social weekend spills into Monday
This weekend was our second weekend in the past month that was filled with social activities. It was so much this time, that it spilled into Monday.
On Saturday, Christian's colleague Alice came over with a dozen eggs she had gotten from a friend who works on a farm. We whipped up a delicious quiche and an apple pie. We had planned this to only take a couple hours, but instead it occupied the full afternoon and evening, since we had to go shopping and then making the crusts took far longer than we had anticipated. It was worth it, though: the quiche with leeks was very tasty and the apple pie was tasty too (though the apples didn't get as soft as we wanted).
On Sunday, my parents came to visit. I got a call from them a little after 10 in the morning. This was right around when they had planned on leaving, so I say cheerfully "Great, so you're on the road now?" and my mom says "No, we're downstairs. We're outside your building." I was thrown for a loop for a second, until I realized I had misread their email: they were arriving at 10, not leaving at 10. Oops! Christian and I were still in our pajamas and hadn't showered, so my parents offered to take a walk around the block for 10 minutes while we cleaned up. As a result of this confusion, though, we also weren't ready to cook the lunch of fish we had promised them. Yet they were hungry, so we whipped up an omelette (OMG we ate so many eggs this weekend) and bacon to serve them. Then we went to the Yale School of Music to attend a graduation recital for the violinist son of acquaintances of my parents, which was the excuse for them coming up to visit. It was a fairly nice recital, though Christian and I weren't fans of either the final 3-piece set by Sibelius or an earlier piece by Paganini. The Bach piece was nice, but fairly forgettable. The best ones were his opening piece (by a name I recognized but can't recall) and the tonally dynamic piece by Henryk Wieniawski (since the violinist was Polish, he naturally had to pick at least one Polish piece).
After the concert, we returned and Christian and I cooked the intended lunch for my parents. Christian fried up some cod, while I made the new kale salad recipe I've been going nuts over since I got it from Carol Wood after my Wesleyan talk. My parents were impressed. After they left, I had to grade and prepare my lesson for Monday. A few hours later, I cooked dinner, which was the squid that had been intended for my parents as well but we opted to postpone. Cleaning the squid took a while, and so for the third time that day we got bogged down on cooking. It was too much!
At least we could look forward to Monday, when we wouldn't have to cook anything at all. We had been invited to a reception at Smith honoring one of the math professors who had received a named chair position. So Christian came in to campus with me and worked in my office while I taught my classes. All I heard that day from him was how much trouble he had working there: the chairs weren't as good as the ergonomic ones in his office, there was chalk dust everywhere, the students were chattering in the halls outside my office, etc. I can tell it's going to be a rough transition when he returns to academia... (Where's my fucking latte?)
Christian came to the math talk and liked it. There were a lot of inspirational pictures and patterns, even if it veered a little into the vague. The reception afterwards happened at the president's house and was a fancy affair with numerous nice hors d'oeuvres and fancy beers (Ommegang), wines, and liquors. Christian also got to finally meet all the members of the math department who hadn't been at Ruth's potluck at in the fall.
On Saturday, Christian's colleague Alice came over with a dozen eggs she had gotten from a friend who works on a farm. We whipped up a delicious quiche and an apple pie. We had planned this to only take a couple hours, but instead it occupied the full afternoon and evening, since we had to go shopping and then making the crusts took far longer than we had anticipated. It was worth it, though: the quiche with leeks was very tasty and the apple pie was tasty too (though the apples didn't get as soft as we wanted).
On Sunday, my parents came to visit. I got a call from them a little after 10 in the morning. This was right around when they had planned on leaving, so I say cheerfully "Great, so you're on the road now?" and my mom says "No, we're downstairs. We're outside your building." I was thrown for a loop for a second, until I realized I had misread their email: they were arriving at 10, not leaving at 10. Oops! Christian and I were still in our pajamas and hadn't showered, so my parents offered to take a walk around the block for 10 minutes while we cleaned up. As a result of this confusion, though, we also weren't ready to cook the lunch of fish we had promised them. Yet they were hungry, so we whipped up an omelette (OMG we ate so many eggs this weekend) and bacon to serve them. Then we went to the Yale School of Music to attend a graduation recital for the violinist son of acquaintances of my parents, which was the excuse for them coming up to visit. It was a fairly nice recital, though Christian and I weren't fans of either the final 3-piece set by Sibelius or an earlier piece by Paganini. The Bach piece was nice, but fairly forgettable. The best ones were his opening piece (by a name I recognized but can't recall) and the tonally dynamic piece by Henryk Wieniawski (since the violinist was Polish, he naturally had to pick at least one Polish piece).
After the concert, we returned and Christian and I cooked the intended lunch for my parents. Christian fried up some cod, while I made the new kale salad recipe I've been going nuts over since I got it from Carol Wood after my Wesleyan talk. My parents were impressed. After they left, I had to grade and prepare my lesson for Monday. A few hours later, I cooked dinner, which was the squid that had been intended for my parents as well but we opted to postpone. Cleaning the squid took a while, and so for the third time that day we got bogged down on cooking. It was too much!
At least we could look forward to Monday, when we wouldn't have to cook anything at all. We had been invited to a reception at Smith honoring one of the math professors who had received a named chair position. So Christian came in to campus with me and worked in my office while I taught my classes. All I heard that day from him was how much trouble he had working there: the chairs weren't as good as the ergonomic ones in his office, there was chalk dust everywhere, the students were chattering in the halls outside my office, etc. I can tell it's going to be a rough transition when he returns to academia... (Where's my fucking latte?)
Christian came to the math talk and liked it. There were a lot of inspirational pictures and patterns, even if it veered a little into the vague. The reception afterwards happened at the president's house and was a fancy affair with numerous nice hors d'oeuvres and fancy beers (Ommegang), wines, and liquors. Christian also got to finally meet all the members of the math department who hadn't been at Ruth's potluck at in the fall.