100 grand

My odometer the other morning:

Vair exciting. Hit the big 100,000 whilst driving. Tragically did not document it due to it having been even more tragic had I gotten in a car accident.

To celebrate (because obviously these things must be celebrated), Steve greeted me with several:

I’ve also taken to going to the park behind where I work on my breaks (a bit of background: on the days I just do the afterschool program I work 10-6:30ish, but on the days I also do classroom teaching I work 8-6:30ish. Since my boss yelled at me about having too many ten hour days, I’ve been taking breaks!) and Steve joined me.

Some celebratory rock skipping:

And yes, I can skip rocks! (Steve taught me :D)

Scant but compelling trace evidence:

Thought the merriment ended there, but no!

My car (edited for identity safety purposes) later that night:

 

More festive luffliness:

Had a seriously lovely and Frenchie brunch at Praline, a ludicrously charming bakery/brasserie style place tucked into a fairly ugly strip mall.

Yes, that is a WALL OF MACARONS.

What did we go home with? PUMPKIN. OBVI.

More fun: spent Saturday bounding around Georgetown with my bestest pally Lydia, who I’ve been seeing far too rarely.

There’s something about this year that makes spending money way too fun.

Also fun: in Americorpse land, we have yet another new coworker. Obviously the way to get to know a new coworker is to interrogate them… over oysters. DC-ites: Sea Catch has a happy hour (on weekends, too!) with oysters. For a dollah each! It’s awesome.

However, rather than freak out my new coworker with interrogatories and forced poses for blog pictures, I declined.

Buttttttt then we went to Baked and Wired and you know how I and any person who eats food freaks out over that place.

I had a lovely tea with a lovely view:

Cool/weird: all the teas cost different amounts. It’s not Starbys where the cheapo, grass-tasting chamomile costs the same as expensive loveliness.

I got the vanilla black tea and it was delicious in addition to being gorgeous.

And Teresa got a German chocolate cupcake that was gorgey (and deliiiiiiiiiiiiicious, according to the one bite I took!)

And then Lydia and I literally followed our NOSES into LUSH, my fave. (Lush, for those of you unfortunate to be deprived of its lushness, is a British import that makes homemade bath and beauty products (and not an “alcoholic store”, as certain of the men in the group thought when Lydia and I mentioned it).

Anyway, for some silly reason they had apple cider and fortune cookies along with their dizzyingly delicious soaps:

Too bad they were nothing but shameless product plugging!

 

(note the further deterioration of my home-done manicure since my last post!)

Finally, Sunday, following Steve’s 12 1/2 hour car ride back from Chicago, I promised I’d make him dinner. He requested “green things” so I got together these:

      

And set off to make Spaghetti with Caramelized Onion and Radicchio.

This was the first time I forced myself to follow a recipe and actually properly caramelized onions. Lo and behold, 35 boring minutes later, these…

 

… became this…

Sweet goodness I love caramelized onions. And apparently am fearless when it comes to my breath. Foolhardy? Probably.

There was also a classy appetizer:

Well fine, not the tupperware, but fancy the sound of Crab Salad Stuffed Eggs?! The Thanksgiving appetizer leftovers came together rawther beautifully, if I do say so myself.

Aaaaaand then the pasta. When scaling the recipe, I accounted for 2 ounces (a pretty standard portion size for one) for me and 6 ounces (a pretty standard portion size for three) for Steve.

And it was perfect! God bless his appetite.

Mmm, pasta.