April 24th, 2008 nick
We hit up Yabba Pot last night for dinner. Best vegan buffet in Baltimore, without a doubt. The only one? Perhaps. It was the fastest date night on record, as the food was ready when we got there, they just had to dish up some plantains, fried tofu, gooey spinach stuff, garbanzo bean curry, etc… into a big bowl. The food was tasty but not great. Definitely a good place to swing by for a quick bite, though. Although it did seem to be a little expensive. $15 for the Royal Platter of 5 dishes, plus $2 for rice. This barely filled us both up.
Also, we both got ginger juice. It was strong! Johanna didn’t finish hers. A better plan would have been to get one juice and dilute it with some water. Next time…
To top it off, the woman behind us in line was Maria Bloom, the actress who plays Marla Daniels (Cedric’s wife) on the Wire. Our first Wire sighting!
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April 24th, 2008 nick
On my way to the shuttle today, the new leaves were rustling in the trees above Stoney Run Creek. A sure sign that the nice long warm Baltimore spring is here. Yesterday a few tomato seedlings (one cherry, one slicer) found homes in two pots outside. They will hopefully benefit from soil enriched by half a 5-gallon bucket of worm compost that I harvested from the bottom tier of the composting system. In going through the “finished” compost, I noticed that some squash seeds, the woody tip of a butternut squash, and the reedy stalks of some old basil plants hadn’t made much decomposition progress. So we may have a bumper crop of squash this year. Taking my sister’s advice, I covered the soil of the tomatoes with white plastic. She says this will help keep the soil moist and will generate more light for the plants. She said that red plastic might even work better (??) but we only had some white stuff lying around.
Had a fun weekend playing in a coed tournament with Johanna (maybe our only tournament together this year) and a bunch of other Carleton grads. I hadn’t played with any of the Syzygy folks (all younger) so it was nice to get to meet them. They’re good! We did pretty well, considering we didn’t know each other at all before, only losing to established teams from last year. In my one chance to toss a nice huck to Johanna, I tossed it way too far. Need to work on my hucks, although I felt like my mid-range throws were accurate and strong.
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April 17th, 2008 nick
Along with the usual siege of herons along Wyman Park creek, another few couples are setting up shop above San Martin Drive right along my way to the shuttle every morning. I counted five there today, two nests. I chatted with the crossing guard who says “he’s turned into a birder” just from sitting in the little security booth a stone’s throw from the nests. Apparently there’s a hawk nest just up the road too — he says it’s a red tail. The woman on the path a few days ago said they are red-shouldered hawks.
The heron nests are literally right above the road. In the woods, the ground beneath the nest is always a nice shade of white. I can’t wait to see the schmutsky raining down on the cars.
The peas are up and are starting to crawl up the twine I’ve put up for them. They ended up coming in a little thick, so we may chop down some to eat as pea shoots. Additionally, this hedges our bets against losing the peas to the heat before we’ve gotten many peas, as has happened in the last two years. I’m planning on transplanting the cherry tomatoes outdoors pretty soon. The larger Rose de Burnes I’m going to wait on a little bit longer because they are growing less quickly (the package says it takes them 80 days vs 60 for the cherry tomatoes to bear fruit).
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April 14th, 2008 nick
On Friday, I passed my schoolwide oral exams. My official status is now “all but dissertation.” Despite the official JHSPH Happy Hour being canceled on Friday (how could they do this to me?) we went to Owl Bar and had fancy bar fare and a few beers. Afterwards, Jessie and Patrick and I walked back up to Hampden along Falls Road in the warmth of our first real 70-plus spring day. We saw three of the herons cruising along the creek.
Both Johanna and I went out to the Bad Influence pick-up/tryout on Saturday in Catonsville. It was a good time. Some solid players coming out of the woodwork. Then, we went to the Asian food plaza and the H-MART Asian grocery (when in Catonsville…). An interesting mix of people at the grocery store — both Johanna and I were aware of a striking amount of authentic diversity. Asians, blacks, middle-easterns and whites. Everyone there to just get some cheap groceries. I wish I kept better track of prices at our local stores, because I didn’t have a good sense of whether stuff was really cheaper there or not. But the selection of international foods is far superior to anything we can find in Hampden. There were at least four different kinds of Bok Choy-looking veggies in stock.
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April 7th, 2008 nick
The herons are back in Wyman Park. I saw six of them at once earlier this week. Today three four were hunkering down in the cool grey drizzle.
Kroody’s old Peugeot kicked the bucket this last week. The long piece that runs parallel to the chain snapped off clean at a joint. The frame is done. I’ll probably salvage whatever parts I can and maybe start fixing up the Mazzie — Johanna’s old fixie — to be my primary rider.
We finished the heart-breaking second season of the Wire tonight. We’re still getting used to (most of ) the bad guys actually getting away or getting off easy.
When will the Sox start winning?
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