Cornish game hen dinner

 

 

Last night, Carlos and I tried a new recipe: little roasted Cornish game hens!  We bought them from a little poultry stall in Eastern Market, then used a recipe I found online (stuff hens with lemon, rosemary, and garlic, then pour white wine sauce over the top).  They turned out very delicious so we have found a new food item to incorporate into our diets!  We also made some roasted brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes to go with the hens.  This was a pretty easy and satisfying dinner that we will definitely make again.

PS. The light in the kitchen is strange so the color in the pictures looks a little weird.  Everything looked tastier in reality!

Crafty Bastards 2012

 

A couple of weekends ago (on 10 November), Carlos and I ventured out to another part of DC that we haven't yet visited: the area north of Union Station which houses the newly-renovated Union Market.  This was a REALLY cool area that we will definitely be visiting again!  Our reason for being here was to attend the 2012 Crafty Bastards arts and craft fair.  We have gone to Crafty Bastards for the past two years, but this is the first time that it was held in the Union Market area. 

We arrived about a half hour before the fair opened so we peeped around the indoor market and its varied vendors.  Union Market renovated only a couple of months and you can tell that this really gentrified building is a little out of place in its current location and seems to cater to hipsters and foodies.  I really liked it (and am neither a hipster nor foodie) -- I especially liked the bakery (we bought a huge delicious sourdough loaf for $4) and dairy (fresh eggnog!).  We also saw coffee and tea shops, an oyster bar, cheese shop, vegetable stand, and old-fashioned soda shoppe (among other neat-looking vendors).

Once Crafty Bastards officially opened, we got our wristbands (we had to pay $2.50/each for entry this year, bleh) and started our wanderings.  I am glad we came early because this space became crowded very quickly.  We looked at all of the great vendors and purchased a few goodies (some are gifts and I can't show them) -- there was a lot of really high quality creative art here!

 

After making a pin, buying some goodies, and looking at everything, we hopped back inside Union Market to get a snack: tasty vanilla creme soda and a mulled apple cider ice cream from Trickling Springs Dairy.  It was so crowded that we stood near the seating area to eat. 

 

By this time, we were ready to leave (it was so crowded everywhere by this point!) so we wandered back to the metro to go home.  I ended up buying a really cute long-sleeved shirt for myself with a little silkscreened mountain scene.  We probably won't be in DC for Crafty Bastards next year, but we will definitely visit Union Market again soon to stock up on gourmet treats.

Nintendo 3DS XL

The other day I ventured out to Target for a little treat that I had been thinking about getting for a while (about a year) -- a Nintendo 3DS XL!  I haven't had a handheld Nintendo system since my little pink DS (which I still love).  The 3DS is fantastic -- it has two screens: the upper screen is in 3D (no need for 3D glasses, which is so cool) and the bottom screen is a touch screen.  I am still playing around with all of the features, but I really like this system so far!

I also bought a 3DS game that just came out: Paper Mario Sticker Star.  I love the Paper Mario series (which I have played since the first game came out on the Nintendo 64) and so far, this one is just as fun as the others!  I am excited to look into the virtual console for this system too.  It is analogous to the virtual console on the Wii, but instead of downloading old games for the home consoles (e.g. NES, SNES, N64, Atari), the 3DS virtual console has a lot of titles from handheld systems (e.g. Gameboy)!

Seafood market in SW DC

 

Things have been extremely busy this month!  Carlos and I have been trying to plan our trip to China for interviews, but it looks like we have to postpone that until April because the bureaucrats there were too slow in getting letters of invitation to us.  Bleh, oh well.  We should still be going in April and this will give us more time to adequately prepare everything!

Anyway, Carlos and I visited Southwest DC a few days ago to buy some seafood at the fish market there.  Despite living in DC for 2+ years, we had never made it to this part of town before!  The market was pretty interesting, comprising lots of little individual stalls floating right on the water.  When you order some food, you have to be careful not to fall in or drop anything (I saw a lady drop her credit card in the water between the land and boat -- whoops!).

Carlos really wanted some oysters and crabs.  I just had a clam chowder because I had eaten a snack before heheh.  The crabs were thrown into a huge paper bag and steamed right there then sprinkled with seasoning.  We took our goodies to a nearby park (there isn't really anywhere to sit and eat near the market) and enjoyed our fresh seafood.  We will probably be back again soon to have more crabs -- don't forget to bring your mallet!

Frankenstorm Sandy

Last night Carlos and I weathered the Frankenstorm known as Sandy.  It was really, really windy here (gusts topped 80 mph) and super rainy.  We had prepared ourselves well and because we are field biologists, have more than enough emergency supplies around as standard gear (e.g. three headlamps, tons of batteries, candles everywhere, lots of water bottles to fill).  Our power (and internet!) remained on through the storm, so we are very lucky.  Our old little apartment suffered a little water damage from the heavy rain being strongly blown into the windows.  We had to soak up the drips with towels and containers, but it wasn't that bad.  We also had a drip in our ceiling, which fell down while we were asleep (we didn't even hear it).  It looks worse than it is.  We will be going to talk to the managers here to get everything fixed, but I am sure they will be swamped with repairs.

 

 

Today was a pretty normal day.  It was chilly (the first day our radiators started squeaking!), but not uncharacteristically so.  Carlos and I wandered around the neighborhood for a while, but the damage to Capitol Hill was very minor/nonexistent.  We were lucky -- this was a very strong storm!

On another note, I spent some fun time carving our pumpkin for Halloween.  I saw a dachshund pumpkin picture and I thought that would be great.  We now have our very own little Salchichita in pumpkin form -- I think it turned out pretty great~

 

China trip planning

Carlos and I are really getting into planning the details of our trip to China.  We plan to travel from DC to Beijing some time around the 23-25 November and stay in the city for about a week seeing the sites and getting acclimated to a new country and time zone (to be coherent for our seminars and interviews).  From Beijing, we travel to Kunming and onward to Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical  Garden near Menglun. 

This weekend we picked up a couple of really nice travel guides (one for Beijing and another for southwestern China) and a little pocket guide to Mandarin.  I am excited to look through these books and make more solid travel plans.  We are also getting our visas in order and we should be booking our flights very soon -- things take a while dealing with administrators at XTBG!

Roy Lichtenstein exhibit

Yesterday, as a treat for finishing a really long and difficult job application, Carlos and I took a break to visit the recently-opened Roy Lichtenstein exhibit at the National Gallery of Art.

The exhibit is housed in the East building of the National Gallery and is really huge.  There were many, many paintings and sculptures from throughout his art career, but there was no photography allowed in the main exhibit.  I was able to take a few pictures outside the main exhibit: an abstract Lacoon, one of the artist's studio, a sculpture, and a painting of architectural elements.

 
I really like Lichtenstein's art, especially his comic-book panels and graphic images of objects (e.g. hot dogs, Alka-Seltzer, tires, notebooks).  I also really like the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic panel painting that started his comic-style of pop art.  I might have to come visit this exhibit again because I liked it so much!

Rock collection display

 

 

 

I have a few craft and DIY projects that I am working on -- one of which is creating a new display for my rock collection.  I picked up an old printer's drawer at Eastern Market a while back (only $10!) and plan to modify the little spaces to accommodate my rocks and minerals.  This will entail some sawing, sanding, and staining of this little drawer.  Once I fill all the spaces (I need to go rock hunting), I plan to find a nice piece of glass to attach over the top to protect everything from dust and debris.  I need to go to the hardware store to buy a little small-toothed saw so I can get started!

New MOO mini cards

I received my new set of MOO mini business cards in the mail the other day -- these will be great when Carlos and I head off to China at the end of November for interviews (and any other interviews that may pop up before we leave DC next summer/fall.  I have a new batch of 100 mini cards, which is great because I ran out of my last set in August!  I really like these mini cards and I think they are a fun way to give people my contact information and a little piece of my art.

PS. This is just a subset of the 100 cards I received, but covers all of the individual designs -- the rest are duplicates of what you see here.

Carnivorous plants exhibit

Last week, Carlos and I visited the carnivorous plants exhibit at the National Botanical Garden on the Mall.  I really like carnivorous plants (especially sundews) and this was a really nice exhibition of carnivorous plant diversity accompanied by larger-than-life sculptures. 

We started out front where we saw some tall, iridescent trumpet plant (Sarracenia flava) sculptures.  Underneath them there was a little swamp replica with real trumpet plants and venus flytraps -- so cute!

 

Inside, we found more sculptures and lots of live plants (fed with fruit flies!).  The round-leafed sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) was especially cute with little flies ensnared in its sticky hairs.

The venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) sculpture was interactive and with the press of a fly-shaped button, you could close the traps.

 
I really liked the fanged pitcher plant (Nepenthes bicalcarata) sculpture.  It really reminded me of a little house in the computer game Myst 3!  You could go inside the pitcher and see a large ant trapped in the floor and when you looked up, you could see the fanged opening of the pitcher.

Carlos brought his fancy camera so that he could take some good pictures of all the plants and he got some really great shots.  This was a very fun interactive exhibit about a group of plants that most people don't give much though to and I am glad we went to see it before it moves on to the next museum!