Gratitude

For the past three years, we've followed a new tradition with my now mother-in-law: a Thanksgiving morning poetry slam. Most everyone who attends brings something original, and poems have ranged from haiku to songs. I've written a poem for this event each year, and since I have this nifty blog this year, and I don't have any sepia tinted photos of turkey, oyster stuffing, and a beautifully set table, I thought I'd share my poem for the obligatory T-day post. So here it is: my 2011 Thanksgiving poem on gratitude:


I'm telling you
this life is a tightrope walk.
One thin stretched wire only
to balance on -
abyss and God-only-knows-what
on either side.


I think I feel the teetering the most
when I stop to pick up your gloves left there on the floor
when I run my hands under warm water in the kitchen sink
when I walk through our front door -
whatever it is (although it's almost always something simple)
that causes my stomach to seize and I realize fully
how utterly, completely, and overwhelmingly in love
I am with this life.


I believe the only thing that can save me is gratitude.


When I give thanks
it lifts my eyes to the horizon.


In thanks is where it is each step only that matters.


In thanks, I know that where each foot is at any time is enough to make the steps that led me there worth it
and the unfailing uncertainty of each step ahead of me, okay.


Standing in thanks for the here and now shores my footing -
the abyss falls away
and I find again the courage to move forward
step by step.


I've come to really like this tradition - it's right up there with the oyster stuffing.

A perfect pesto

I had some errands to run after work tonight, and all I really wanted to do for dinner was stop in somewhere along my way home and pick up something quick. But in an effort to be a little healthy (Thanksgiving is upon us) and save a little money, I restrained myself and made it past at least two Qdoba's and home.


I remembered when I got home that last week I had bought the ingredients to make the linguine with pea pesto from The Smitten Kitchen blog. And I'm really glad I made it past those Qdoba's. This was fantastic and easy - a winning combo!


The only changes I made to this recipe were to cut down on two ingredients - the cheese and the olive oil - to try and make it a bit healthier. I used about half of the amounts of these she puts in her recipe, and I didn't miss a thing.


This wasn't only delicious and easy, it was also pretty - although, of course, my photos don't do it justice.



Before I used my favorite tool, my immersion blender,
to whip this into a pesto.



I loved how green this was!


Bottom line? As good as Qdoba can be for a quick meal, I definitely recommend trying this instead.

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And in other news - a very happy Thanksgiving holiday to all!

Mashed

No, this entry isn’t about my recent side dish of choice (mashed sweet potatoes with a little nutmeg, cinnamon, milk, and butter = heaven), but more about what my life has been lately – a mish mash of blog distracting events.

First off, work has been totally, certifiably crazy. But if there’s one thing this blog isn’t about, it’s my job.

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A few weekends back we went to NYC to watch my sister-in-law run the marathon. It was a great, albeit exhausting (yes, for me! just a spectator!), experience, made only slightly less great by the woman who felt the need to hurl the b--- word at me as we calmly walked (okay, we were running like crazy people) to catch our train. When I say woman, I mean of the 50-60 year old variety. Really? We haven’t learned better behavior by that age?

This is literally the best photo I took the whole weekend. Not much to say for my photog skills.

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Last weekend, I went to visit my sister and my adorable niece, and had the most amazing time smothering her (the niece) with kisses, encouraging her (the niece) to walk, and laughing non-stop at her (you guessed it) budding precocious personality. An anecdote – she now feeds their dog, Onyx, one Cheerio per Cheerio she gets in her mouth, in the most matter-of-fact, “of course I’m supposed to be doing this” way.

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This week, my darling, dearest Phoebe has been sick. She’s had a UTI and then a bad reaction to her antibiotic and spent last night meowing pathetically and in obvious pain and discomfort. It’s so hard to see her not feeling well – way harder than I would have imagined or remember (she’s only been sick like this once before). What am I going to be like when I have kids? Egad.

Corn Chowda

Tonight's dinner was a true experiment. I was testing the hypothesis that silken tofu - of all things - serves as a good way to thicken soups, dips, etc.

I've been having a craving for corn chowder, but I really wanted to try and make it without the cream, so it was time to brave the silken tofu!

I started out by doing the exact same thing I do for 99.9% of the dishes I make: diced 1 yellow onion, grated 2 cloves of garlic, and sauteed them until translucent in some olive oil and about 1/2 tablespoon of butter (I felt vindicated using some butter here, since I was skipping the cream).

I peeled and cut up 2 medium to smallish sized potatoes into bite sized pieces, and dumped them into the pot with 1 cup of chicken broth, then let that all cook for about 10 minutes, or until the potatoes were tender. 

Meanwhile, I emptied a 12 oz package of silken tofu (extra soft) into a bowl and, using my immersion blender, beat it for 3-5 minutes, until it was really smooth.

 You can see the consistency was almost like a batter....definitely very creamy....

Once it was super smooth and the potatoes were tender, I dumped the tofu right into the pot and added 2 more cups of the chicken broth (use less for a thicker soup) along with a 16 oz pack of frozen yellow sweet corn.

Then came the magic:

1 small can of mild green chilis (I recycled the can before I read how big it was, but you know the ones I'm talking about - they only make one small size of these things)
1 tblsp pimentos
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika (or to taste)
salt and pepper to taste

Abra cadabra - creamy corn chowda! (go ahead - I'll wait while you say that out loud)

.................

I let it heat through while I grated some white cheddar cheese to put on top.

It was really good, folks.

Full disclosure - this did start to separate as it cooled - you can see it happening a little bit above. But for the most part it kept its creaminess and it really was very tasty.

Be brave! Don't fear the silken tofu! Don't get me wrong here - cream would have tasted phenomenal, but I just don't always want something that heavy and rich, and this really did the trick.

The hypothesis tested true, but don't take my word for it - brave the silken tofu yourself, and let me know how it goes!

A confession

I have a confession to make – I don’t like Halloween.

I know this isn’t a very popular opinion, but I can’t seem to help myself. I should like Halloween. I want to like Halloween. It’s in one of my favorite seasons of the year, there are parties, there's the candy….what isn’t to like? But I just can’t help it.

Pumpkin carving? No thanks. I never have the patience to get all of the guts out of the pumpkin, so there inevitably are those unsightly strings hanging behind my pumpkin’s nose/eyes/mouth. And I can never think of anything more creative than the circle eyes, triangle nose, toothy grin combo.

Dressing up? I’ll pass. Once again, I’m not creative or patient enough to come up with a great costume. And what I do come up with always ends up being really dowdy, and that’s never good when you’re surrounded by a sea of women taking full advantage of the opportunity to dress as sexy as they possibly can (see Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls).

Luckily, I now have a reason to like Halloween. My precious niece was born last year, just a few days before, so now we’ll be able to celebrate her joining our family amongst all of the pumpkin carving, dressing up madness.



My niece, a few days old, in her pumpkin onesie - a pretty fantastic thing to celebrate.

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And despite everything I wrote above, what are my plans for the weekend? A pumpkin carving contest tonight and a dress-up Halloween party tomorrow night! I’m nothing if not a good sport.

My costume this year? Crazy pickle arm man. Thank you Adam Sandler.

Stuffed peppers, adapted.....and TGIF

This is so very exciting. I actually have a recipe to share! Or at least the makings of a recipe! Or at least the idea for what could be a really great recipe!

I’ve had the hankering for a while to make stuffed peppers. A fall-esque, comfort food meal that the weather and life have been screaming out for. With these desires in mind, I happened upon this recipe from The Pioneer Woman, and was struck the idea to make stuffed peppers using the sauce and pineapple combination in her recipe. Genius, right?!?

What I did:

• Made some rice (1 cup uncooked).
• Put a large pot of water to boil and cleaned out 4 medium sized green peppers.



• Cut up ½ an onion.
• Put the green peppers in the boiling water and let them boil for about 5 minutes.
• Removed the peppers and stood them up in a small glass pan.
• Preheated the oven to 350.
• Cooked the onion and a clove of garlic in some olive oil until the onions were translucent.
• Chopped the pineapple from a can into smaller pieces and put them in the pan with the onion.
• Put a drained can of diced tomatoes in the same pan and let it all cook for a few minutes while I put together the sauce from the The Pioneer Woman’s recipe (I halved her recipe, and I also used veggie broth instead of beef broth).
• Poured the sauce in with the pineapples, tomatoes and onion and let cook until the sauce had thickened up a good bit.

• Once the sauce was thickened, combined the whole mixture with the rice, and then spooned it into the waiting peppers.

• Popped it in the oven for about 25 minutes so that everything warms through.

Overall, this was pretty good – although not as good as I was hoping. I think I will try this again, but with a few modifications. In my opinion, the sauce needs the beef broth for richness – the veggie broth just didn’t quite cut it. I would also probably add a little more sugar (that blasted sweet tooth), and some of the juice from the can of tomatoes. The other thing this dish is missing is some protein – perhaps it could be made with quinoa instead of rice? It would also be good with some ground beef or tenderloin tips…..yum.

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And with that – it’s Friday, and I’m so very glad it is! I’m looking forward to a very autumnal weekend, with a visit from an old friend and playing tourist in my own city. I might even try to bake on Sunday, and who knows, maybe I’ll have another semblance of a recipe to pass along!

  

Happy weekend!

A trial run...

This past weekend, the mister and I babysat for some friends of ours. They have an adorable 10 month old that we watched for a few hours while they attended a wedding for the evening.

I have to say in a sense it felt like a trial run for us. We know that we definitely want to have children not too far in the future, so it felt a little bit like we were seeing how we would do, if only for a few hours, for one night.

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When my sister and I were young, an older cousin and his wife asked my parents if they could take my sister and I on some outings, as a trial run of sorts to help them decide if they ultimately wanted to have children, or were ready for it.

The story goes that we were all sitting around a booth at Chuck E. Cheese, and I, completely unprompted, announced in an extremely loud voice, "I have lice!" I can only imagine that at that moment, I was proud of this fact. It was something that made me unique, which is always a good thing when you're 5, and heck, I got to stay home from school even though I wasn't sick. What wasn't to be excited about? My cousin's wife was totally mortified, and insists that everyone at the tables around us all turned to stare at the little girl that was proud of her lice.

While I know everyone else finds me yelling about my lice the funny part of this story, I find the humor in the fact that my sister and I acted as one of the determining factors of if my cousins were going to have children or not. Nothing we did obviously deterred them too much, as they did end up having two kids of their own.

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I think our first trial run went pretty well too. We had fun playing with her (she's exceptionally adorable and sweet) got her fed, in bed with a clean diaper, and asleep by 7:15. A success all around, but let's be honest - a few hours on a Saturday night, a brief outing to Chuck E. Cheese, none of this can really tell you how you'll be as parents. And while our little taste of it went well, I have to say that for now, I'm pretty content with this bundle of fluff being the only living thing I have to take care of.

She's pretty low maintenance, and cute to boot.

Same kitchen...



Same kitchen - Different perspective


So here’s the deal. I’ve struggled with this blogging thing. When I jumped into this, I had high hopes of a blog that had phenomenal original and delicious recipes, witty commentary, thought provoking insight, and illuminating photography. I was not only slightly delusional, but I was totally focused on the wrong thing: the outcome.  I wanted instantly to be really really good at blogging.

I got frustrated because it wasn’t turning out as I had hoped. I was struggling with coming up with original recipes (hadn’t I heard of adapting?), my photos were lackluster (not to mention taking photos whilst cooking is HARD), and honestly, I didn’t think I had much of anything to contribute. I had (and this is nothing new for me) set up ridiculously high expectations for myself and I wasn’t meeting them.

I’ve had the itch to come back to blogging, and I’ve been trying to think through what this drive was – why did I want to try this again when it just left me feeling frustrated before? 

In my last attempt, not only were my expectations too high from the outset, but I focused too much on the external results of the blog. What does the blog look like? Who’s reading it? Were the recipes good? Were people enjoying it? And while all of this is important on one level, it’s not the real point here. Honestly, the real point is a little bit of a selfish one. The real point is that for me, this is a creative outlet – one that I’m seriously lacking right now. It’s a place to write, and since it has the added pressure of the fact that someone might just read it, a place to really work on my writing. It’s a place to share recipes, and since it has the added pressure of the fact that someone else might try them out, a place to really work on being a better cook. It’s a place to share photos, and since it has the added pressure that someone might just see them, a place to really work on my photography skills. It’s a place to CREATE something, and I need that so badly.

And so I’m trying this again, this time focusing on the creative process itself.  This blog is now a place to cultivate and improve my writing, cooking, photography - free (as much as I can manage) of those previous skigh high expectations.

Different approach, same galley kitchen.

Categories

*I have two things to make recompense for before I go any further:

1.       I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written….although I don’t know if I want to get in the habit of apologizing for this because, well, refer back to this earlier post and my thoughts on my aversion to committing to a regular routine.

2.       As a good friend pointed out, I failed to mention how many leeks and how many fennel bulbs I used in this recipe – it was 2 leeks, 1 bulb. Cook away Caroline!

My mittens, a.k.a. a fantastic conversation starter

I’ve been acutely aware the last couple of weeks of one aspect of living in a city and just how different that is from anything I’ve ever experienced before: the sheer number of people that I am routinely around. It’s an odd thing. Fiance Sven has been even more busy than usual the past couple of weeks with school, so I have, in actuality, been spending a lot of time alone. But being “alone” in Philadelphia is vastly different than being alone in a rural setting.

There are several categories of people that are a part of my life here in Philly.

First, there are my actual friends. I’m still very new to this city, and don’t have many folks in this category yet. Those friends that I do have live just far enough out of the city to make it an effort to get together with them, so we don’t do it as often as I’d like. 

And then there are the people that I know simply from seeing them every day (my commuting cohorts), but who I have no idea what their names are or anything about them other than their daily routines.

And then there are the crowds of nameless, faceless people that I am nearly constantly surrounded with as I walk the streets, ride the subway and the trains, run my errands, live my life. This is an odd category – a category that drives home the point of just how lonely one can feel even if they’re not technically alone.

And then there are the folks that fall into the wonderful category of complete strangers on the street that decide to have a conversation with me about any random topic, including how they really like my mittens but maybe I should put some duct tape on them since things can get pretty crazy in Philly. Of which I have no idea what on earth they’re talking about.

 And that’s the category that makes living in a city the unique experience it is. And probably the category my mom wishes I would do my best to avoid altogether. But then what would I blog about?

Impressions from my weekend

- Phoebe can make great company....but only for so long.

- The King's Speech is a fantastic flick. You really can't go wrong with the actors in this movie - I've loved Geoffrey Rush since Shine, and Colin Firth since he was, of course, Mr. Darcy.

- Making white chicken chili that doesn't just taste like chicken corn soup with beans is easier said than done.

A vision in a red jumpsuit

Fact #1: The months leading up to a wedding can sometimes be full of some pretty intense, wedding themed dreams (a.k.a. nightmares). 

Fact #2: My family (in particular my dad, my sister, and I) are renowned for our especially whacky and vivid dreams.

These two facts together have created some real whoppers for me in the last couple of weeks, and I can only imagine this is going to get even better.

Last night, it was this:

For some reason unbeknownst to me, I was storing my wedding dress in a huge warehouse of a bridal shop that had hundreds of other dresses in it (my real dress is actually at my mom and dad's house, hanging in the computer room).  It just so happens that this bridal shop was also creating and altering dresses to be entered in to a fashion show, or some sort of contest (I might have watched too many episodes of Project Runway in my life).

Well, when I realized that this was happening at the bridal shop, I rushed over there to grab my dress and get it out of there before it was inadvertently added to the contest – and of course, as these dreams go, I was too late. Not only had my dress already been picked out to put into the contest, it had also been "altered" into.....wait for it......

a bright red jumpsuit.



Yes, it looked kind of like this.
Source

I was devastated. I started bawling and screaming like it was the end of the world (It kind of was!). I implored the seamstress (who happened to be a family friend who in real life is nothing comparable to a seamstress) if there was anything they could do to fix it? No. Could they give me the money to go buy a new one? They at least had to do that! No - they had spent all of their available funds on putting together the dresses for the show/contest. There was nothing I could do! I certainly couldn't afford to get a whole new dress! It was awful!

And then I woke up, and in my just-waking-up haze thought for one split second that maybe it wouldn’t be the TOTAL end of the world if I had to wear a red jumpsuit down the aisle.

But I'm pretty sure it definitely would.

Finally.....a recipe

It’s been a while since I’ve offered up a recipe. One reason for this is that I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately in the kitchen. I go through phases where I want the same thing over and over again. This time, it’s been brown rice with broccoli, and soba noodles with peanut sauce.

Another reason I haven’t offered up a new recipe is simply because, well, I haven’t had a good one. There was an attempt at pad thai at which I was WAY too heavy handed on the fish sauce and ended up with a super salty catastrophe (I’d like to give kudos here to fiancé Sven for eating that mess with a smile on his face). There was also a co-attempt with my sister at homemade macaroni and cheese at which we learned that homemade macaroni and cheese that isn’t lumpy is an art we have yet to master. I think I'm sticking with Annie’s boxed, for a while anyway.

But finally, this week I managed to not only break out of my cooking rut, but to also do it successfully, ending in a fantastic, soul-warming, delicious-enough-to-write-about Fennel and Leek Soup.

So here it is, folks.

Start by slicing up one fennel bulb.

It sounds so simple when I just say it like that, doesn't it?

I actually worked really hard to de-core the fennel (who knew fennel needed de-coring anyway), and then started cutting the bulb the wrong way, so I ended up with multi-shaped pieces of fennel, which isn’t really ideal. I finally came around to realizing that the best way to cut the bulb was longwise, resulting in strips.  I’m sorry there aren’t any pictures of this process, but trust me, it wasn’t worth documenting, and I was having a tough enough time of it already, let alone trying to take pictures in the middle of it. Moving on. Be sure to reserve the top of the fennel bulb because you’ll use the fronds at the end.

I added the fennel to a soup pot with about ½ tblsp of olive oil and ¼ tblsp of butter.

I then proceeded to cook the fennel over a medium low heat for 15-18 minutes until it turned a lovely brown and began to caramelize.

Next came two leeks. Leeks can be really sandy, so you have to take the time to clean them thoroughly. The best way I’ve discovered to do this is to cut the ends off of the leek and then slit it longwise so that it opens up in a fan, like so:

You can then run this under water and remove the sand from all layers of the leek.

I cut up the leeks and added them to the pot with the fennel.

Next came some thyme from about 10 sprigs, and I let this all go over medium-low heat until the leeks cooked down as well, probably another 10-15 minutes.

Even though it took awhile to get this part of the soup done (and I admit – I very rarely have the patience to get something to even a SEMBLANCE of being caramelized),  it went really quickly from here on out. I do think that letting the fennel and leeks cook down is what gave the soup so much of its great flavor in the end. And I’m sure the butter didn’t hurt.

I then dumped in one 15 oz can of no-salt-added diced tomatoes, one 15 oz can of rinsed and drained great northern beans (you could use any beans you want here, or even skip them all together), and about 4 ½ cups of low-sodium vegetable broth (you can also alter this amount as you would like to make it more soup-y or less). I added a ½ tsp of ground ginger and 1 tblsp of honey (I think the honey is also optional, but I like to add something a little sweet to almost anything with tomatoes in it to cut some of the acidity), and then salt and pepper to taste.

I let that all cook up to temperature, and about 5 minutes before it was ready I cut up 2 tblsp’s of the fennel fronds and added them in…..and with some parmesan cheese sprinkled on the top, that was it folks!  And it was delish!



Food styling courtesy of fiance Sven.

One note is that while this was excellent as is, my new ventures into eating meat have caused me to become mildly obsessed with sausage, so I think adding a nice chicken or turkey (or pork, I suppose) sausage to this would add a great flavor.

This really was the perfect dinner on a really cold February night, and the perfect dish to snap me out of my current rut….. although don’t you think some soba noodles and peanut sauce also sounds pretty good right now?

The simple things

Sometimes it really is the simple things in life that matter the most. This weekend, it was a trip back to our hometown and

...sharing dinner and catching up with a family we’ve been friends with since I was two

...laying in bed with my sister and 3 month old niece while we watch her play with her hands and listen to her babble and coo

...eating buttered cinnamon toast for breakfast

...playing charades with T's family that included made-up hand motions for “opposite”, “the”, and “it's a band”

...and eating our way through the Super Bowl game with a house full of old friends.

 

YUM

And tonight, it’s sitting on the sofa with T and Phoebe, watching and playing along with Jeopardy, eating stir fried veggies with peanut sauce and soba noodles.

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In other news, Mr. T has respectfully submitted the request to be known in this blog hereafter by a new name: Sven. Who am I to deny him this? Sven it is.

Theories

We’re facing another day of winter weather tomorrow here in Philly, and I have to admit....I’m over it.

I’m finding myself floating away on thoughts of sun that's warm enough to feel, flip flops, green, orange flowers and butterflies, and the ability to walk outside without my shoulders hunched against the cold.

We had a really cold and snowy winter last year too, but I don’t remember feeling quite this anxious for spring this early in the year. So, I have a couple of theories for why I’m so over winter this year:

-  I am getting married this spring. I’m thinking this is a pretty good reason for chomping at the bit for warmer weather.

 -  My commute forces me to have at least a 15 minute walk every day. Unlike last year, there’s no just walking from building to car to building again. I actually have to be out and experience the elements everyday – and there’s been a good deal of elements to be experiencing.

-  I didn’t have much of a summer this past year. I didn't take a vacation, didn’t even make it to the shore, and I was commuting over an hour and a half to Philly for work, so I had really long days. I didn’t have much of a chance to enjoy the warm weather – maybe that’s why I miss it so much now?

I really don’t mean to complain. When I was living in Charleston, SC, we only really had two seasons, and while both of those seasons were magnificent, I admit that I missed having all four, so now I do really try to enjoy each season as it is. It’s just not always so easy.

But I am trying to make the best of it. And tonight, I did that by drinking spicy hot chocolate…

and whipped cream out of a great mustaches mug.

And that should at least carry me through tomorrow.

Wipeout

When I was up visiting my sister this past weekend, we somehow ended up watching the show “Winter Wipeout” for a few minutes. Don’t ask me how or why.

If you haven’t seen this show, it’s basically putting people through a ridiculous obstacle course so that you can laugh when they get beaned in the head by something, fall into a pool of water, and other hilarities (all without actually getting hurt, of course).

Why am I bringing this up? Because on Thursday, Philadelphia woke up to nearly 17 inches of snow. Really heavy snow. Laced with a nice sheet of ice in there to make everything even more interesting. After a day of working from home, I decided I needed to get out for some fresh air (and to treat myself to some Aveda hair products), and I swear, walking the five blocks to the Aveda store, I felt like a contestant in “Winter Wipeout”. But without the possibility of winning $50,000.

Between the signs warning for falling ice, the roads that were literal skating rinks, and the large swaths of pooled, icy water at every intersection, it was quite the demolition derby out there.

But I made it out and back safely, and it was nice to get out after my day of working from home - which is really what I wanted to post about, because while I still lament the fact that with the advent of being able to work from home, most adults don’t get true snow days anymore, it ended up being a really lovely day.

Sir T was also home in the morning, so we totally nerded it up, side by side laptop style on the sofa.

Phoebe was, obviously, in pure heaven with both of us there all morning.

Lunch was a throwback grilled cheese and Campbell’s tomato soup (made with milk and a little half-and-half….swoon) that I made to warm T up before he had to head out to school.

And then back to the sofa for the rest of the work day, where Phoebe again joined me, curled up, with her tongue stuck out in utter contentment.

Can you see her little tongue sticking out?

Not a bad work environment if you ask me.

Weekend

This weekend I went to Mount Pocono to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and my new little niece.

I love it up there, because when I visit I get to drink this:

Cuddle this:

Pet this:

And ride around in the backseat with this:



If it wasn't for my Mr. T, I'm pretty sure I'd ask if I could move in.

I cho-cho-choose you...

Reading on the train on the way home

My granddad loved trains. He worked on the railroad for much of his life, and kept a fascination for them long after he retired.  My family ended up with grandad's model train set, and my sister and I always looked forward to when it came time each year to put it up. Something about that miniature town, and the silhouettes of the people in the passenger cars entranced us. We loved making up stories about the people riding the train. We would turn off the lights in the basement and watch the glowing train go around the track, singing "City of New Orleans" over and over for hours.

My daily commute, like so many other parts of my life, has taken some getting used to living in Philadelphia. Gone are the days of hopping in my car and driving seven minutes to work. Now I don't even get in my car for days (sometime weeks) on end.

When I started work this summer, I would walk 25 minutes to a free shuttle provided by the college. With the nice weather and plentiful sunshine, the longish walk in the morning and the evening was a welcome addition to my day. On the other hand, the shuttle ride, albeit free, was not the best. The van we rode in was missing some much needed shocks, and the driver in the evening apparently was a fan of rollercoasters. I was also most often riding with medical students, who invariably would talk, really loudly, about veins, brains, cedavers, and other similarly glorious topics.

So as the weather became cooler (we're supposed to have highs in the low 20's the next couple of days), and I began to have to make the walk home in the dark, I started to think I should look at other options. And so I tried the train.

And I have to say that now that I've started taking the train, well - I'm hooked. I love it. And here's why:

- I can read on the train.  For some reason, even though I got really shuttle sick, I do not get train sick. Do you know how incredibly fantastic it is to get an extra 30 minutes of reading in a day? Do you know how many more books I will now be able to cram into a year? A lot. That's how many.

- The train is well lit. The shuttle on the way home was pitch black, so I couldn't do anything except for peer out the windows and hold on for dear life.

- I love being a part of the commuting masses. I haven't quite figured out why yet. Maybe it's being a part of a community. Maybe it's the quiet comraderie of being in the same routine with the same people every day, getting to imagine what the rest of their lives are like, all while enjoying the anonymity of never actually having to have a conversation. Then, of course, maybe it's the fact that I know this commute doesn't stretch in front of me for the next 20 years, so I'm taking in the novelty as much as I can.

Don't get me wrong - riding the train isn't always perfect. My commute now costs me a monthly fee. The trains can be slow in inclement weather, it can be smelly, it can be loud. But despite this, I am now, officially, a train-riding commuter, and very happy to be so (did I mention the extra 30 minutes of time that I can read every day?)

And I'd like to think that granddad would be proud.