I’m about to head out of town and while I can’t seem to get Viddler to cooperate and give me the embeddable code for the latest Fork You video (I’m sure this is a result of my own ineptitude) I still want to post about it before I leave.  So go check out this video, in which Scott and I take a Super Taster Test and I discover that I am a non-taster.  Scott labels me as a loser (literally) and I pretend to cry.  And a good time is had by all.

Also, if you are curious about what I did last Saturday besides drive down to Washington, DC, go check out my post about the Great Expectations community forum I attended as a observant blogger/citizen journalist.  It’s up at the Metblog and at the Great Expectations blog.

And now, I’m off to New York, sans computer.  Good weekend wishes to you all!

Lately, my blogging around these parts has been nothing more than the digital equivalent of a lick and a promise. I dash in, quickly write a brief summary of what I’ve been up to lately, offer pictures instead of prose and run out again. I imagine the blog feels a little like my mother did when I was in high school and essentially only came home to sleep, eat and shower.

I’ve been spending a little time looking at my life lately and realized that despite the inner turmoil I’m dealing with on a daily basis about what happens when I graduate in December, things are looking pretty good. And most of it has stemmed from this blog in some way. I originally started the blog as a place to write about my search for work that made me happy. In the process of writing about my pursuit of a path, I discovered that the pursuit was turning into the path. Then I started to write about food and it all started to click.

So many of the friends I have these days first entered my life through blogger events (meetups and BlogPhilly, mostly). Without blogging, I wouldn’t have become friends with Scott and never would have starting making Fork You (I like to think that we’re making the world a better place for eaters, one recipe at a time). I even found love through blogging, short-lived thought it was.

All of this is to say that I appreciate my blog (and it’s steadfast readers. Hi mom!) and all of the wonderful experiences I’ve had because of it. I appreciate my life. And despite the uncertainty I feel about what happens next in life, I’m happy to have walked this path and to be here now.

Check out this episode of Fork You, in which we make the meatloaf of my childhood in honor of National Meatloaf Appreciation Day on October 18th (and Scott denies the possibility that anything with that much vegetal content could be called meatloaf). Also in this entertaining ten minutes is a brief appearance by my sister and John Elliott, performing a rousing rendition of Meatloaf’s classic power ballad, “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).”

This last weekend, I drove down to Washington, DC to visit Cindy.  I hadn’t been to see her since she relocated down that way in July.  I didn’t get down there until sometime after 7 pm on Saturday night.  Traffic was stop and go for the last 40 minutes, during which time my car started making a funny noise and the 20 ounce coffee I had consumed began to demand to be released.  It was not the most comfy I had been in recent days.

We met up for dinner Saturday night with another friend who also recently relocated to DC.  We sat in an Indian restaurant in Cleveland Park, talking, laughing and emptying a bottle of wine until they started cleaning the restaurant around us.

Sunday morning I took a shower while Cindy took apart her bed frame so we could return it JC Penny’s.  My car magically repaired itself overnight (I think it just needed a rest) and getting them to take the frame back was amazingly easy (she had called before hand and had gotten it logged into their system).  Then we did what we often did when she still lived in Philly.  We spent the rest of the day visiting thriftstores.

I haven’t been spending much time at thriftstores recently as I was trying to pare down my possessions (anyone who has been in my apartment recently will probably be looking quizzically at their computer, because Apt. 2024 looks as full as ever.  However, I swear there’s less stuff around here than there used to be).  So it was time for a hit of the sweet, sweet crack that is rooting around in a vast warehouse of used goods.  I got two new (to me) pairs of jeans, shiny red pants perfect for holiday parties (someone needs to have a holiday party now), multiple black sweaters, a tower of books and some assorted kitchen items (just what I need).  It was really fun.

Back in Philly, I woke up this morning with potential beginnings of a cold.  I took a bunch of vitamin C today and tried to work.  Focus was hard to come by and I ended up taking a two hour nap instead, only waking up at 5 pm because my roommate came home and caught me asleep on the couch.  I’m hoping that the day of rest will leave me productive and with a functional brain for tomorrow.

I’ve been immersed in the thesis quite a bit again lately, but sent off the latest essay earlier today, just in time to hang out with some of my favorite Indy Hall folks at National Mechanics. I had a terrific veggie burger for dinner and even had the opportunity to taste vodka that had been infused with bacon (there will be more on that over at Slashfood very soon).  I also, just by chance, got to meet E from Foodaphilia who happened to be there eating dinner with some friends.  She recognized me from Fork You and came over to say hi.  It’s fun to be a celebrity.  (Read that last sentence with a strong dose of sarcasm).

Today was actually quite a strange day in the life of this blog. About a month ago, I put up a post over at Slashfood about the No-Knead Bread that was all the rage in foodie blog circles. In that post I referenced my own post about that bread that I had written last January.  For some crazy reason, both Lifehacker and MSNBC’s Clicked blog linked to my old No-Knead Bread post today.  This meant that instead of my normal 60-70 hits a day, I got more than 2,500 today.  All for a ten-month-old post.  The internet gods are strange and mercurial beings.

The next two months are going to be chock full of Fork You. In this latest installment we got schooled in the art of making coffee by Erica Hess, the coffee educator from Peet’s Coffee. She gave us a taste of one of the world’s most expensive coffees and showed Scott the proper way to plunge. Somehow I didn’t say much in this episode, I must have just been transfixed by the excellent coffee.

My apartment always feels so empty and quiet after she leaves. She has been this way since birth, always bringing great energy to any place she inhabits. It can be overwhelming while you’re having the experience of her, but when she’s gone, the straightened couch pillows and clear surfaces don’t seem nearly as appealing as the vibrancy of life that she had brought.

In addition to my sister’s visit, there were other things to celebrate this last weekend and I photographed them extensively (it’s a sickness). I put together a somewhat edited set of pictures from Thad and Angie’s wedding (Scott’s pictures are also worth a gander if you know the happy couple and want to see more). Next comes a totally unedited set of pictures from Una and Andy’s wedding celebration (the beach at sunset is such an amazing place to take pictures). Last comes pictures of Raina and John, doing their thing at the church. They performed for hours and impressed me with the ease that they have together on stage. Those of you who didn’t come out really missed an amazing show.

Edited to add: I just discovered that Roz has a set of pictures of Thad and Angie’s wedding up as well. Oops, I don’t know how I missed that! Especially since there are few good ones of me in there.

I went to bed last night with one of those headaches that prevents you from doing anything other than lay quietly in a darkened room and pray for unconsciousness.  It started coming on towards the end of my class and increased in power when I walked outside and discovered a $30 parking ticket tucked neatly under my windshield wipers.  When I pulled into my building’s garage, Mamadou, the parking attendant who has become a friend, took one look at me and said, “Are you okay?”  There was concern written all over his face.  I mentioned the headache and the ticket and headed upstairs to my apartment.

The one benefit that I’ve found to getting a powerful headache is that they often bring with them extra-vivid dreams.  Last night I dreamt that I was thinking about moving back to Walla Walla, but the only house I could afford was one that sat 10 feet from an active train line.  A noisy and dangerous location, especially since in the dream I was pregnant.  It was an appealing little house except for that one issue and in the dream I was seriously considering getting it.  I felt like it was my only option and that it would be better to settle for something that wasn’t ideal than wait for what I really wanted.

Later I dreamt that I went to get ice cream and found myself at a shack that advertised itself as self-serve.  The bins of ice cream were brightly colored in hues that are not typically found in nature.  As I walked around with my cone and scoop, I discovered that I couldn’t actually reach the ice cream.  Each time I reached for it, it moved further away.  I found myself teetering on the edge of the freezer, leaning so far over that I nearly plunged head-first into the cardboard barrels of ice cream.  Finally my dad appeared at the door and called for me to come and join him outside.  He pointed at the cup that was in my hand and said, “Look, you already have your ice cream.  Why do you want that other crap?”  I looked down and realized that I was holding an overflowing pint of delicious butter pecan.

Sometimes the meanings of my dreams are hard to decipher but these two seem pretty darn clear to me.  Don’t settle for things that aren’t quite right because I think that’s all I’m going to be able to get and remember that I already have what I need.  I am amused, however, that my subconscious chose to remind me of that fact using food as the meaningful object.

Check it out! A new episode of Fork You is finally ready for public consumption. We took an inadvertent break from posting episodes during the month of September as life has a way of interfering with podcast schedules. But now we’re back and planning on posting a show every week for the next two months! Prepare yourself!

I am sitting in the Kansas City, Missouri International Airport (I do love an airport with free wifi), waiting for my 6 am flight back to Philly. I stayed in a Hampton Inn last night, going to bed too late to possibly get a good night’s sleep and then waking up every half hour, certain that I’d slept through my alarm and had missed my flight. When I woke with a jolt at 4 am, out of a dream in which I had been out to dinner with two couples I don’t know and was eating some strange fried sushi appetizer, I decided to give up on sleep and just get up.

When I checked in last night, the woman at the desk told me that I needed to sign up for a shuttle slot, as they filled up quickly.  When I went downstairs this morning, a couple of minutes before 4:30 am, the shuttle driver looked at me and said, “Looks like you’re the only one this run.  Take your time getting some coffee.” The drive was all of eight minutes and we spent it chatting about regional accents and the uproar in Kansas City about the proposed plan to replace the airport with something slicker and less approachable.

I spent most of my time out here in the Midwest in Ames, IA, leading a Unitarian Universalist Campus Ministry workshop.  I had a terrific time, it’s always fun for me to tell groups of students what I know about doing UU campus ministry, especially when they have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for the community they are building.

Last night, as Sherry and I were driving back to Kansas City from Ames, the sun was setting on our right.  I don’t often get to see dramatic sunsets in a setting where the horizon is nearly uninterrupted by city.  I watched that cloud move with us for the longest time, sometimes looking like it was galloping across the sky and other times seeming like it was being blown away.  I kept looking at it, thinking its presence would be fleeting and that I wouldn’t have time to get a picture of it, so I wouldn’t reach for my camera.  After ten minutes it was still there and so I grabbed a couple of shots.  Soon after I pulled the camera out, three deer showed up running along side the highway.  Sherry came to a halt in the middle of the interstate as two of them dashed across to the other side.  Unfortunately, my camera’s settings weren’t quite right so all I got was a blur where deer should have been.  I hope the third deer made it across without injury.

It’s been nice to get out of my routine, to get off the east coast and out of the big city.  I always like coming to the Midwest, where people are less guarded and more willing to interact with strangers.