Hey... I know I've been away for WAY too long, and I apologize. This is always a crazy time of year for me, as I'm in and out of hotels for my programs and the few days inbetween are super busy with preparing for the next work plus catching up on all the work that's piled up while I was away. Phew. I have one more week of programming to go, and then I'm done with hotel-stuff until spring. Mind you, then I jet off to lovely Iceland for a wedding and some well-deserved R&R. SD and I have secured a summer cabin out in the countryside for a couple of nights, and we're just going to enjoy the silence, to borrow a phrase from Depeche Mode.
I've been leeping busy at home as well. We're still squaring away the apartment - picking out the artwork for the walls, getting things framed, etc. We've taken up evening walks to clear our heads (and full bellies) before bed. It's nice. The weather is finally cooling down and going for a brisk walk does a body good. I've definitely been sleeping better since.
Thanks to all who wished me a happy birthday! I'm now officially almost old - at 29 - and I'mw waiting for the osteporosis to set in. In all seriousness, by birthday was lovely. I was working, of course, so I spent most of it at the Japanese embassy and the Foreign Service Institute. SD took me to dinner at Indigo Landing that night, and the food was scrumptiously delicious. I had frogmore soup (shrimp broth with bacon and pasta), followed by hanger steak with delicious potatoes and onions. Yum! I was so full I couldn't even fit in dessert - and we all know that never happens! SD also bought me a gorgeous coffeetable-size picture book of Native Americans from the early 20th century. It's amazing - the pictures are incredible. It was a picture-kind of birthday for me, as mom and DPG sent me some great pictures from our Paris trip last year. I'll be in the market for some more picture frames soon :-)
Amazingly, I've been able to do some reading while ensconced in the hotel. I finished
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - a truly great book. I then dove into Larry McMurtry's
The Colonel and Little Missie, an account of Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley and the commercialization of the Wild West. Fascinating stuff - to me, anyway. Most recently, I finished Ruth Reichl's
Garlic and Sapphires, a memoir of her tenure as the food critic of the
New York Times. It was hilarious and delicious at the same time. Speaking of books, I visited the National Book Festival on the mall this weekend. I listened to some great authors, including Doris Kearns Goodwin and Taylor Branch, but the only book I was inspired to buy was Marcus Samuelsson's new cookbook,
The Soul of a New Cuisine. Samuelsson, the chef at NYC's Aquavit, was born in Ethiopia and adopted to Sweden, and this book is his attempt to rediscover his roots by cooking himself through African cuisine. I'm eally excited about using the book, since this is a part of the world I have completely ignoed in the kitchen.
SD and I have just spent the last few weeks plowing through the first two seasons of
The Office - the American version, that is. This is by far my favorite comedy on television now, with the late great
Arrested Development now gone to TV heaven. I admit I have not seen the British original (damn my lack of BBC America!) and may therefore be unenlightened as to its merits, but this show is completely freakin' hilarious! Steve Carrell is a comic genius, and everyone else in the cast is pitch perfect. I recommend visiting iTunes and downloading a few episodes.
Before I sign off (it's late), allow me to gloat over nasty, dirty, creepy Florida Republican Mark Foley. I highly recommend you read the transcripts of his IM conversations with 16-year-old male Congressional pages, in which he talks about his cute butt, how often and in which way he "spanks it," and so on and so forth. I do believe Mr. Foley just handed the Democrats the keys to the House after next month's elections. Republicans: We're the party with morals, except when it comes to covering up our pedophiliac colleague in order to keep his congressional seat. Ick.
Good night, y'all. Time for bed.
