Ebjournal Revisited.

Gentle readers, I am branching out. We all know that my top three foods of all time are potatoes, cheese, and bacon, and any combination thereof. This weekend, to celebrate our youngest sister’s eighth birthday, the United Colors of Bennetton, the Wajs, my parents, grandma, and of course TLEMK and I, all trekked down to the city (Chicago, that is) to enjoy some of the heritage of three of my siblings; fine Ethiopian food. Ras Dashen, located on Broadway, just north of Hollywood on the Uptown/Edgewater border (look how trendy I sound!) is a relatively small establishment that specializes in “family style” Ethiopian cuisine. Large round platters, lined with injera (a spongy flat bread that has the texture of a pancake) is brought out, and then delicious dishes are put on top. Each platter (about 16″ across) had room for about 7-10 entrees and sides. Here’s a picture of what it looked like before we started eating:

Before the vultures descended

To eat, you take pieces of injera that they give you in a basket, and fold it around the piece of food you want to eat. No utensils. It’s basically an appetizer in each bite. And boy, did we take lots of bites. We ordered a lot, and ate it all. My personal favorites included doro wat chicken and egg in a spicy berbere (think curry, but spicier) and yebeg wat, (lamb in the berbere sauce). However, everything I tried, meat or veggie, was delicious. Good times, and not too pricey. They also had delicious beverages, including a stout that had a great finish.

Since I was fortunate enough to get to drive the suburban into the city, I did not imbibe as much as I might have. Driving the tank in the urban setting was fun, but driving home was much easier. After stuffing ourselves, we headed back to the homestead for cake and presents. We had a great time with the family this weekend. Here’s a picture of the birthday girl:

Happy 8th!

So, if you’re looking for a legal way to spice up your life, try Ethiopian food. This ends my lame conclusion.

Apr 08 2006

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Tony| Category: General | 0 Comments

04-08-06_2005.jpg

Originally uploaded by bonemuse2004.

Delicious Ethiopian food

Apr 02 2006

Spring Broke

Tony| Category: General | 0 Comments

The weather seems to finally be changing for the better. Inevitable, yes, but the seeming-interminibility (made-up word) of winter make it feel that winter is just messing with our heads.

Welcome to spring. Currently in my area the temperature is 70 degrees under mostly sunny skies. Fortune has smile upon me because this week is also my spring break. Time to recharge, recuperate, and relax to get ready for the big push of the last ten weeks of second grade wonder. (To do: Fairy Tales, Fractions, Biographies, Rainforest, and a billion other things.)

Except that I have way too much to do to get that relaxing crap done. Everytime I’m not working on grad school (all week) or my classroom, I can actually feel my blood pressure rising and an almost panicky feeling kicks in. I’ve tried really hard to enjoy my time. The timeline of my week:

Friday: Spring Break! Woo! Dinner at a crappy restaurant with the in-laws! Woo! (Company was good, food was baaaaad)

Saturday: TLEMK heads to Chicago for time with Dev. I head to Rousseaus’ to bother them and eat their food.

Sunday: Fork of Words show and the Red Line Tap in fauxChicago (Rogers Park). Show was good, the Sacrament of the Sick (the opening band) was not. Here’s a great transition for a Sunday night show at a dive bar: Crazy angry metal band into trancy, folky, mellow awesome music. I have no idea how the third band was; I’m afraid they might not have played anything but Disneyland music from the rides (”It’s a Small Mr. Toad’s Wild Haunted Mansion”) so I left. We stayed in Chicago that night, and the next day I headed back to the ‘burbs.

Monday: Good idea: Let’s go to the boats and play craps! No one is going to be there on a Monday night! $5 tables! Spring Break! Woo! Bad idea: Not when you’re $100 up (ten minutes in) and then frittering it away to an eventual dead even, and then one last desperate field bet makes you lose five dollars for the evening. At least I got Sweet Tomatoes for the evening.

Tuesday: Went to school (work) for three hours and cleaned. I am amazed at what an hour of cleaning does to the classroom. If I had any of the organization gene, this would never be a problem, but I’m such a mess and usually focus, on, you know, teaching. So until the breaks, cabinets are messy. Got home and got ready for… poker. Drinking. Introducing Guitar Hero to Deli. More drinking, which contributes to me losing another five bucks. Tuesday night also saw the return of Frantastics Wings to my belly. Oh Frantastics, how I’ve missed you. (Is it any wonder I gained a small baby’s worth of weight over this break?) The Guitar Hero is so addicting to people that they stayed after cards broke up. This never happens, and I know it’s not my company people are staying for, so it must be the Rockin’ Out. Josue and Waj left around midnight, and Deli and I continued to rock out until I passed out.

Wednesday: Back to work again as I continued the spring cleaning. Got cabinets cleaned, and got my desk cleaned off (first time since AUGUST), started working on the rainforest unit, fed the tadpoles, etc. Didn’t get as much done as I wanted to (running theme) but it was good to go in and “putter”. Worked out twice, and watched tv in the evening. Very quiet day.

Thursday: TLEMK came back (WOO!) Went to work again (are you sensing a theme here?), and continued to putter in the class. I took some more pictures of our tadpoles and put it up on our class website. Came home (did NOT work out) and rewatched all the tv I watched on my own (this time with TLEMK.)

Friday: We got up waaaaaaaaaaay too early and traveled down to Champaign to give one of my sisters a tour of the beautiful campus of the University of Illinois. It was really gorgeous (and during Friday afternoon is when I started writing this tome), though quite breezy. When the wind starts to move me you know that it’s more than a zephyr kicking through the endless prairie of East-Central Illinois. After touring the campus and getting my tour guide on, we hung out with the CU crowd for the evening (thanks CU crowd, including Kenny, Stuck, Sarah, AJ, Joy, and anyone else that popped in and out.) which included delicious bad Mexican food and our warm-up for the baseball season, the great Bull Durham.

Saturday: Got up early to take V back to the ‘burbs for a wedding shower. I went to school to check on the tadpoles and pick up some things to work on. Saturday night we went to see Thank You for Smoking, of which my inspiring recap can be found here. After we got back, I started a new book which I will be recapping in-depth soon.

Sunday: Slept in, lost an hour of sleep, and panicked because I have not gotten NEARLY enough done for my various projects in grad school and otherwise. Worked on grad school, and had dinner with V’s family. Very full circle for my spring break.
Spring break. I know that I didn’t get everything I wanted to get done. I go into the last ten weeks nervous about my thesis, and hoping I can get the kids to learn as much as they can. I needed to relax, and unfortunately everytime I relaxed, it made me panic. It’s hard to enjoy the weather when you feel guilty for enjoying it even a little. Spring broke, and broke me a little. So, this will be one of my last posts until about May.

Wish me luck.

Apr 02 2006

Thank You for Not Sucking

Tony| Category: General, Music and Movies, Entertainment Tonight | 1 Comment

For the first time in about two months, TLEMK and I went to the movies on Saturday. This may not sound like a long time to you, but she and I are used to going to a movie almost every week, because the theatre near us is cheap (5.50 for a matinee) and gives free refills on all sizes. When you appeal to my fat and cheap side, you win. With the dearth of quality movies coming out druing the post-Oscar slump and pre-summer blockbuster time, there hasn’t been anything that we *had* to see on the big screen. We’d also reached an impasse of Failure to Launch vs. V for Vendetta so we needed something we could both agree on.

Thank You for Smoking is the movie we agreed on, with me being a little more reserved about it than TLEMK. This is unusual because I’m the one that wants to take the chances on the quirky movies. Thank You focuses on the life of a pro-tobacco lobbyist, with the intention of showing how morals can be flexible and that everyone is entitled to a defense, no matter how bad a corporation may be. Or that’s what Nick Naylor, our pseudo-hero, would have you think. Really, it’s a funny movie about how spin is spun, and how people live with themselves by doing things they’re not necessarily proud of, but feel they must in order to survive. You know, like going to Wal-Mart. The movie focused on Naylor, with no other characters (besides his son, who did an outstanding job) being really developed. Good cameos that were really that. Longtime fans of one of my top five movies, High Fidelity, will recognize Todd Louiso, our buddy Dick, as an aide to William H. Macy. The movie continues to make you feel horrible about the tobacco industry, but it sheds light onto the machinations of how things supposedly work. Good satire, funny lines, and even funnier sublte points in the movie make it a winner. You don’t have to go see it on the big screen, but I would definitely recommend you take a flyer on it. It was worth it.

Back to writing one of my grad school papers. Have a terrific Sunday, and go Pale Hose!

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The innermost thoughts of an eclectic FOURTH-grade teacher… chronicling the demise of the future by making others waste time reading this and other gobble-dee gook.

Tut tut looks like rain

Baseball?

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IGN: Guitar Hero II Interview

Logjam in the creative toothpick department…

Spice Up Your Life…

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Spring Broke

Thank You for Not Sucking

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