/convention center to buy a bike lock! Exciting!! Now I can bike other places besides work. I also need to pick out a helmet and biking gloves very soon, both of which are equally practical and even more exciting. After leaving the bike store, I got a bunch of phone calls, which made me feel well-connected; the upshot of it all was that Cameron and I decided to go to GCD's First Saturday.
That turned out to be a truly excellent decision, because it was a lovely dance. I can't get over how much I enjoy English dancing now; I've been excited about Playford every time I think about it, after the wonderful time I had last year. Anyway, Saturday evening was just...lovely. stowaway_geek and Susie on fiddles, supported by jMR on piano, provided incredible music; I wasn't wowwed by the style of the caller, but the dances he picked were absolutely first-rate. I got to dance with some of the few English dancers I know (a dance with Jenny is always fun and stylish, and I did Apley House, theoretically one of the English dances I should know almost by heart, with Sam), and meet/dance with others that I'm looking forward to dancing with more in the future! There were rip-roarin' fun dances, like Cumberland Squares with its basket, and unbelievably elegant dances, like the Mr. Beveridge's Maggot I did with Eric.
TOJ kindly drove Cameron and I back to Center City, and I stopped by Petit 4 again, where I sifted like 50 lbs of confectioners' sugar. [tried: eclair. loved the pastry cream, of course, but I agree with Louisa that the pastry shoe is too doughy] Sadly, I was too exhausted to hang out, so I left after sifting. I had perfect timing -- as soon as I walked up to Walnut St., a bus was passing. A guy I'd met at Rachel F's house-party had sent me some txts, so I called him and chatted for awhile -- goodness knows if my sentences even made sense by then, even though it was only 2.
I slept most of Sunday, went grocery shopping, and meant to start on seasoning 'my' wok, but Marty was driving out to Swat to make a delivery, so I went to hang out. Evenings at YH are always fun. :) I brought the rest of the oatmeal cookies that I made for the bridal shower of one of the attorneys on Fri., the firstfruits of my new kitchen. flurious was making jambalaya, and Louisa made chocolate chip & pecan cookies. There was dominoes, although I wasn't focusing on it as much as I could've, so grumpy_sysadmin and I lost by like 170. (We actually beat the crack duo of Raf and Louisa last time!)
I'm not sure why I actually wrote a journal entry on this past weekend. I'd thought about going home but ended up staying in Philly and had a good time doing all my current favorite things, although (mostly because I was exhausted, I think) it wasn't as spectactularly fun as last weekend with the martini party and brunch at Le Beau Monde. ::shrug:: I guess I just had time at work today, so I decided to just type it up. I think I was so amazed by the English dance Sat. that I wanted to write about it, and I just did the whole weekend while I was at it.
I have a holiday tomorrow. :)