At long last, Art Experiment II!

My sister sent me a sequel art experiment way back in March, and it's been sitting on my desk ever since, waiting to adorn a pair of awfully boring closet doors. Tonight, at last, it sprang into being! I didn't think it was going to be so similar to the first one. I guess that's just how my mind works.



Here's the first one again...

Successful arrival in MN

Studied hard on Monday and Tuesday, took my two finals on Wednesday, packed, played ultimate, slept a little, and then took off for Minnesota! I arrived on Thursday afternoon and went straight to a pedicure appointment with my mom and her sister Kathy. I got magenta, to match my dress. Hung out Chez Aunt Kathy for a few hours before heading over to Aunt Mary's house for my wedding shower. It was wonderful - my aunts did a beautiful job - and it was great to see everyone - Abby & Alissa, Eli, Lisa and Anna, Mary Ellen, Sarah, Eva. Big thanks to everyone - I had such a good time!

Lisa & I:

Aunt Mary Alice (my godmother), Eva & Mary Ellen (Mom's cousins), Aunt Kathy (Mom's sister):

Me, my two fabulous Bundt pans, Abby and Alissa!

Mom, Aunt Mary, me, Aunt Kathy:

Photos from the past week (hiking & quilting)

We'd planned on doing some hiking in the Sierras over Memorial Day weekend (just Sunday - Monday), but arrived to find that it was still too snowy. Even the road to the campground we wanted to stay at was impassable. We hiked across a little snow to get to the top of a ridge, and then hiked to the top of a different hill where there was a fire watchtower.


We drove into the foothills and found a great campsite on a lake. We ate some chocolate-covered coffee beans and then set off on a hike around the lake. No trail, just scrambling over boulders and picking our way along tree roots. It was warm enough for me to take a dip! (Only the dogs joined me though, none of my human companions.)


Lentils, TVP, coconut milk and veggies for dinner - yum.

We took a 6.8 mile hike along the South Yuba River on Monday. I was diappointed that so much of the trail was so high above the river, but it was definitely nice to be out. We got to have lunch on the beach, so I got to take another swim. The water was cold (as cold as Lake Superior), so I didn't stay in long.


Yay Memorial Day!

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent studying for an orgo test that turned out to be not as hard as I had anticipated. Spent Wednesday afternoon giving my apartment a much-needed cleaning, then went out and played ultimate.

On Thursday and Friday, I made a quilt for Lindsay's baby! Pure coincidence that it matches the lilies so nicely.

Uganda update

I got to talk to Scott this morning! It was a really terrible connection, though, and we couldn't understand a lot of what the other person was saying. Still, it was great to hear his voice. We've been chatting online quite a bit, which helps a lot. He says the people he's working with are wonderful, and yesterday he got to go out and test his survey questions - apparently they learned a ton from visiting just three families, which was good since the supervisor he was with has malaria and the medication he was on meant he wasn't feeling very well. Tomorrow he's off to a field day, where farmers and agricultural extention agents get together to share knowledge. These events don't happen very often, so he feels pretty lucky that one's happening while he's there.

(Scott - I hope this is mostly accurate... you can post corrections in the comments section!)

Aside: In Scott's absence, I've learned just how much I depend on him to do dishes. I don't mind cooking OR cleaning up afterwards, but it's such a chore to have to do both!

Bachelorette Days

Lots going on, mostly good!

Last Friday, Kelly hosted a bachelorette party for Katie and I. The drink of the night was the O Fizz (O because it was in Oprah's magazine), which went down very easy. We played one silly bachelorette game and ate Myra's beautiful strawberry rhubarb pie and then went out dancing! Excellent night - many thanks to the hostess!

On Saturday, Scott left for his bachelor camping trip, and I left for a birthday party on a ranch. The trip out was longer than expected (because at 5am that morning, a FedEx truck carrying a load of fertilizer had overturned and exploded... amazing to see the charred asphalt and the skeleton of the truck, and even more amazing that the driver wasn't injured! Anyways, the highway was down to one lane... long drive). So the first thing we did upon arrival was jump into the swimming pond. We didn't really leave the vicinity for the rest of the weekend. We played croquet, and then jumped in the pond, and then got a tour of the ranch, and then jumped in the pond, and then grilled dinner, and then jumped in the pond. When it got dark, we had a pond-side fire complete with s'mores, and then we went to sleep there. I jumped in the pond before breakfast on Sunday morning. Many, many thanks to Tyler for hosting!

Robert, having artfully caught a disc, jumps into the pond:

In one of the barns:


Scott left for Uganda first thing on Monday morning. I dropped him off at the train station at 5:30 am and tried not to mope too much the rest of the day. I'm pretty sure this is the longest I've ever lived alone, and it felt really empty around here at first. Fortunately, I've got lots of stuff to keep me busy and happy:

1. Lots of friends, and plenty of "call me if you get lonely and want to hang out" invitations. (I get to have dinner with Lindsay & Nathan on Friday!)

2. MCAT studying. I'm going to take the sucker in August, so I'm trying to get myself to study for a few hours each day. Good thing the book starts with physics - I always like doing physics problems.

3. CrossFit. As the "fitness coordinator" for Night Train this year, it's my job to get my teammates in shape for the ultimate season. Now that there's a CrossFit gym in Davis (hooray!), I figured it would be cool to organize a group to train there together. And it turns out my teammates think it would be cool too! We'll start up next week, and it looks like we'll have about 10 people. I'm super psyched - this is going to be fun.

4. Scott's good-bye gifts. They include coconut sorbet and dark chocolate. But I think my favorite item is the bouquet of lilies. They were mostly closed up when he gave them to me, but every day a few more burst open - they're bright pink and glamorous and they smell amazing. Lilies are my favorite flowers, and these are some of the nicest I've ever seen.


5. Good food. I bought quail eggs from the meat lab last week, because they were out of chicken eggs. Quail eggs are adorable. They're kind of a pain to crack, and they don't taste any different than chicken eggs, but once you get them fried up and served on toast, there's nothing cuter. My favorite snack (and dessert) these days is homemade yogurt + homemade rhubarb sauce + granola. Now that yogurt is so cheap to make, I feel like I don't have to ration my consumption. The rhubarb sauce includes bluberries, ginger and a little sugar and lemon juice, and I bet it would taste good over coconut sorbet.


6. Tickets to Seattle. Potlatch, one of the biggest, coolest ultimate tournaments in the world, is just six weeks away, and last night I bought Scott's and my plane tickets!

Odds & Ends

I finally found a yogurt recipe that works! Heat your milk to 180-190F, let it cool to 115-120F, stir in some yogurt, wrap everything up in a towel to insulate it, and let it sit for a few hours. (The recipe says 4 hours should do it, but I let mine go all night.) It's tasty and definitely cheaper than store-bought. Next time, I'm going to strain it (so that it gets even thicker) and use the protein-rich whey to make bread.

Speaking of bread, I have a loaf of whole wheat beer bread in the oven right now. We bought some "barley wine style" beer that was a little too sweet for our palattes, but I'm guessing it will be fantastic in bread. (In the recipe above, I delete the sugar and add random spices. Black pepper and rosemary tonight.)

Other stuff...
This weekend was the Whole Earth Festival at UC Davis, which means a whole bunch of hippies come and hang out. There are a bunch of booths selling arts and crafts, good vegetarian food, and six different stages offering all kinds of music and perfomances. It's a wonderful atmosphere - peace, love, sustainability, sunshine. Some highlights:
1. Scott and I talked to a potter from Eugene, OR who's going to make our wedding dinnerware for us! His work is gorgeous, and we're really excited. (We tried shopping for dinnerware at the big box stores, and it was completely boring and uninspiring. Not sure what we'll do for flatware... let me know if you have suggestions.)
2. This morning we got to watch the UCD gamelan orchestra perform. It's this neat music from West Java, and the entire orchestra (various gongs and xylophone sorts of things) is created as a set, and tuned to the rest of the orchestra. (You can't take a gong from my set and play it with your set, because it would be completely out of tune.) I had no idea UCD had an orchestra! Neat to see it live.
3. Last night, we saw LYNX & Janover, who do hip-hop music with lots of odd bits - turns out Janover is an excellent hammered dulcimer plaer, and it turns out that hammered dulcimer sounds really cool in hip-hop!

Scott and I finally planted our garden yesterday morning. Corn, beans and squash (planted all together), 10 tomato plants, 2 eggplants, 2 peppers, 1 strawberry, some basil, some potatoes (they were sprouting under our sink, so we threw them in the ground to see what happens), some carrots and some flowers. Our little patio herb garden is starting to show some signs of life, but I think it needs a bunch of compost and more sun. If we can get a few flowers or a little basil out there, it will be worth it.

Scott bought his ticket to Uganda - he's leaving in a week and will be gone for about a month. I'll finish the quarter, spend a week in MN and thencome back and start summer session in that time. Hopefully that will be enough stuff to keep me from pining too much.

A CrossFit gym just opened in Davis, and I went to my first class last week. It's totally addictive, and I can't wait to go back!

That's enough for now. The bread is starting to smell good...

Scott's 10,000th birthday celebration (+ some aftermath)

We hosted a birthday potluck for Scott on Saturday. He turned 32, which is an okay age, but it gets more exciting when you remember that 32 = 2x2x2x2x2 = 2^5, which is 10,000 in binary. I bought him a binary clock, and I told people to dress in black and white, or to bring black and white food. (You know, binary... a dichotomous system... black and white... it sort of makes sense, right?)

It was a very good opportunity for me to try out a "zebra cake" recipe I'd discovered. Here it is before going into the oven...
...and here they are on the cooling rack - still looking nice and stripe-y!

The true test, of course, is what the inside looks like. Success!


OK, I lied. The true test is how it tastes, and on that front I was disappointed. The chocolate layers weren't all that interesting, and the whole thing was too dense. (Maybe because I ran out of oil and had to fill in with some yogurt? Or maybe because I didn't measure my ingredients very well?) In any case, it was fun to look at, and Ivona brought some tiramisu, and Mel brought brownies, so we were well taken care of in the dessert department.

I also made 4 loaves of Mark Bittman's flatbread (easy and tasty), some hummus and some beet-ginger-cream cheese-yogurt puree - a recipe I made up a few weeks ago and love because it's bright pink and gingery.

All in all, a good party - fun mix of guests, good food, good cheer!

The aftermath came on Sunday night, when Scott and I got sick with a stomach bug. A few of our guests were struck by a similar fate, so we assume something nasty transpired at the potluck. (Apologies to our sick friends.) After a sleepless Sunday night, we were exhausted and dehydrated on Monday, so we laid very, very low. Poor Scott had it much worse than me. I managed to go to lecture and lab, but besides that we napped and sipped Gatorade. Tuesday was better - on to solid foods, cramming for an o-chem midterm even my daily ration of push-ups and pull-ups. My stomach is much less gurgly today, but I bet half of that is due to the fact that my midterm is over (took it at 1pm today), so there's no chemistry-related queasiness left.

Looking forward to two more recovery days, and then we're off to Ashland, Oregon for an ultimate tournament!

Friday afternoon in my backyard

The herbs we planted last weekend are starting to sprout! Kids are running around in swimsuits (except for one girl who's running around in a fairy costume). They're laying out beach towels, leaping off the picnic table and playing with a gigantic beach ball that's connected to the hose and sprays water out. (It looks pretty fun!) Summer is definitely around the quarter.

Meanwhile, back in Davis...

Classes
I'm a good three weeks into spring quarter now, and so far it's promising to be much more relaxed than winter quarter. I'm taking just two classes instead of four: biochemistry and organic chemistry. As the names indicate, there's a lot of overlap between the two classes, which I really like. Biochem, which is in the biology department, starts at the cellular level and breaks things down into their chemical components. O. chem (chem department) does exactly the opposite. They're both upper level classes, which means less busy work and more engaged classmates. Good stuff.

More Academics
I finally found out that I've officially been accepted into UC Davis's Nutritional Biology Master's program! I'll start in the fall, and I'll get to do research on the genetics of obesity. This program has a great reputation, and I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot. I can't wait!

Fun Classes
1. I'm taking a beginning stained glass class at the Craft Center. I've been interested in learning how to make stained glass pieces since I got into quilting and started thinking about how neat some of the quilt patterns would look in glass. I've only had one class so far, so not much to show for it, but I'll post project pictures along the way!

2. Scott and I signed up for an AcroYoga class through the Experimental College. Last week (our first class), we learned how to do "folded leaf" and a few variations, like this one:

The class is held outdoors, on a lawn in the Arboretum. It's really nice to practice yoga outside.

Ultimate
Coaching is over for now, and playing is just starting up!

This weekend I coached the UCD women's B team at Sectionals, and it was an honor. Despite starting off with a small roster that grew ever smaller over the weekend (1 concussion, 1 case of heat exhaustion, 1 case of heat exhaustion + flu-like virus complete with a fever), the Pleides played with great physical and mental intensity all weekend. They were still running strong through the last point of the last game on Sunday, with high spirits. It was obvious to everyone how hard they've worked this year. Bravi Pleides!

My team isn't practicing yet, but we're getting together once a week to scrimmage, and we're starting to get in shape after the winter hibernation. I get to be the team's "Fitness Coordinator" this season, which means coming up with workouts for people to do outside of practice. A new role, and one that I'm pretty excited about.

Dancing!
Last weekend, Scott's department held the first ever "Epsilon Ball" - an econ term morphed into a silly semi-formal. We got dressed up, slightly liquored up, and danced the night away. And, like any good semi-formal, there were posed photos in front of a cheesy backdrop.

The spring break quartet: Kelly (pretending to climb), Flynn (belaying), me (in awe of Kelly's awesomeness?) and Scott (conquering viking)

Scott and I were inspired to do push-ups:

Lisa definitely gets the prize for best dress.

Nathan and Lindsay get cutest couple.

Scott gets best necktie. He was wearing a cool wooden one he inherited from his grandfather.

Fools Fest 2009

I got back from spring break camping, spent a few days doing all those life chores that got pushed aside during the end of winter quarter, and then started spring quarter on Monday! By Thursday night I was off again, this time to the East Coast for a fantastic tournament in Fredericksburg, VA: Fools Fest.

"It is currently the longest consectutive running tournament in Ultimate (30 years and still going strong) and plays host to roughly 1,000 players and spectators each year."

I got to hang out with tons of friends from DC and from college.

Here's my team, the Wellesley Whiptails:

We are talented in many ways.

Fools is great because there's competitive ultimate and tons of spirit. For example, here's someone dressed up as a Campbell's soup can. I think she's wearing pink bunny ears too.

There's a beer garden, where someone convinced me to take a shot of honey - straight from the bear.

Not recommended.

Overly-dramatic defense:

Jess kindly helped out with my daily dose of push-ups.

We didn't win any games, but I'm definitely glad I went - that many fantastic people concentrated in one place at one time is not to be missed!

(And, just for fun, here's one from Fool's Fest 2006!)

Spring break recap

Man, last time I blogged here was during finals week of winter quarter, which feels like about a million years ago now. Here are some updates!

First things first - finals went just fine, and on Saturday night I finally got to celebrate my birthday with a romantic dinner out with Scott. On Sunday, we left for our spring break camping trip!


Flynn and Kelly (above) very generously let Scott and I glom on to their trip, and they made excellent traveling companions! We had the most gourmet meals in the entire campground, and they were good at the alphabet game ("OK, let's do insects this time! Ant, butterfly, cockroach...")

Sunday was mostly a packing, traveling and setting-up-camp day. We arrived in Big Basin in the afternoon and parked our stuff at a campsite, but we still had time for a short hike through the redwoods before it got dark out. It felt so nice to be out in the woods.


Monday we went on a longer hike (12 miles?) and saw some really gorgeous waterfalls. Our guidebook said it's one of the nicest hikes in the Bay Area, and we were not disappointed. We were even inspired to do push-ups at Berry Falls.


Tuesday we got to go see the Ano Nuevo elephant seals in the morning. The breeding season is over, so the males were gone, but we did see some young pups ("weaners") learning to swim in a little tidal river, and we saw some adult females up on the beach molting.

We learned that elephant seals' closest relatives are grizzly bears.  Here are the two skulls (bear on the left, seal on the right... I think).

Ano Nuevo happens to straddle a fault line between two major plates (North American and Pacific).  Scott generously held the two plates together so that we could safely cross.

In the afternoon, we went to Castle Rock, a park very close to Big Basin, and did a little bit of bouldering.

Wednesday we went back to Castle Rock and set up top ropes for some longer climbs.  There's an observation deck conveniently located at the top of a waterfall, so the climber could just rapelle to the bottom and then climb up right next to the water.  Here's Flynn belaying Kelly:


We bouldered some more, found a sombrero and got a little bit lost.



Thursday was another beautiful long-ish hike. Flynn had to leave to go to a wedding, so she dropped us off at the beach on her way out and we hiked back to Big Basin HQ (where Kelly's car was parked). We saw tons of wildflowers and wildlife (salamanders, lizards, banana slugs, birds).

Good weather, good food, and I couldn't have asked for nicer traveling companions!

What I really want for my birthday...

...is a parallel universe, so that I have time to go out for romantic dinners with Scott. We got some "treat yourself to something nice" cash for Valentine's Day and still haven't had an unscheduled night to go out for dinner together!

If you get me a parallel universe, I'd also use it for frisbee tournaments... especially ones with Scott (but I'd let you be on my team too!). (Scott got to play today, but I had to stay home and do homework. The weekend of Fool's Fest, there are at least three teams that I'd like to play with... one in DC with Wellesley alums, one in CA with Scott & Night Train, and another one in CA with fun ladies.)

I'd probably use it for cooking desserts too, which I'd be happy to share with anyone who chipped in for said parallel universe. Seems like a win-win situation, right?

Happi Pi Day!

I'm off to a one-day tournament today! I'm excited to see my Night Train teammates again, and I'm excited to get outside and run around a bunch. And I'm excited that I get to wear my Pi jersey! (I used to play for a frisbee team called Pi.)

Last week was good and busy. I spent Wednesday through Friday being recruited by the Nutrition Department. Nothing is 100% settled yet, so I'm hesitant to say too much about it, but I'm pretty sure that I'll be starting as a Master's student next fall! I'm glad I got to attend recruitment - it clarified my thinking about what I want to get out of this program, and I got to meet some very nice faculty members and students. Plus they took us out to dinner at Bistro 33, which is one of my favorite places in Davis. (Not as romantic without Scott there, but still nice!)

Last week was made even busier because it was the last week of the quarter. Despite a full two days of homework last weekend, and being diligent about getting HW done during gaps in my schedule this week, I'm still feeling behind and a little stressed for finals.

Fortunately, they're spaced out well:
Monday - last day of class
Tuesday - studystudystudy
Wednesday - general chem final
Thursday (my birthday!) - bio final
Friday - organic chemistry final
Saturday (6-8pm) - genetics final

I'm glad I've only got one final per day, but I'm pretty impatient for 8pm next Saturday to roll around! On Sunday, we'll be heading south on a camping trip. One day at a time... it will be over before I know it, right? In any case, I'm celebrating Pi Day by thinking about coursework as little as possible and about flying discs as much as possible. 3.14159...!!!

Quick update

1. The Saab saga continues! The bracket that holds the alternator in place had cracked, and a replacement was not to be found in the junkyard, so John had to special order it. Hopefully we'll get our car back today or tomorrow!

2. We spent last weekend in Santa Cruz with Nina, Sibley, Nate, Jess and other cool people. It was pretty dry on Saturday, so we got to take a nice walk on the beach and climb up to the treehouse. But Sunday was very wet and windy - too stormy to go through with the bonfire as planned. Plan B, B for Boardgames, was an excellent alternative. Settlers of Catan, Mafia, Munchkin, good stuff. And plenty of good food and wine to boot!

3. I had a biology midterm on Wednesday, so spent most of Monday and Tuesday cramming for it. I think it went well.

4. As soon as I got out of my midterm, I gave my long-neglected bike some much-deserved love. I cleaned and oiled the chain, and I polished up the gears. I tried using dental floss, but it wasn't strong enough, so I ended up using a bamboo skewer to pick away all the layers of crud. (I really wish I had a set of dental tools!) It rides like a dream now.

5. I finally used up the last of our 14-pound turkey - the one that Scott bought right after Thanksgiving for $5 and the remains of which have been lingering in our freezer. I made a beautiful turkey wild rice hotdish with it.

6. Scott and I are going climbing tonight, and will probably have a date night tomorrow night, but the weekend will be full of writing for him and midterm studying for me. Pretty crazy how quickly the quarter is going by.

I got to ride in a tow truck today!

The Saab saga continues... I was on my way to visit my hospice patient this morning - driving instead of biking, since I had my violin along and was planning to play for her. I noticed the radio acting funny - it got very quiet and then turned off by itself. Then my turn signal stopped blinking. And then the whole car started sounding weak. I decided I'd head back home and save my visit for another day, but at the very next intersection, while I was waiting in the left turn lane, the old panzer died. A very good samaritan let me borrow his phone to call Scott (I'd forgotten mine, of course), and he helped me push it to a curb. Scott called a tow truck to take the Saab to our trusty mechanic John. John looked a little nervous when he saw it come in - he had just installed a new clutch, so he was relieved when I told him the clutch was fine and it was probably the alternator.

Napping!

I had a lovely, relaxing weekend. Watched Battlestar Galactica on Saturday night with friends. Dim sum in Sacramento on Sunday, and dinner and games at Brian & Marion's house on Sunday night. Played some pickup on Saturday morning, took a nice afternoon nap on Sunday. But I'm tired today! I went home at 1pm and took a solid nap, despite the jackhammers working right outside my window! Glad I live close enough so that I can go home between classes and nap.