I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes

I'm off work today, of course. And no, not for Rosh Chodesh Tammuz. :-D The TigerParents are up for the weekend, and we're going to have a tremontstshul Shabbat picnic dinner at the fireworks tonight. Also, jessruth comes up tomorrow for a quick dress-fitting trip.

On Wednesday, I had my first casualty of working at a school: ( I got my car window broken!  )

I haven't heard about this anywhere other than through Goldstar Events, but I am pretty sure it might be of interest to some: Walking With Dinosaurs: The Live Experience at TD Banknorth Garden. July 16-20 only! Based on the award-winning BBC TV series! Audio-animatron-eriffic! Rawr!

hatam_soferet pointed to a really nice essay the other day on anti-procrastination. People struggling with I-can't-do-anything (especially of the depressive variety) should read it. Now. And bookmark it.

We made these for dinner the other night: Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos. "Vegetarian burritos are filled with a puree of sweet potatoes, black beans, onions, chiles, garlic, and cilantro. They are rolled up like enchiladas and baked. Serve topped with homemade salsa. From Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites (Clarkson Potter Publishers)." They actually don't taste much like sweet potatoes at all (to me); I think chipotle sauce would be a nice addition to the filling for next time (I also melted a little cheddar on top in the last 5 minutes). And the preparation method was slightly more bother than I normally would take, but I think it will be an interesting "company dinner" variation for future use.

On which note, off to lunch! Happy July 4th!

Lunchtime nattering while I eat bridgetminerva's yummy spicy chili. :-)

Lots going on, of course. Let me explain. -- No, there is too much. Let me sum up. -- No, still too much. Let me skip the recap of recent goings-on (work, shul, social, musical) and make notes about things I'm actually thinking about, instead.

Both bethr and derspatchel now have the Best of The Electric Company 4-DVD set. This should mean I get to see it soon (not the least likely outcome being that ablock will also buy it). Awesome!

Fans of my former employer, The MIT Press, will be interested to know that they have started a blog. They also have RSS feeds (available broken down by category) of their new releases. These have been syndicated to LJ as mitpresslog and mitpress_new (the complete feed), respectively. Go ye forth and enjoy. (Can blog.akpeters.com be far behind? ;-)

After rewatching A Room With A View (one of my favorite movies ever) with Tiger Boy last weekend, I am now rereading it. I'd really forgotten how wonderful it is. Not just in that vicarious-trip-to-Italy way, not just in that lovable-engaging-characters way, but in that mind-and-heart-expanding chock-full-of-Romanticist-ideas way. It actually makes me feel like my old college-era self again, the one who fell in love with Wordsworth and Shelley and Goethe and Emerson. Guess I could add that to lifecollage's call for inspirational reading.

The abovementioned entry has also introduced me to Your Money or Your Life, which I think I now have to read and integrate.

On the other hand (speaking of financial matters), I still want to buy a car, but am finding the activation energy* prohibitively high. (Yes, it'd be lovely to buy a Vespa or a bicycle instead, but I won't be able to take those on the Mass Pike every day, now, will I?) Would ideally have liked to make this happen in time to drive myself to the shul retreat March 3-5, but that looks unlikely. Grumble.

*Here's something I particularly want to know: When I do find someone selling a car I might want to buy, HOW exactly am I supposed to go about "getting it checked out by a reliable mechanic"? Say "Thanks for the test drive, now can I please borrow it for two days before I make a decision"? I am serious, I do not get this at all. Yet another sticking point.

( poll for further car advice behind the cut, because this entry is already way too long )

And now, back to the Cryptoclub.

Jonathan leaves today for South Carolina, for a week. I knew he was going to go (pilgrimage home to visit family and lick his wounds of being recently laid off) -- but turns out he's driving down, so he could pick up and go on less than 24 hours' notice. ( musings on surprising feelings of emptiness )

This aside, I'm a bit jealous of being able to hop in the car and hit the open road for a week. (Not that I'd wish to be laid off, of course, and I suppose it has to have its privileges. :-) The two of us, in particular, would have such a ball together on a 1900-mile road trip. Sometimes I think that's one of my hidden criteria for marriage: that I can only marry someone I'd be excited to make a cross-country road trip with.