The Weekend-- It's Getting Hot In Here

We're having a heat wave. Right now, according to weather.com, it's 97F and feels like 102F. The humidity, however, is only 41%. Phew.

I'm sitting at my computer drinking a beer and eating last week's tomatoes from the farmer's market to make room for the new ones I picked up this morning. Beer wouldn't be my first choice for drink necessarily, but I have four beers leftover from last night and with six people sharing this house, I know I'd better have them cleared out by the time my advisor gets back in town this evening because my food is taking up more than my quota of space right now.

It's been another good weekend. Friday night I went out with the same woman I saw last weekend; for the purposes of this blog I will call her New York (she grew up in New York city and still says she is from there even though she's been living in DC for 9 years, plus if DC can name all its diagonal streets after states, I can nickname the people I meet here with the names of the states they are from). We tried out a Korean restaurant that has been getting rave reviews, Han Sung Oak in Falls Church, VA. I ordered a vegetarian dish that came in a sizzling hot stone bowl and whose final preparation was done tableside, but the best part of the meal for me was the plum wine. Yum. Afterwards, we went and walked around the streets of Old Town Alexandria and then went down to the harbor, where I felt like I had been transported back in time at least 100 years. It was very pretty sitting talking by the water.

Saturday morning I made the long planned, long awaited blueberry mulberry whole wheat muffins that Eagle Eyes and I had been talking about all week. Delicious. I think I will make another batch with just mulberries later today or tomorrow. In the afternoon, NY and I and one of her friends went back to Butler farms and picked more strawberries, enough to have in my oatmeal every day this week for breakfast. We finished up the day by having a barbecue with my housemates on the back porch of our Takoma Park pad: grilled corn, beer and a peach mango pie from Butler farms. The evening ended with a terrific thunderstorm that brought a fierce downpour and lots of lightning. There is not much that is more fun than sitting outside after a good meal, talking with friends and enjoying the spectacular show of a summer thunderstorm from the dry safety of your screened in porch. I really missed thunderstorms when I was living in CA, I only remember two from the seven years I lived there, so every one is a treat for me now.

Today I made my weekly pilgrimage to the Takoma Park farmer's market where I bought my usual and then a whole lot of jams and jellies to bring as presents for my family when I go to North Carolina next weekend. I indulged myself by getting some wild violet jelly and locally made applesauce with no sugar added. I can't wait to try them.

In the afternoon I went out canoeing on the C&O canal with a group of women that gets together every month to have fun. It was hot and sunny, and had that heavy stillness of midday in summer, but nonetheless I had a good time and enjoyed the company. I saw a blue heron wading by the canal's edge only a few feet from my canoe and also several barn swallows nesting under an old railroad bridge.

It's been another activity packed weekend. I think I'll round it out with some reading, perhaps a run and maybe some more mulberry picking. I'm definitely making the most of city life; my aunt even left me a phone message calling me a "social butterfly," a term I don't think anyone has every used in conjunction with my name before!