today's lessons

1. I am good at saving money-- specifically by VE'ing the hell out of a light fixture package while preserving the integrity of the design.

2. Kendall Square is an abyss. I will never understand my way around Kendall Square. It is my personal Bermuda Triangle/Black Hole of buildings.

3. On Wednesdays, I typically eat at least 1 butterscotch candy. At least 1, and only on Wednesdays.

master of disguise

admitedly, I haven't looked closely at the toys for sale in the vending machines in grocery stores in years... so I don't know if this is new or not, but I was surprised to see this for sale:

say my name!

I've come to the realization that people just aren't getting the fact that I've changed my last name. and it's kind of OK, i guess... as it makes sense to me to be called all 3 names. Seems fair.

I've been reading Sloane Crosley's new book, How Did You Get This Number-- she's also the author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake, which I found super funny. Anyway, this morning on the bus I was reading the short story called "If You Sprinkle", and found the following line on page 153:

As it is with anyone who has made an impact on your life, her first and last name are inseperable.

Of course, this got me thinking about the years and years of being referred to by my first and last name, and the fact that the majority of people in my life (sometimes even my husband!) seem to forget I now have another name tacked on the end... and of course I got a bit full of myself when reading this quote-- thinking that I must have had an impact on a lot of people's lives... :)

our saturday in pictures (and words)

Yesterday we went biking.

I have nothing more to say about this-- I just thought this is a cool picture of the mud on my tire. :)

And now, for something completely different.

Last weekend, we went grocery shopping at Market Basket.

Despite the insanity of 75% of the customers shopping like grocery stores are going out of business, and, oh, that sawdust, we were completely impressed with the brevity of the receipt. It was printed double sided, and lacked the extra "stuff" that Stop and Shop receipts have-- that is, when they tell you how much you've saved this year, how many arbitrary points you've accumulated, etc... so in our minds, score 1, Market Basket.

Fast forward to yesterday: we went to Stop and Shop to buy some ingredients for a goat cheese cheesecake to bring to our friends' Dave and Steph's house for dinner. We purchased our items, and then in the car I realized I had only grabbed 1 block of cream cheese rather than the required 2, so I ran back into the store to purchase the cream cheese pictured below. (Note: when running through the store to get this cream cheese-- because at this point I was realizing we were probably way too late in starting this cooking venture, I accidentally knocked down a small display of mustard. I had to spend more time to pick it up than I would have had I been walking at a normal speed... note to self: do not run past seasonal grilling displays)

So back to this cream cheese: that's all I bought.

LOOK AT THE LENGTH OF THE RECEIPT!

Seriously, Stop and Shop? I had trouble getting this receipt in the frame! Take some lessons from Market Basket, please!

Back to the cheesecake: it was a bust. We managed to get through baking the crust and making the filling, then realized we were better to take it unbaked to Dave and Steph's house, and cook it there... well, their oven was feeling a bit under the weather, and couldn't quite handle making dinner and dessert, so we ended up taking our cheesecake back home afterwards to bake it... and bake we did.

Yet... the filling had been sitting for so long on the crust, that the crust is no longer crusty. And the middle didn't really bake. And apparently we went a little heavy on the lemon juice, because the cheesecake is surprisingly lemon-y.

jets vs. sharks

sometimes i go home via the red line. last night was one of those nights. i was coming from a yoga class on the green line, and changed to the red line at park street. i realized that i like standing in the center platform (pictured below) and trying to guess which side people will ride: ashmont/braintree, or alewife. in my mind, it's a west side story thing. i always wonder if people will break into dance...

because really, i know this is totally stereotypical and cliche, but i think i can guess which platform people will ultimately migrate to. i like to play this guessing game for myself when walking down the center stairs, and try to determine who will go left (slightly punk southie urban hipsters and southie townies, and the like) and who will go right (geeks and nerds from MIT and Harvard, chill Somervill-ians, etc.)

and then, once i'm on the nerd/geek/somerville side, i like to look around the train and guess at which stop peopel will depart. again, i feel this is intuitive, but i'm often correct. Fancy people at Charles, academics Kendall, hippies at Central, academics at Harvard (but somehow they look different from the Kendall ones), neighborhood-y people at Porter, slight urban hipsters and 'regular' college kids at Davis, and then all the rest of the assorted bunch at Alewife.

Does this sound right to you?

I thought I was relatively observant.

Really, I did. It turns out I'm not as with it as I thought... let me set the scene.

I teach a design studio, and tonight was the second class of the term, but the first time I was with my own 8 students. The class began tonight with yours truly giving a project intro lecture to all 48 students. Afterwards we went upstairs, and they pinned up their work. I noticed I only had 7 instead of 8 (observant!) but started anyway. A few moments later, student 8 arrives. He apologizes, and them looks at another student and sort of nods and smiles... I assume they are friends.

Fast forward....

2+ hours later, student 8 presents his work. The whole group has been presenting and conversing for a while now-- I've learned all their names. So this guy is presenting, an someone makes a comment, and I sort of turn to see and hear it. It is at this very moment that I realize that student 8 and the student he exchanged glances with are WEARING THE SAME SHIRT! I couldn't believe that a) I hadn't noticed, or b) that it was actually happening! I'm losing my touch for detail.oh, and did i mention the shirt in question is plaid?!?!