snow!

Watched Strangers on a Train. Finished reading My Life in France by Julia Child.

A Three-Leaf Clover

Forgive me. I've been remiss in sharing with you our Thanksgiving culinary adventures. I should have written about how we made this delicious cranberry sauce and this delectable sweet potato casserole. Or even how we took our leftovers and made a fabulous, creamy, turkey soup. But instead, I've been recovering from a nasty cold and a case of POISON IVY. The poison is the bad part. The good part is that I'm nearly certain I got the poison while weeding our brand new garden plot - Plot 25!

Technically, we got notice that we were proud plot renters a couple of weeks ago, but with all our previous community garden drama, I hesitated to actually put in writing our success. But, weeks have passed, and no one has taken it away... so I think it's safe to claim it as ours. Below are three pictures. The first two show it at the start - an overgrown mess. The third shows our progress. We have about half of the space dug up and ready to be planted come Spring.

Keep sweeping, Martha

Watched Bedtime Stories, Funny People, New In Town, Observe and Report, Scenes From a Marriage, and Whatever Works.

i've been around the world, in the pouring rain

"Feeling out of place, really feeling strange
Take me to a place, where they know my name
Cause I ain’t met nobody that looks the same"

I've been on the road the past two weekends. One trip with Mr. Beeton and Ella. And one trip without. The premise of the first trip to Atlanta was that I was presenting a paper on blogging in the feminist, writing classroom at the National Women's Studies Association. But, in actuality, it was our wedding anniversary. So, we decided to celebrate in Georgia - the state we visited two years earlier on our honeymoon.

The first day was devoted to the conference. Our panel went well. My talk was fine. And, Angela Davis, the keynote speaker, showed up during our presentation. Afterward, Mr. Beeton and I celebrated with my fellow panelists at Terrace where we treated ourselves to some really good local and regional food.

The next day, though, was when we really celebrated. We had made brunch reservations through Open Table at Eno where Eli from Top Chef cooks. But, after trekking through town, we arrived at Eno to discover it's not open for lunch on Saturdays. So, we settled for bloody marys and frittatas at Baraonda, which wasn't really settling at all. Later that night, we had Kung Pao "Lollipops," lobster and king crab legs, and Lychee sangria at Straits (for all you Ludacris fans). We followed that up with a $17 glass of champagne at Eno and a few glasses of wine back at Fandangles with Brucem, our bartender. We definitely engaged in some difficult dialogues with him.

My solo trip to New York City to talk about chick lit at NYU was not as eventful nor was it packed with good food like on the Atlanta trip. It was pouring. A Steely Dan superfan sat on the train next to me. And, seeing successful chick lit writers made me really want to quit my job. But, it was filled with one good old friend and lots of little new ones.

I'm glad to finally be home.

Keep sweeping, Martha

Watched The Hangover, Bottleshock, and Slumdog Millionaire.

the fabric of our lives

brushing the dusky window

Fall is here. It's chillier. The sun feels different. It's dark when my last class ends at 5:30 pm. Halloween came and went. With homemade costumes and trick-or-treat.

And now, we're headed - full force - into the most hectic time of the semester. Students are frantically researching, furiously writing, and often sighing loudly when I ask, "And how are you adding to the conversation?" Soon it will be Thanksgiving. Their papers will be done, and life will get a lot simpler.

I'm in the midst of working on my own paper -one that I'll be presenting in Atlanta next week. It's about using blogs in the feminist, writing classroom. In reading about blogs, it occurred to me, "Hey. Wait. Don't I have a blog?"

Generally speaking, I don't care for colder weather. I like summer. The hotter, the better. But, I do love food in the fall, particularly this Chickpea Hot Pot recipe from 101 Cookbooks. It's one of the best vegetarian recipes I've ever eaten, too. And, since I know one of my only loyal readers doesn't touch meat, I thought it was a doubly appropriate post for November.

Don't try this one in summer. It just tastes weird; I'm not sure why. We made it the other night after crunching through the leaves with Ella. Perfect for fall.

Keep sweeping, Martha

Trying to read Twilight. Took about 15 college students to see Where the Wild Things Are.

second floor living without a yard

canned friendship

I'm excited about the weekend. In part, because I won't have any grading to do (okay, maybe a little, but nothing compared to the last two weeks). And, in part, because we are going to see John Stewart. With friends. Yup. That's right. We've found ourselves some friends... I think.

Making friends in D.C. has not been an easy prospect. In part, because we were spoiled. Both Mr. Beeton and I had fabulous friends in undergrad, and when we moved on to graduate school, we found equally fabulous friends. Since coming here, though, it's been hard to connect with people. My campus is an "urban institution," so many of the people that I work with live far outside the city - commuting to work is a problem for them let alone coming back to hang out. Mr. Beeton is finishing up at a school outside the city. His commute is long (though fun on his Stella scooter), but he doesn't much care for going back outside the city in the evenings or on weekends. Of course, we have a handful of people that we met through his old job, mostly graduate students in the Chemistry department (hence, our connection with The Chemist). But, they were all part of a previously established group, and while they are gracious enough to include us on their outings from time to time, an old, married couple like ourselves are not their top priority (nor should we be!). As a result, we spend a lot of our spare time in our railroad apartment, petting Ella, and wishing that we lived in Savannah so we could go out for some Thai food and drinks with friends.

I told Mr. Beeton that I had an idea. One of my favorite bloggers, Shauna James Ahern, had written recently about a canning party that she had. I thought we should put an ad on craigslist. Mr. Beeton said, No. He finds the people who come to our house to buy our old appliances and furniture, chatting about the design of our apartment, creepy.

So, instead, we are going to dinner with two people who seem interesting and fun. And, if it doesn't work out, there's always John at the end of the evening.

Keep sweeping, Martha