This weekend I was back in DC to see Josh
who got himself a job there after graduating this summer. He looked very much like himself and so did the White City though this time void of the many Christmas decorations that adorned it when I was there last. The picture is from the trendy Mexican (delicious – I never had Mexican before) restaurant he took me to when I arrived starving Friday night on a plane one and a half hour delayed due to rain :-/ Especially the half hour we spent in a holding pattern over DC with the message “If the rain does not let up soon we’ll put down in Baltimore, refuel and try again” hanging over our heads was… interesting. And no, I have no clue what the moving lights in the picture are.
Just so you aren’t completely without appreciation of my culinary expeditions: The “three milks”-cake that was dessert..
Not that there was much room for cake after the fajitas. It seems these music industry people know the good places to go out 😉
All Friday and Saturday it rained and rained, not at all appropriate for our planned sightseeing of the Solar Decathlon so after an umbrella-shielded (I’m sure I looked adorable in Josh’s big yellow anorak he used to dress up as Ali G for Halloween last year) visit to the organic supermarket (clearly Josh knows me quite well, if he knows to take me sightseeing there 😉 ) to buy challah, milk and eggs we made French toast (mmmmmmm) and fixed the problems of the world for a few hours.
Later, as it still refused to stop raining, we went to the Pentagon Mall for a bit of random Saturday browsing. After being properly amazed at automatic massage chairs
vampire watches, 
the fact that the acquisition or browsing of shoes does not attract me in the least (Josh) and the amount of money men are willing to spend on a tie (me), Josh got some mens furnishings (such a nice expression, isn’t it?) and I got a pair of jeans.
They were much needed as my other pair is worn through from traveling with me for the last year, but unfortunately they were very much a mistake. After washing them yesterday they shrank so much they no longer fit at all (and they were not that tight to begin with, tight jeans are not comfortable). Too bad DC is too far away to complain, as the clerk did not even warn me they were prone to much shrinking I feel well within my right to do so. The worst part probably is that they weren’t cheap – I feel bad even when I spend money on things I need or have a use for. So much more when it’s wasted ;-(
Sunday morning – oh wonder – it stopped raining. So we walked down to the mall – passing this enormous and somewhat pornographic (at least that is my impression, am I wrong?) rose –
and got to see the Solar Decathlon after all. Interestingly most of the houses were clear-cut examples of Scandinavian interior decoration – quite different from what I’ve seen in the American homes I’ve been in so far. And good to see that even here in America, rude and greedy consumptor of the world’s energy resources, some people at least are concerned about sustainable energy and limiting pollution.
Some of the houses looked not unalike what is built back home recently. Here is Cornell’s contribution, with Josh in front so you’ll believe he was there. Notice the garden of herbs, peppers, tomatoes and all good things edible around the house. Very appetite-awakening.
A last picture from the White City: The still beautiful dome of not-the-Natural-History-Museum (that’s the other one), this time with leaves on the trees around it. (Compare here.)
And now I’m back in Ithaca, where proper autumn weather finally set in. Sitting here at the computer one has a view to lots of different things. Yesterday it was Kamal doing economics homework. 
This morning as I am getting hungry my eyes seem to gravitate towards the jar with the peanut butter cookies we made the other day. All because I saw Halloween cookie cutters in the supermarket and couldn’t resist them. And what fun are cookie cutters if you’re not baking cookies?
They didn’t turn out too bad despite me mangling the recipe to fit out needs (I chose this recipe, substituted peanut butter for butter, seasoned with cinnamon and a pinch of cloves and nutmeg, reduced the flour to 2 cups and added a little extra egg to make the dough stick together.), and nothing brings out the inner child as the chance to play with sweet edible paint 🙂
… Or, apparently, the opportunity to play with the camera 😉
Since it’s Halloween soon, they of course had to be scary cookies:
Cookies… Err… Breakfast, here I come.
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