Furthering the food exploration

I am continuing to be in the midst of how food and my body are connected to my spirituality: the process of cooking, the consuming of good food, and the sharing of a meal with others.  I'm about a third of the way through the book, The Spirit of Food, which has been excellent so far, despite my lack of writing about it.  But I came across a pleasant surprise on my NPR feed today that I wanted to share (it's short - so you have no excuse not to read it!):

"A Psychoanalyst Calls for Eating with 'Culinary Mindfulness'"

In the beginning there was dance.  The Spirit of God hovered over the water.  The author of all creation danced with the Spirit and the Word, which sang let there be light, there there be...let there be...Divine, everlasting community said let us create adam - earth creature - male and female, in our image, reflecting our creative, communal dance with one another and it was so.  An entire interrelational universe freely became through the power of persuasive, divine, creative, loving community, integrating spirit and matter, and it was good.


Karen Baker-Fletcher, Dancing with God

New Additions

Our landlords are going to hate us when they see our apartment.  But I will still hold to the fact that the tenets below us have a freaking hammock hanging from their ceiling - so nothing we do to our walls could be that bad.

 Bought some amazing brackets from Anthropologie.

 T's pretty darn cute when he's concentrating.

 Love this.

 1 bracket.

 2 bracket.

 3 bracket.

Olé!

 Gorgeous, right??

 Almost finished product!  + our prized Van Gogh

snagged at the ever-reliable Goodwill

So you get some context, despite the disaster in 

our apartment.

So we still have to stain the wood and figure out some other lovely things to go at one end of the shelf, but we are so excited!  We have been wanting to splash color and texture on this wall for months!

 The stain sat out overnight to dry.  Still smells this morning.

 Oh yea.

Finished product!


To quote my husband: "That is way better than some floating crap from Ikea."

Fail.

If I had lots of money...

...I would do a lot of things.  One of them would be to buy a house with enough rooms to inspire design from each of these posters.  Which would also imply that I buy each of the posters first.


This is a lovely idea.


1200 Posters: A Yearlong Poster Series About the Power of Community.

Ask 'what's possible?' not 'what's wrong?' 

Keep asking.

It's official: I'm procrastinating.

Three weeks in, first substantial assignments on the docket, and I just can't do it.  I started this term tired, I'm still tired, and I would really prefer just to whine and complain about how tired I am rather than doing any work to make my to-do list shrink.  Go figure.


So I'm going to provide some photos and stories about the past week - it was a good one (even though it made me even more tired).


**Disclaimer: most of these photos are either taken by T or Natalie.  Good job guys, real good job.


Natalie flew in last Wednesday around midnight, so Thursday was a mostly lazy day, sitting around the apartment, making good food, and taking walks around the neighborhood.  We can literally talk all day without stopping - who knew?

 Made coffee in my beautiful porcelain drip coffee maker.

 Oatmeal with fresh apples.

Stellar sandwiches loaded with almost everything in our fridge.

Thursday night, after I got off work, I met up with Natalie and some of her former co-workers at one of my favorite places in Seattle: Lucid.  This became a beloved little jazz club when Natalie and I discovered it last...Fall?  Spring?  A while ago.  I loved it so much that the House of Love took me there for my birthday.  It was very close to my house in Wallingford.  There is no cover charge to get in the club, so of course we ended up going all the time because there aren't too many places in Seattle where you can listen to good, free music.  An amazing band, The Teaching, played every Thursday, which made the experience all the more ritualistic.  Sadly, a lot has changed at Lucid since I frequented it's Thursday night jams, but it was great to be back there.

Friday was the big surprise day.  Since Natalie had flown in on Wednesday, none of our former roommates knew she was in town.  I had asked Dana and Michaela to come to my apartment for dinner on Friday night as a way to catch up since Christmas and to semi-commemorate the Christmas celebration that our house had almost exactly a year prior.  Of course they were up for all of that and, therefore, had no clue that a fourth roomie would be in our presence.  

|This was really fun.

So Natalie and I made a beastly dinner, although it was mostly Natalie, since I took a nap and then just woke up for moral support.  Stuffed mushrooms, zucchini casserole, and spinach salad - dee-lish.  

We set three place settings at the table so that Dana and MC would 

really be fooled.  Oh man, every detail. 

Our video diary before Dana and MC arrive.  

Michaela was the first to arrive and so when she buzzed up to my apartment, Natalie ran and hid in the living room closet (which has been converted into what T and I now refer to as "the man cave").  Then Dana arrived.  Dana set her bags down right in front of the closet door where Natalie was hiding; she even squatted down for a good minute or so rustling through her stuff and chatting.  It was everything I had in me not to scream, "GET AWAY FROM THERE!"  So there we were, the three of us, standing around my living room, chatting it up as if nothing were out of the ordinary.  I served them water as we were waiting for the food to finish cooking, we talked about Dana's new nose ring (!), and then got into a pretty good discussion about a painting that T and I recently purchased.  This lasted a good 15 minutes, and Natalie is waiting in the living room closet, listening to this conversation the entire time.

In order to really make this surprise epic, Natalie and I had rehearsed different ways to actually execute the surprise factor with T's help.  We talked through lots of options: she would hide in the bathtub, she would be cooking in the kitchen when Dana and MC arrived, and eventually, we decided on the man-cave as our best option.  Then we had to figure out the next step: would Natalie just open the door?  Would she start playing music in there for Dana and MC to hear?  Before they arrived, Natalie and I rehearsed a Skype scenario - trying to Skype Natalie, while Dana and Michaela would think they were Skyping with her in Atlanta.  That didn't work.  So then we decided on calling Natalie while she was in there.

So, after chatting it up with Dana and MC for 15 minutes or so, Michaela goes to open a bottle of wine before we serve the food.  I said, "Well, before we get started, I talked to Natalie yesterday and since we're commemorating the 1-year anniversary of the House of Love Christmas, I promised we would all call her since she has to miss being here.  It will really mean a lot to her."  Dana and MC were both excited about it, even both saying that they both thought about calling Natalie themselves on their way over to my apartment.  So I dial her number and put my phone on speaker.  We go through about 3 or 4 exchanges with Natalie on the phone; every time she speaks, we hear her first from the closet and then from my phone - like an echo.  

(Hello?) "Hello?" "Hi Natalie!" (Hey! What are you guys doing?) "Hey! What are you guys doing?"

The looks on Dana and Michaela's faces were priceless.  They just kept looking at the closet, then at the phone, then back at me.  I could not keep a straight face whatsoever.  Apparently, when Dana began to run over to the closet, she was in the midst of shouting, "YOU LIAR!" until she and Michaela opened the door to find their beloved friend inside.


Now, I have a video of what happened next.  Unfortunately, this blog won't let me post it because it's too long.  But honestly, I don't know that you would want to endure it.  It's literally three minutes of shrieking, squealing, laughing, hugging (over and over and over and over), a celebratory high-five or two, and then more shrieking.  It's pretty hilarious.  Needless to say, they were so shocked.  So as the night proceeded, we ate a great meal together, drank lots of wine, ingested far too much Christmas candy, told lots of stories, and played cards until about one in the morning.  It was so lovely - I could not have been happier.

There aren't too many things better than 

laughing with these three.

Saturday night was spent dining with other good friends at two of the best places in Seattle: Agua Verde and Toulouse Petit.

 Jen and I at Agua Verde: laughing, what else?

 She is quite the storyteller.  But Matt does not seem amused.

 The married's at their end of the table.

 Oh John.

 Toulouse Petit.

 A lovely incognito shot of T and I.

Natalie and Jen at Toulouse.

Sunday was a day for Pike Place Market and dinner with friends at John's house.

Negotiating her way into free, old doughnuts.

Not as delicious as we had hoped.

Best buddies.

Different kind of buddies.

Favorite phrase: "I'll Tennessee ya in my dreams!"

A meal that we could never afford at a restaurant:

chicken stuffed with feta, mushrooms, and onions; red 

pepper quinoa, and mandarin orange/apple salad with

homemade balsamic-orange dressing.

Freakin-A this pumpkin cheesecake gets me every time.  

We think we're funny.

 One of my favorite pictures ever.  Thank you, T, for 

snapping so many great shots.

Not wanting to participate.  We eventually got a good one,

that's just not as fun.

Friends!

Love.

Just a bookmark

This photo encapsulates most of my weekend.  My dearest friend, Natalie, visited Seattle after having moved back home to Atlanta in September.  

|Seattle has greatly suffered since.

Therefore, most of the weekend was spent with her and the people in this city who love her most.  This particular photo of Natalie and another House of Love roomie, Michaela,  involves a real good story, which I will share in the next day or two.  It involves surprises, closets, and lots of screaming.  I'll also be sharing many other photos and stories from this most lovely of weekends.  Unfortunately, after dropping Natalie off at the airport early this morning, then sleeping till almost noon, then spending the day with T in downtown, I forgot that I had some school work to get done before tomorrow.  


This is my attempt at justification, by telling you how I'm not really procrastinating since I'm waiting until later to tell you all of those great stories.  


I win.  I'm still a good student.