Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

We spent the holiday with E's parents, as usual. This year our dinner company, which has been gradually thinning, merged with another group that had also been declining in numbers; together, there were 20+ people, some familiar and some new. We made baked honey brie in phyllo dough with cranberry chutney and brought 2 bottles of wine. (Turned out that almost everyone brought wine, and there were over a dozen bottles on the kitchen counter... even deadlier than the book club!) Most of the people at dinner were university professors. The hostess and the 'core' group had met in Malawi during their time in the Peace Corps; one couple taught public policy together at a university in DC and flew often to Beijing and South Africa; another was going on a long trip to New Zealand. It was fascinating getting to know them. New traditions this year were pomegranate appetizers (and spraying the juice everywhere) and ping pong tourneys. Overall a fun evening, but it went by so quickly that the holiday was over before I knew it. All the anticipation...

Other highlights of the weekend include spending time in the country, meeting with family friends, and... oh, raking, raking, raking.


Hubs in a babushka, ready for an afternoon of toiling in the yard


Snow on the leaves


Leaves begone!


Two hours later... hubs and his rake take a break

We also took a jaunt through Bedford County just for kicks - visited the Bedford Springs Resort, a posh hotel tucked among hills and gorgeous hiking trails. ('Visit' means walk through the building, fawn over the architecture, read about the history, steal a cupcake or two that were set out in the foyer at 4pm for traditional English tea...) The parents-in-law were quite taken by it. Methinks Santa will give them a night's stay and dinner for two at Christmas.

Then we went to the infamously law-defying Gravity Hill! Hottest tourist spot in Bedford County. Incidentally, it's near the apple orchards we stopped at... (get it? apples? gravity?) The claim to fame is that one coasts uphill on this road, despite what physics and common sense tell us. We were skeptical, until we tried it a few times. There was another car on the little stretch of hill testing the claim too, over and over again. It's a clever optical illusion.

Here are videos that we took (hubs narrating):

Part I:

Drifting backwards ('uphill') while on neutral

Part II:

Uphill again, this time facing forward. The road really did look like an upward slope.

Not the most exciting videos, but now you know how this little hill got its name. We live for cheap thrills.

----------------------------------------------

And finally, let's give thanks to the beautiful month of November.



Taken right outside the house


Pretty weed that sticks to everything


On the road, near Blue Knob State Park, PA


Dusk, and a full moon rising as we were returning home from our adventures in Bedford, PA

Sexy Beijing

I've recently discovered a fun series on Youtube: Sexy Beijing. It's a collection of light social commentaries hosted by a spunky Jewish-American, Sophie aka Su Fei, in a well-done SATC parody (narration and all). Hilarious stuff! She goes out onto the streets interviewing the locals on various subjects from feminism to weddings to Christmas, giving interesting insights into lifetyles and culture in Beijing and beyond.

She speaks crazy good Chinese. (For a 'lao wai', anyway.)

Here's an episode:



Wildly entertaining. Check it out!

Games

Discovered some really cute games - creativity abound in cyberspace. Kind of as exciting as my discovery of these Flash games, but in a different way.

For Boys: SketchFighter 4000 Alpha
For Girls: Orisinal: Morning Sunshine

Cuteness overload!!

Oopsies

Gotta watch out for cuffed pant legs. Lesson learned.

Sashay to water cooler. Fill mug with water. Return to desk. (Pants go swish swish.) See the director (my boss) and senior VP chatting in her office. Smile. Heels get caught in pant cuffs, trip and flail, mug throws water on face. Conversation halts, all eyes on me.

Boss: "Are you okay?" Senior VP looks amused.
Me: "Yup I'm fine." Flash big grin. Water dripping from face, secretly wishing I could die.

@#%$*#%.

Kitty networking

I started an account on Catster for Pepper. Look! Within 4 hours, she already has 17 kitty friends. What a ham.

Spud Wars

OMG. Leave it to ThinkGeek to come up with this.


Artoo Potatoo

Also: Darth Tater, Spud Trooper. No Luke Frywalker.

I love how Spud Trooper is holding a potato masher. :) Hahahaha!

Geeks are funny

Happy April Fool's. :)

Only in the city

There was a bit of excitement in town today - during lunch, as the officemates were discussing the double standards held to different genders in teacher-student scandals, the senior clerk (who listens to the radio while he works) burst into the room, exclaiming, "Sniper!"

There were reports of a sniper in one of the buildings downtown (a la Phone Booth). Entire sections of the business district were closed, people were herded inside buildings and not allowed on the streets... The SWAT team was there. Everyone wondered what the commotion was about with the choppers and sirens, and now it made sense. Productivity dropped a good 40% as people stood around speculating what happened. All the local news websites crashed my browser when I tried visiting them, from the heavy traffic I suppose. It was an odd coincidence that the President was just in Wheeling, WV earlier in the day, not far from here, with hundreds of security personnel standing by for all of the 15 minutes he was there. Still, there was no reason for the two to be related - why would a sniper be in downtown Pittsburgh on a Wednesday afernoon? Who among us is that interesting of a hit?

After all the tension, frantic media, hours of being stuck inside, hundreds of cars rerouted, closing the tunnels, SWAT team mobilized and ready to go, the afternoon ended in an anti-climax, to say the least. The police found out the bearded man wearing camo with a sniper rifle was simply a maintenance guy with his pellet gun shooting pigeons. Ha!! What a joke. The funniest part of the whole thing was that the guy who caused the big deal managed to walk away, oblivious and unnoticed. 'Excellent' longtime employee of the city or not, this guy is about as smart as someone who waves around a toy gun on a commercial flight. And I have so much more faith now in the competence of our local authorities...

What a day.

---------------------------------------------
Unrelated: We had dinner at Nakama. It was much like the Big Burrito group - upscale, trendy, cool concept, good food. Parking was a pain in the butt. I made reservations through OpenTable; it's one of very few local joints listed on the site. (We need more cool places, less chains.) Young crowd, not family-friendly. Lots of well-to-do types and wannabes with their martinis... and then there are dorks like us, that stick out like a sore thumb. :P I took E out this time, and he reciprocated with dessert at our favorite ice-cream shop around the corner. Yummy!

Street art

Neato!! 3D sidewalk art by Julian Beever. I wish I could see one of these in person.