Q.E.D.

instead of grading papers (as I should have been), or napping (as I would have preferred), tonight I enjoyed the waiting room, several issues of Martha Stewart Living, and the toothless antics of one very rural family complaining about the justice system, all at the court building of one Washington County Magistrate. there, I awaited the arrival of the man of the evening: the officer who ticketed me earlier this month as I raced along Southpointe Boulevard at a heady 25 mph toward the Iceoplex, neglecting to execute the “three second pause” and instead only slowing to a haughty 2 mph. he arrived, 20 minutes late, and OK’d the reduction of my penalty from $107.50 and three points, (verily! only three points for the outrageous “failure to obey a stop sign” citation), down to a truly compassionate $114.50 and no points.

how does a $25 fine (as it exists in the books under “Duties at Stop Sign”) turn into $114.50, you might ask? for your education:

and to think, I only paid $7 for the privilege of visiting Cecil Township and it’s main attraction, the Municipal Building for Magisterial District 27-3-06.

ok maybe they are. if your mom’s vegan. it’s officially fall in my house because this is the kind of lazy sunday afternoon meal that becomes commonplace once the school year gets rolling and sundays are for grading papers and watching football. of course, neither of those were part of the gameplan today but I try not to let small things like that come between my junk food and me.

for a less lazy version, add some tofu sour cream, homemade guac and salsa and you could probably charge $7.99 for it as an appetizer somewhere.

goodbye days filled with doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, or better yet, nothing at all..
goodbye eating when I was hungry and not when I wasn’t, week day pancakes, 2am cookies..
goodbye 8am workouts, walking everywhere, forgetting what day of the week it was..
goodbye full night’s sleep..
see you in nine months.

hello lesson plans, peeing on schedule, 10pm bed times, parking lot duty, grading labs..

…at least some other folks go back to work right around now to keep me distracted.

how did I spend my last night of summer? with an old friend:

but I’m just not that into it. I’m not very into cake either, usually.. but with an excess of fresh blueberries and plums in my fridge, I figured it was time these two hook up.. and pies just seem like a harsh environment for the delicate blossoming of a tender young relationship.. especially if the fruit is claustrophobic.

so I melted some butter and brown sugar together in the bottom of a greased cake pan, layered some plums and blueberries in the caramelized goop as best I could, and threw together a batch of friendly golden cake batter (which can always be trusted not to interfere with this type of matchmaking process) to pour on top. 40 minutes and one precarious vertical flip later, I had this plum blueberry upside down cake:

I think they like each other.

I like food. all kinds. all times of year. but usually, I’d say I’m a pretty seasonally appropriate chef. for example: I’ve probably consumed 50 pounds of blueberries this summer; in a month or two, I’ll be craving butternut squash soup; after that, I’ll begin daydreaming about which pumpkin pie recipe I’d like to experiment with; eventually I’ll move on to sugar cookies and gingerbread men. (exception: ice cream. year round. very versatile!)

anyway, I’ve just taken stock of my eating habits over the past week or two and can’t help but wonder what’s going on.

my brain knows it’s August. in fact, most of me is pretending it’s June in denial of the school year looming in the immediate horizon. the weather is hot, humid, and August-like. so, why am I eating the comfort food people make when it’s cold outside? it’s not like I’m feeling that lame autumn-nostalgia people fall into (ha!) these days.

first I was craving falafel after a visit to the always delicious East Side Pockets in Providence. so I made some:

then I decided I hadn’t made any baked seitan in a while, and it always goes nicely in a chili con carne-style dish so I had to make some of that:

then, despite the fact that macaroni and cheese rarely sounds appealing to me, I just had to have some:

and then with all that baking and the apartment temperature at 88 degrees, I figured I might as well pull out that sourdough starter I made a few months ago and experiment with spelt flour:

who knows. maybe I ought to just freeze all the summery produce I can get my hands on now so I’ll be ready for whatever ironic need for light summer fare will beset me in January.

I was zoning out to some ESPN earlier today and came to just in time to realize I was watching the 2007 WSSA World Sport Stacking Championships:

I’ve seen a little bit of this “sport” before, but only enough to conclude it somewhat ironic that an activity that likely originated in the same bars and basements as beer pong has been co-opted and championed by the Harry Potter age group. in fact, before today, I knew little enough about it that I still found myself inclined to put the word sport in quotation marks. but I have to admit that watching middle schoolers do anything with so much coordination and dexterity is a refreshing sight; especially when I was never able to do anything with a hackey sack other than punt it through the uprights on our high school football field and recent lessons in juggling have been, well, uninspiring compared to my younger brother’s recent mastery of the art.

good job, kids.

stay in school.

every summer I try to get back to my hometown for a week or two. sometimes I do interesting stuff while I’m there, but usually I just sit around my parents’ house and do the same types of things I’d do in Pittsburgh during the average summer week: sleep in, watch TV, and bake junk food.. but in better air conditioning, with satellite cable and a much larger kitchen. in lieu of the locally relevant information I should be acquiring and presenting as a True Spy, I offer instead the equivalent expense report pertaining to my time on the road (including limited photographic records):

meals
prepared
-whole wheat penne & marinara with gigantic fruit salad and corn (all produce fresh from local farm)
-sweet & sour tofu with more fruit salad and corn
-vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting
-mini peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate ganache drizzle
-chocolate chip cookies
-fudgy brownies
-cinnamon rolls, including mom’s post-it note evaluation
purchased
-falafel wrap from East Side Pockets
-garlic & mushroom pizza from Bertucci’s
-My Thai Vegetarian Cafe

missions accomplished
-extensive crucial hang out with parents
-extensive crucial hang out with brother and well-liked girlfriend
-extensive crucial hang out with parents’ dog and two cats
-critical analysis of new and old talent at Patriots’ 2007 training camp
-assessment of Providence hardcore & metal scene via trip to Armageddon Records

miscellaneous expenses
-two parking tickets. don’t tell mom and dad.

instead of posting here, I left town again. this time for New England, to visit my parents in Massachusetts for a week. a little later, I’ll post a short summary of the awesome time I had (and always have) when I’m there, but in the mean time, please enjoy these snippets of dialogue that took place between the man and two women who sat directly behind me on the flight home:

enter three 30-somethings who for all intents and purposes appear to be well adjusted, successfully employed and reasonably intelligent..

on the nature of thunderstorms
woman #1: so you said you almost majored in physics- what is lightning? I’ve always wondered.
man: electricity.
woman #2: can’t it hit planes?
m: yeah it does but it doesn’t hurt the plane.
w1: why not?
m: it’s always trying to get to the ground so it doesn’t bother hurting the plane or its engines on the way. it’s more concerned with getting to the ground than messing up the plane or other stuff in it’s way.
w1: huh. interesting.

on the tragedy in Minnesota
w2: so here is something I’ve always wondered- how do they build bridges? how do they stay up? why don’t they fall down as they’re adding each piece of the bridge?
m: well first they sink footers down into the bedrock in the bottom of the river. that’s how they stay.
w1 & w2: ohhhh.

on insisting that all proper names in company and business use be posessive
w2: I really love candy. all kinds. especially Sarris’s. I love going down to Sarris’s in Canonsburg.

on comedy
m: Chris Farley is a genius
w1 & w2: mmm hmmm…

on air traffic control
w2: I hate Philly. there are always delays. why can’t planes just take off whenever they want? why do they have to hold everybody up?
m: well there are only so many runways. and the planes fly in sort of straight paths. and there are millions in the sky at once. so they have to make sure there is room for them to take off into.
w2: ohh. that makes sense. so that’s what the pilot means when he always says “we’re cleared for takeoff” or whatever. I thought he could just go. I guess he has to get permission first.
m: yeah. and here is my theory. it’s just my theory but anyway, I think Philly only has a couple runways. and they calculate their flight times for arrivals and departures based on X number of flights coming in and out over the course of the day. but then, that’s not realistic. there are more flights at certain times, like say noon. so instead of all the flights being spread out, everyone is trying to come in and out at noon and that’s why there is a backup.
w1: yeah! I read something about that!!

on aeronautics
w2: so how do planes fly anyway? do you know?
m: yeah. it has something to do with pressure. there’s high pressure under the plane and low pressure above it and it pushes it up. you know, like the way vaccuum cleaners work.

on science education
w2: you must have been on the fast track in high school. I didn’t take physics… oh wait. maybe I did.
w1: I did! I remember, with the bunsen burners..
m: that was chemistry.
w1: oh yeah. but we did a lot of experiments and stuff in that class…
w2: I did take physics- that’s right. I remember now. it sucked. we didn’t do anything in that class. I remember dropping stuff down the stairs and measuring something and running up and down over and over again. and talking a lot.

over the course of this conversation, I went from feeling an intense desire to explain some of the utterly fascinating physics phenomena they were discussing, to wanting to punch the man in the face for spreading one of the most common misconceptions in all of physics, to feeling smug and disillusioned about my role as a physics teacher, (including one particular lab I assign requiring students to run up and down stairs..), to simply resolving to ensure that every student who enters my class will leave with the ability to answer, (correctly, I might add), every question these people posed..

and in case you’re wondering, the man didn’t ask either of them for her number!