Q.E.D.

#1: I will not be going on strike any time soon.

#2: Patriots 38 Chargers 14

I don’t know why my previous blog post didn’t show up until today, since it was written back a week ago.. but anyway I guess it just means more updates for all three of you reading this to enjoy.

I don’t have much to offer except a few more food photos.. this week was brutal on several levels and I felt completely exhausted up until about two hours ago.. and now that I’m rested I have to go to bed. c’est la vie. what’s been on my mind?

1.) the teachers union at my school came to a tentative agreement last week and our ratification meeting is this week. while I’m happy that we seem so close to a conclusion on the matter after working the beginning of the year on our expired contract and coming precariously close to a strike, I’m also not exactly looking forward to a several-hour-long meeting after a long day of school in cramped auditorium seats listening to union representatives tell me why I should be happy to approve a contract requiring me to do more work for less pay and shittier health care. blah.

2.) my team has aparently been up to some shady business. if you’ve been even minimally aware of the sports media over the past several days, you don’t need an update from me; suffice it to say that I’m disappointed they were up to no good and completely agree with the punishment and general consensus that ol’ Bill wasn’t just “misinterpreting” the rules. but if I hear one more student, or so-called “friend” for that matter, ask me about the gigantic asterisk that apparently goes down next to every Patriots victory of the Belichick era, I’m going to puke. want to know what I think? not only are they going to go to the superbowl as many predict, and win the superbowl as a few are calling, they are going to finish the season undefeated.. yep. I said it. now they have something to prove. they haven’t had that in a while. and you know how that works.

3.) but I still made some food.

earlier this week I tried a new recipe from Voluptuous Vegan, whose recipes have never been less than amazing every time I’ve tried them, but tend to fall on the fancier and generally more time consuming side of things. most recipes aren’t great for weeknights unless you want to modify them or do some prep work in advance. we chose the former, and replaced the absurd variety of peppers required for this chili cornbread casserole with a boatload of garden variety jalapeno.. don’t know why I’d never heard of baking cornbread with chili in the middle before but it’s a damn good idea:

sometime this weekend I threw together a desperation meal, (don’t act like you don’t know what I mean).. I was hungry and writing a paper and probably would have happily scarfed down cardboard but somehow ended up with my head in the freezer thinking that edamame sounded good.. so I threw it together with some TVP and every herb and spice in the pantry, and roasted up what vegetables were getting old in the fridge.. then I was surprised at how appealing it looked so I took a picture:

then tonight it dawned on me that I needed a decent, non messy, and microwaveable leftover dinner to take for the hour or so I am stuck at school before our ratification meeting, so behold a quinoa/black bean/mushroom stuffed pepper:

and finally, I realized this afternoon that our household contained no dessert.. which is simply unacceptable. (especially with a football game that needs to be watched). with limited ingredients and time, here be the thickest peanut butter cookies ever produced:

yep. I’d comment on the Pats and Chargers but, well, it’s only halftime and I don’t want to jinx anything.

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.

I play hockey. (barely, and I’ve only been playing since last October, but that’s neither here nor there). I am playing in my first tournament this month. granted, it’s a very, very recreational level tournament, but for a girl who has only been skating in clinics and a handful of scrimmages and games for the last ten months, it’s still neat. it’s kind of like the first time you made it through the castle at the end of level 1-4 only to find yourself pixelated eye to pixelated eye with bowser himself.. you know damn well that you’re still at the beginning of the game and that your princess is mostly certainly in another castle, but the prospect of reaching that axe on the other side of the bridge is a little exhilarating nonetheless.

so while I’m thinking about how I can avoid making a fool of myself and maintain the stamina to play three full games over two days with a short bench and a team composed of beginners like myself, I thought I’d share with you how I got involved with hockey in the first place. maybe you’ll want to start playing too. or maybe you’ll just figure if I can start playing a sport at 25, you can start learning the drums at 29, or take up photography at 34, or learn another language at 56. you get the idea.

while Pittsburgh is a pretty big hockey town, I grew up in Massachusetts, where hockey is even more popular. I’ve followed hockey since I was a kid: growing up, I watched it on TV and later at my younger brother’s games, where I’d occasionally see a braid peeking out of an opposing team member’s helmet and feel a secret envy that she’d found her way to hockey while I had stubbornly denied my athletic tendencies (despite my father’s encouragment) in favor of Dungeons & Dragons with my sports-shunning friends.

fast forward several years, to summer 2006, I noticed that RMU Island Sports Center offers a Learn to Play Hockey clinic for adult women. the “women” part didn’t mean anything to me; it was the “Learn to Play” and “adult” parts that caught my attention. so I mailed in my registration and spent the rest of the summer getting ready: I scoured used sports stores and my brother’s old hockey bag for equipment that fit and joined the prepubescent free-skate crowd almost weekly in order to dust off whatever ice skating skills I’d hopefully developed during my own free-skate days of yore.

fast forward again, (what a stupid phrase), to the present; where I can now skate backward with relative ease and handle the puck without looking at it (as long as I’m stationary). I’ve figured out how to sit low and go fast (as long as there’s no contact), take wrist shots and slap shots (albeit weak ones), transition smoothly from forward to backward and vice versa (though only in a clockwise direction), and fall without fear (no parenthetical elaboration needed there). I am having more fun playing hockey (with a bunch of women with whom I have almost nothing else in common) than any other new endeavor I’ve pursued in years.

I’ve also sought out and discovered several other clinics in the Pittsburgh area, (including a really fun co-ed adult hockey clinic at the Iceoplex at Southpointe that I’m also taking), and next season I’ll be skating with a team that plays in the Pennsylvania-Ohio Women’s Hockey Association recreational league with hopes of eventually (some day) playing in some co-ed adult D-level leagues around Pittsburgh. if you want any of the information I’ve amassed about local adult hockey clinics, classes, and recreational leagues, just get in touch. and if you’ve been thinking about trying something new, quit thinking about why you shouldn’t or can’t and just give it a try. at least if it sucks or you hate it, you can write about it in your blog.

aren’t they? I was skeptical of the entire idea behind new jerseys.. but now that I’ve seen ‘em, I love ‘em.. I even kind of like the white jersey, and no one ever likes the white jerseys….

once I find some nicer pics of the new penguins jerseys I’ll post them for comparison.. so far only a few teams have revealed their new designs and right now the bruins’ are obviously the nicest. look at that sleeker B, the lack of a stupid bear anywhere on the jersey, the 1920’s bruin logo on the shoulder, and black sleeves on the white jersey.. I already own a bruins jersey for everyday wear and a bruins jersey for hockey practice, but I think I need a third one now..

as free agency looms, I fear for my home team. I was ready to fire coach Dave Lewis at the end of last season, since I was pretty sure even I could have taken the Bruins’ theoretical talent to the playoffs.. but when GM Peter Chiarelli promised his job was secure, I decided to quit being a whiney fan and trust him. for a few months, anyway. then, last week, Chiarelli fired Lewis and apparently will be hiring Claude Julien after Julien’s absurd dismissal from the Devils this past spring.

I have no idea what to think about the move, other than hope that Julien can teach some of the Bruins’ forwards to go to the net every once in a while and ignore my inevitable demands to see Tuukka Rask in the Bruins’ net instead of Providence.