Out with Unibrow

The new term to replace "unibrow" (a term attributed to a long continuous eyebrow over both eyes) is "forehedge."

Off to California!

We're in the Bay area for the holidays! California is a mix of cold and warm and sunny. Sunday was a shopping/family/Gay 90s pizza night. (Pizza so good, it'll turn you ...) Monday was a day in Berkeley. I'd wanted to take the Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker factory store tour, but it was already fully booked. After getting lost for a while, Rich and I settled on having lunch in the cafe there. We headed up to Salano Ave. to window show, while we waited for Daniel and Massie to meet us for dinner. We hit the Sunset Special at Albany Bistro. The Sunset Special is an incredible deal with a 3 course meal for $14. I had a Mango Mojito which was quite yummy. Their brunch menu is also a great deal. Everything is around $8, and you can add a mimosa for $1.50. The prices are much less than brunch in DC where everything was $15 or more.

Tuesday was San Francisco Day. I met up with Katy, who was there visiting Ethan. We hit the Haight for more window shopping and Ethiopian food for lunch. (I knew I'd work that in sometime!) Katy and I headed to the San Francisco Shopper Center on Powell St and spent a lot of time looking around and not buying anything. I think it's funny that the Apple Store there has become a place where people go to use the Internet, and that the employees have to spend a good part of their day shooing away the casual users so people can actually shop for Apple merchandise.

Rich and Ethan met up with us in Macy's and we headed back to the apartment to have dinner at the Citrus Club. We were all originally going to hit a concert at the Make Out Room, but we were all too tired, and watched Scrubs and Law and Order: SVU instead. Fun was had by all.

Rich joins the 26 club

Tuesday morning, I finish my loads of laundry, and headed back down to Princeton. I picked up Andrew at the train station on the way back, and hit Whole Foods for some cheese and cake. Let me say this, the new Princeton Whole Foods is awesome. They have all sorts of cooking classes, a cooking class area by the Cafe, and the service is just great. I went up to the Bakery/Cake counter, asked which cake the counter person would choose, the Chocolate Dream or the Chocolate Buttercream. She responded "Chocolate Dream." Then, I spotted the Choclate Vegan Cake, and asked her about that. She then took the two finalists off of a rack where they'd been cooling and cut me off a small slice of each to sample and decide. She'd just cut into 2 sales-worthy cakes, rendering them unsalable, so I could try out some cake. Wow! (I went with the Chocolate Dream, but the Chocolate Vegas was also delicious.)

Andrew and I headed to my apartment and spent the next few hours cleaning. We were mostly ready by the time people started showing up. I picked up all the pizzas from Romeo's, and while Andrew mulled some wine. We had about 20+ people ready to surprise Rich. He came in, was surprised, and I headed out to the train station again to pick up Mike, Jeffrey, and Regina, who'd also come in from NY to surprise Rich. A good time was had by all, and Rich built up his Westerns on DVD collection, as well as completing his LOTRs Extended DVD set.

Binghamton Diversionary Weekend

After the LISSA Holiday party, I headed up to spend the weekend in Binghamton. I got there pretty late, and we had a delicious pizza that Scott had made. You wouldn't think broccoli would work in a pizza sauce, but it does. If you puree the broccoli, the sauce turns more of an orangish color. We also watched the movie the Ninth Gate with Johnny Depp.

The next day brought the 4th departamental holiday party in a row, this time the Electrical Engineering department. Scott's finally listed on the faculty page, BTW. It was a difficult task to find any store selling wine to bring to the party. We first hit something like Sam's Beer Barn or Beer Depot, which had Ommegang's Three Philosophers beer. (Ommegang of that raspberry lambit beer fame.) The grocery stores up here don't sell wine, but they do sell beer. One wine store we found was closed, and it was only after driving around in Endicott that we ran across a small liquor store, which was open, and provided us with a local wine for the party. (Note, in DC you cannot buy liquor in a store on Sundays. The grocery store liquor sections are gated up, and everything else is closed.)

Afterwards, we picked up Scott's friend and piper Ryan, and headed up to Ithaca for the Irish music session. I played my fiddle a few times, and it's an interesting set of characters that play there. We stopped by a kelzmer jam session across the street. I eventually had to leave. I must admit that a few of the more improvisational art dancers were kinda disturbing to watch. That and the frenzy of the music at the late hour convinced me that it was time to go.

Monday was my last day in Binghamton, unbeknownst to Rich. He thinks I'm coming back on Wed., but I'm really heading back on Tuesday for his surprise birthday party. On Monday, I got to see Dr. Scott's new office, and largely sat around while he held office hours for peopel before their final the next day. We at the Spiedie and Rib Pit for lunch and made the Brazilian Shrimp Stew sans Shrimp. Scott also cooked up a couple of pumpkin pies for me to bring back for the party. The Wegman's grocery store up here rents movies, so we checked out a night of Ben Stiller fun with DodgeBall and Envy. While Dodgeball was funny, I think Envy was much better in terms of guest appearences by Christopher Walken.

December Fun

I'm back from Washington, D.C. I moved back last Monday after Caille's wedding. I met a friend who was in town for the ASCB Annual conference for coffee before catching a train to Princeton. I had to carry a ton of stuff with me back on the train, but it's nice to be back.

Since then, I've had an interview for an (unpaid) internship with the Princeton Public Affairs Group, and a day that I spent up at Rutgers visiting people and professors at SCILS and Eagleton. I even stopped by Suzanne's office at the Institute for Women's Leadership at Rutgers to drop off her month late birthday present. It's been a busy few days.

On Thursday, I drove up to Penn State to help judge the freshman engineering design contest, as the end of my Graduate Fellowship at the NAE. The things that the students had come up with were very interesting, and some really good. They should be worked into the EngineerGirl! website over the next few months. I'm glad I had an opportunity to see an entire project through, from the creation of the project proposal to Penn State to the judging of the contest at the end.

Friday, I met Kristin for lunch in Trenton at Cafe Ole, and then had the Eagleton and PACM holiday parties to attend. It was nice to see people at Eagleton, and PACM had their party in the Cap and Gown eating club (super fancy). (My nametag listed me as Janice Sharp.) Afterwards, we headed to a post-party at Butler to cap off the night of partying.

Overheard at Bill's band debut at the Roche Bar...

"I don't know who these guys are, but Bill Chapin would really like them."

Link to Bill's column.