Taster Spoon

Challah back!

This weekend went by way too fast.  Nevertheless, good times were had. 

Friday I got home from work to find Ace standing at the sink, filling a big pot of water. 

"What are you doing?"

"I bought eggs."

"You're boiling eggs?" 

Whereupon I launched into my recent scholarship on hard-boiling eggs to perfection.  (Start eggs in cold water, bring to boil, boil for 10 minutes, remove and shock immediately.)  Ace allowed me to push him aside, which in retrospect I regret, because how delightful is it to come home to someone boiling eggs for Easter?? - and then I had to go and take over his project.  (But the eggs were perfect.)

Our CSA started up again, have I mentioned?  And it's already strawberry time.  So we washed off a quart of berries and walked around the neighborhood like the old people do.  There was a guy with his garage door open with sheets of aluminum leaning up against the walls. 

"That looks like a wing," commented Ace.

So I shouted: "Are you building an airplane?"

And so we met the neighbor who is building a two seater airplane from a kit. 

The rest of the evening was a bust as Ace and I dithered about what fun thing we'd do that evening.  Would we crash the Tribe happy hour (soooo farrr awayyy)?  Would we go to the drive in (nothing good showing)?   What friends we'd go hang out with...  I went through the paper and announced that we would lace up our dancing shoes and go learn the Hustle...only to find he'd fallen asleep on the couch.   At least I got caught up on my 90210.   Silver is totally insane!  Then he woke up and we ate salad and watched Risky Business.  (He remembered all the plot points except for the prostitution ring; that's the only plot point I remembered.  I don't know why Tom Cruise ever got a nose job.)

Saturday started out cloudy with a chill breeze, so I skipped the pool and closed my ears to my bicycle and went to the gym and did a little pre-Easter laying in of foodstuffs.  Ace was thinking lamb for Easter, he who doesn't like mint, but they were out of legs so instead I got lamb leg "steaks."  I didn't really know what to do with lamb "steaks" but we recently went deluxey mid-week and had real steaks seared up in a skillet that were great - I figured we'd try the same thing.   Trader Joe's was giving out their little samples, like they do, and this time it was mashed potatoes and ham.  I don't even like ham, usually, because it's so salty, but this was so moist and mild I had to get one.   

Upon getting home Ace suggested we invite some people to join us for Easter dinner.  It's such a family occasion, plus it was so last minute - I was doubtful anyone wouldn't already be booked.  So I e-mailed probably 30 people we both really enjoy, figuring we'd be lucky if we got two takers.

Then we went to sit by the pool.  I'm reading Sally Quinn's The Party, a how-to guide for a life I'll  never lead, all about how to throw fabulous society functions among the famous and/or influential.  The implicit understanding throughout is that you have a ready supply of hired help.  She makes the point that you don't want to get a reputation as someone who just invites EVERYONE all the time, because then guests don't feel special for being invited.  Point well taken, and I felt bad about the long e-mail To: list I'd just sent.   

We jumped in the hot tub and met another neighbor who told a vivid tale of fortunes gained (Multiple homes!  World was my oyster!  Cheering throngs!) and lost (uncontested divorce).  (Message Ace took away from the encounter: I am defensive that I now live in this dump here with people like you.  My takeaway was more positive, possibly on account of the casual reference to Lionel Richie.  Oh!  What a feeling!)

We went to the Empire Tap Room for cocktails, oysters and onion rings, and then went to the Stanford Theater to see King Kong.  'Twas Beauty killed the Beast!  I persuaded Ace to stay on for the double feature, Tarzan the Ape Man, whereupon I fell asleep.  So instead of gritting it out till the end, we sneaked away for a slice. 

Sunday Ace woke up with a "Happy Easter," a glass of pink pomegranate limeade and some early morning seasonal reflection, gazing out the window and eventually turning to me to ask, "Wait.  Do bunnies lay eggs?"

Then there was a little swimming, a little tennis. 

A little egg dyeing.

I'll never buy an egg dyeing kit again.  A tablespoon of vinegar, a few squirts of food coloring, and boiling water to half-fill your little dye baths (those cheapie tea light holders from Ikea - I have a million - were the perfect size), done.  And the colors were so vivid!

Do you see these colors??

The only thing the kit is good for is the little wire dipper and the clear crayon.  Maybe you could sub with a white candle and a coat hanger.  Oh, and the drying rack.  I guess that was worth $0.99.

Ace made a variety of bunnies...

 

...one of which was anatomically correct.

This is my favorite one that he made:

Ace and Chad and I went to Mass at Mem Church and because it was so crowded we sat way up in the rafters.  It was fascinating to see all those mosaics up close, some of which, I was surprised to see, were in disrepair.  I also decided there were several generations' stained glass iterations.  There were a couple that were more in line with the color scheme of the tiles around them, and I thought they were more beautiful.  (What do you think?  They're the two forward-most windows on the left of the nave).  I thought I was being irreverent by joking about how many guys were wearing their Easter uniform (blue shirts and khaki pants), but I guess I was outdone by the gals in front of us who were texting throughout the entire service.

Chad came over bearing challah and marzipan treats, and on account of their having grown up among the Chosen People, he and Ace actually knew the first line of how to bless it.  

I really thought it would be just me and Ace and Chad.  A couple of people had regretted that they were committed to the Big Wheel race, or, predictably, that they had prior plans.

But then Derek showed up with a good little boy (who was totally just enduring us for the evening) and an embarrassment of fresh strawberries and Christina brought exciting stories of her upcoming trip to Texarkana and MichMad came just in time for dessert with a very welcome dessert wine. 

We had curried pumpkin soup (success!), lamb (wasn't great), hamb (eh, not as good as the sample), quinoa-based pasta in pesto (don't recommend: quinoa pasta was mushy and pesto wasn't so hot either), plain steamed broccoli (yay!), fennel/green garlic/leeks in a cream sauce (all kinds of awesome) and a shiraz-based rose wine.  Finally, strawberries, apple pie and ice cream! 

We never got around to devilling the eggs, despite a specific trip to the store by Ace for Miracle Whip.  I kind of enjoyed looking at them too much.  

Speaking purely for myself, I really really enjoyed the evening.  We sure do know some great people.

Happy Easter! 

I love everybody today.

Ace's alarm popped off at 7:00 today, which was 10:00 in Washington, D.C.  To my surprise, it was tuned to NPR.  Usually it's about half a channel off of some loud rock-ish station that makes me want to beat him.

This morning, he rolled over to hit snooze and I shouted, "No!  Don't you want to hear the inauguration?!?"

He pointed out that we still had two hours to wait, but I wanted to hear what the temperature was, who would be on stage, the debate over whether Rick Warren would use the "J" word, what the concert was like the day before, where spectators had come from, how many people had camped out since two in the morning and how many people had been taken to hospitals for hypothermia...

I've been doing a little jig all day.  Everybody seems to be in a good mood.  Even the commute traffic seemed more polite.

At work we had been warned not to stream any coverage over our computers so as not to overload the network, and as consolation they had a blueberry pancake breakfast (and helium balloons!)  in our biggest conference room, where they showed coverage on our big projector screen.  Except, they weren't showing TV, they too were streaming from the Internet and right in the middle of President Obama's inaugural address the connection got completely chopped up (because everybody ELSE in the world was streaming) so everybody took their pancakes into the small break room and watched the little wall TV there instead.

We filtered merrily out to our desks to work, but then after a continuing legal education video at lunch back in the big conference room, somebody switched back to CNN.com and we all stood around for another fifteen minutes, pretending we were still picking at our lunches while we watched the parade.

Maybe it's because people who work in the law are programmed to look for things that can go wrong, but it seems like all day everyone has been biting our nails. 

This morning, Ace said to me, "How many snipers do you think there are?"

I looked at him in horror and said, "DON'T SAY THAT."

He quickly corrected, "No, no, I mean, how many secret service and security snipers do you think there are?"  He gestured towards the humongous throng carpeting the Mall, and my swelling happiness was dampened a little.

After lunch, as I was being impressed by the First Lady's willingness to walk a mile in pumps and pondering whether the Second Lady might have considered a below-the-knee skirt, one of my colleagues murmured, "I can't believe they're just walking along the street like that, out in the open." 

Another guy walked in to grab a brownie, glanced at the screen and said, "Look at all those buildings and windows!  How could they possibly secure all that??"

Our IT person investigated the chicken salad wraps and said, "I hear that limousine is like a tank."

Well, never mind.  If I may quote one of the great orators of my generation, "On this day we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord."

Ooh, just trying to find that quotation, I read his speech and got all teary-eyed. 

I'm glad everyone else in the office seems equally distracted and joyous.  It seems important to take a minute to absorb this - as rare as they are, we don't often get the benefit of time to fully experience moments where ideals and hopes are made real and tangible. 

But only a minute.  There is work to do.

Come get jiggy wit our pumpkin!

Tenth anniversary, baby!!!! 

Oh crap, I forgot to make the pinata.

Anyway, if you're local and haven't gotten the invitation, drop a comment and you're in.  I assure you the omission was inadvertent.

How is an airship different from a blimp?

No, seriously - I don't know.  But apparently it's causing lots of excitement among the nerd herd.

We're estimating "the first zeppelin in U.S. skies for more than 70 years" to land at Moffet this evening.  I guess enthusiasts have been tracking it.  I'm sure we'll go over and look at it.  They're offering balloon rides, oops, I mean airship tours, for $500 an hour.  Worth it?

My window looks south, but I don't see anything yet.  We've had summer-hot weather all week, and it's hazy.

Also this weekend, I hope to hit the haunted Toys R Us.

And the house of that guy in Redwood City. 

Ace got himself a costume yesterday.  It's so him.  But he tells me mine is so me, so that's cool.  WB had the great idea to recycle the chicken once again and go as Yes on Prop 2, but I felt it was time to change it up. 

Really, I was just walking through Wal-Mart (I literally went in to buy just a spool of white thread!) when it totally jumped out at me.  It's the first time either of us has outright bought a costume in at least four years, but boy what a load off.  Remember when I was sewing a stingray on that flight to Hawaii?  Talk about a vacation killer. 

I'm falling way behind in my crafting.  I tried making the most of a car trip to Yoshi's on Monday by getting my embroidery on in the back seat, but all I got was carsick.   I'm going to have to reel my gifting plans way back in.  Sorry!

Last night I made those savory leaf pastries everyone is talking about, only my bucket of 100 cookie cutters didn't include any leaves (!) so I made them pumpkin and moon shaped.  They could have been anything.  (Seriously - no leaves, but you do include a football helmet?  What kind of shape is that?  Are football players really into decorated cookies?)  The pastries, though, were kind of awesome, mainly just in that they worked out as filled pastries.  They weren't bricks, and they didn't leak too badly.

I used this recipe for pastry, switching out some of the white flour for whole wheat, and switching out the water for vodka.  (I keep hearing about the Cook's Illustrated obsession with vodka pie dough, and I don't really know their recipe, so I guessed.) 

What I think really worked well was cutting the butter into quarter inch squares before freezing it.  Making pastry after that, even by hand, took no more than three minutes.  Genius!

They had good flavor and were flakey, but they were sturdy enough that the health conscious among us could roll them quite thin.

I made up a batch of sweet pastry too, but I'm reluctant to turn one of the many pumpkins scattered throughout our living room (I think we're up to about 24) into a pie yet.  Need something to throw at the sixteen year old punks in sweatshirts pretending to be trick or treaters.

Do you have plans for the holiday?  What are you going as?

Cliff's Votes

So people keep mentioning in their Facebook updates that they went ahead and mailed their ballot in already.  And Ace has been using that official pro/con pamphlet as bedtime reading.

Me?  Not so much.  I mean, it's not that I don't care about the election!  I watched the conventions and all of the debates and I read the articles y'all are linking to and get all riled up.  I always try to join in when the latest outrage is batted around at run club.  Two weeks ago during what was supposed to be game-and-pizza night, Wendy B and I ganged up on Scooter to get him to see reason (he took it well) while Ace took his pizza into another room to fold laundry.  And I admit that I continually kick myself for not having been a more fluent, better-informed advocate back when I was talking election in Pennsylvania and Ohio - I keep thinking of things I should have said! 

But at the end of the day, it does not particularly matter for whom I vote for President.  I'm in a blue state, and that's that. 

Where I do fall down is where my vote actually could matter. 

All those people running for local office!  All the propositions! 

In past elections, I have found myself Googling these people at the last second - weak.  And relying on the pamphlet.  And I'm doing it again! 

So I'm putting this one out to you guys, because, while I am highly suspicious of anything printed on officially-bound newsprint (are both sides really equally valid?) I put my complete faith in the random commenters who drop by to give me advice under assumed names. 

Help me out!  Give me shortcuts! 

The only propositions I have heard anything at all about are coincidentally the ones I happened to catch on Forum discussions during my drive to work.  And annoyingly, those were the easy ones anyway: Yes on 2 and No on 8.  The only other one I've come across is the Solar Energy one (7?) because Boots mentioned it in a comment two posts ago.  

But I need more comments like that!  Those of you who actually know what you're talking about, or if maybe you've heard a rumor circulating on a mass e-mail forward from your cousin - gimme what you got. 

Stanford and the City

A handful of girls and a couple of guys got together last night to watch SATC.  I'm not going to give anything away, VU, so you don't have to turn away. This was that rare occasion when I actually see a movie in the theater, while it's still fairly current.  I went, not because I was expecting it to be "big screen worthy," i.e. full of special effects or landscape shots, but because I liked the idea of being caught up in the cultural moment.  I missed the show while it was on TV (behind the curve, also didn't have fancy cable), and caught up largely by borrowing DVDs from the Palo Alto library, that summer two years when I was "on sabbatical."  So I didn't even see the seasons in order, and still have a lot of plot holes.  I also went because I feel like my life here in the Silicon Valley is lacking somewhat in friends of the female persuasion.  So I'm trying to be more friendly with the ladies.

I settled into my seat at the last minute, having climbed over two women of a certain age who were now next to me.  After the lights went down, I heard one of them sniffing and crying over the previews.  And as the title screens came up, I heard a *crinkle, crinkle* and smelled a waft of chocolate.  I looked over to see her cuddling a big bag of chocolate covered pretzels.  I smiled, and was glad to see that I was about to enjoy this cultural moment alongside its precise target audience.  (They gave it two thumbs up.) 

In other news, I've been meaning to start swimming again each day this week, and haven't, because each day I've also intended to introduce myself to a partner who just joined our firm in the hopes of getting work from him.  This is a conflict, because I wanted to make a professional first impression, which in my book means a suit and heels and full face of makeup.  Full makeup, however, makes lunch time swimming impossible, because of the mascara running and so forth.  No way am I bringing remover.  (What's my problem?)  So I've been getting all gussied up, but each time I go by his office, he's never in. 

So today it's Friday, and most of the people at the movie last night knew one another via Stanford Masters swimming (it's how I knew the people I knew), and basically convinced me I really need to get back there.  So I threw up my hands re the new partner, dressed in a firm T-shirt and jeans this morning - and at lunchtime, I went to the pool!  And it was great.

All of the coaches are great, but Tim is my particular favorite, for the simple reason that he starts each practice with a joke.  He has a new joke every day.  Maybe as part of my (still in development) get-fit scheme I should share with you the joke, so that you can keep tabs on whether I attended.

A USC student walks into the library, and says, "I'd like a hamburger please."

The librarian says, "I beg your pardon?"

The USC student says, "I'D LIKE A HAMBURGER PLEASE."

The librarian says, "I'm sorry, but this is a library."

The USC student says, "Oh."  He cups his hands around his mouth, and whispers,

"I'd like a hamburger please."

I laughed.  I always laugh.  He usually gets groans or stony silence, and this time he justified the lack of reaction by saying the joke was ruined by the helicopter going overhead.  I suspect part of the distraction may actually have been the very attractive athlete behind Tim who was removing his Speedo, under the limited coverage of a rather short towel.  The guy in question was obviously unself-conscious; it was pretty clear that he was changing right there mainly so he could hear the joke.

Anyway, it seemed somehow apropros that there was a half naked man decorating my SATC-inspired return to the pool.  For his own part, Tim greeted my return warmly, and said he thought maybe I'd "moved abroad."  Yeah, I get it, it's been awhile.

I didn't bother with makeup afterwards, since it wouldn't do much to combat the deep rings my goggles leave around my eyes for four or five hours, and it seems I forgot to bring a hair brush to the pool, so I'm a wet, tangled, blotchy mess.  Oh, and I forgot deoderant.  On the upside, I finally met that new partner. 

Annual tradition

Guess what I did today.

Guest Artist

As you probably know, "Administrative Professionals' Day" was Tuesday.  All week long our firm has been doing a daily activity to show our appreciation of our secretaries and staff.  One day was a big, hot breakfast cooked and served by partners.  (Hoo, hoo!  Nothing funnier than a lawyer in an apron!  It's like a chimp with an umbrella or a dog wearing glasses!)  Another day was a celebratory lunch.  Another day was ice cream sandwiches.  All the secretaries have big bouquets on their stations.

Yesterday the associates put on a late-afternoon wine and cheese party, the theme of which was "Springtime in Paris."  There was an exceptional selection of cheeses and some fine wines; all the associates went around wearing berets; one even brought in a camp stove and made crepes.

I ran around speaking French.

"Je m'appel la fromage!"

"Ou est la toilette!"

"Le poisson!  Le poisson!"

"Voudrais vous le baguette?"

"Zut alors!  I have missed one!"

"Prefer vous la piscine ou la plage?"

"Pourez moi la vin, s'il vous plait."

What was remarkable was that few people called me on it.  To the last one the guy pouring the wine said, tolerantly, "I know what you're trying to say."

But I actually psyched one associate out.  I said, "Parlez vous la fromage?"  And he looked startled and said, in French, "Oh...just a little."  His accent was really good.

But the coolest thing was the featured guest.  I remember the planning committee casting around for a little entertainment.  We already had Edith Piaf headlining on the boom box, but the word went out to associates seeking anything live that was kind of Frenchy - a mime, an accordian player.

We ended up finding a caricature artist, who showed up dressed to the nines - 100% matching from her baby pink beret, shirt and skirt to her diamond encrusted pink pumps.  Adorable. 

She was a hit, in no small measure because her sketches were, let's just say, extremely flattering.

Bon voyage!

Modest Mouse

Ever notice how taxation and taxidermy involve the same root word?

Kelly Watch the Stars

Yeah, so I guess I don't know what I was expecting from Yuri's night.  I think I expected some serious, defense-department- (or at least NASA-) funded, professionally-produced thrills.  Toy rockets, maybe?  Perhaps some Mars rover test driving?  I wanted a ride in the centrifuge!  Or at least that thing the kids did in Space Camp, where they were sent tumbling and had to stabilize their craft? 

My brother took me to one of his Tailhook conventions many years ago, and I was amazed by the flashy booths, the flight simulator of the then-new SuperHornet, the hundreds of cool tchotchkes.  I think that's what I expected, with the addition of some real academics - intellectual but layman-friendly and inspiring speeches about manned flight to Mars or something.

It was very exciting, getting waved through the guardhouse, onto NASA property, finding myself driving closer and closer to those huge hangars I usually only see from a distance off 101.  And it was a quarter mile walk from where we parked through security fences before we got to the party.   

Or whatever you want to call it. 

It ended up being, as Tina observed, kind of a combination job fair/ high school science project fair/hippie fest.  I guess I should have expected it; you can't have any public gathering in the Bay Area without attracting a mess of hippies.  By which I mean, not necessarily Baby Boomers interested in self-expression and peace-mongering, but more specifically the Gen-X and Gen-Y conformist hippies who know one another instantly by their uniforms of dreadlocks, Phish t-shirts, and optional accessory (juggling sticks; rasta hat; peasant skirt; those big spool-diametered, earlobe-stretching earrings the guys wear; those ball-on-chain things). 

Presumably because it was a 12 hour party, as we entered, the friendly lady giving us our map pointed out the resting area, a tennis-court sized area of couches and and mattresses.   We were both tired already (we didn't get there till 5 pm and we'd both had full days), so we immediately checked out the Nap Area...and quickly walked away.  It was, like, fifty-odd hippies on these couches and mattresses that looked like they had once sat, lumpily, on the street with a scrawled "FREE" sign.  (The couches, not the hippies.)  They looked like they had fleas.  (Also the couches, not the hippies.)

There was a very loud DJ in one part of the main hangar playing sort of ambient/techhie grooves to a hundred people standing and sitting around, and, seriously, five people dancing in a very modern-dancey way - "I am a pebble, I am being washed away in the flood, I am floating, floating!"  Tina and I snickered.   A partner asked me this morning about the event and I said I had been surprised that such a high-tech event had attracted so many hippies, and he broke into a perfect imitation of the hippie dance that had me busting up.  I've tried; I can't do it.

Inside the big hangar were the tech exhibits.  There were a very few DIY projects for kids, some computery thing where you could make music, a foot pedal that would project LED stars onto the ceiling, a little two-piece balsa wood airplane you could make, that sort of thing.  There actually WAS a Mars rover type robot meandering around; I could be conflating that with the robot brought by the Carnegie Mellon robotics kids, who were promoting in advance of that annual competition in the desert. 

There was a guy giving a speech, something mystical about humanity and zero-gees; we didn't really follow; plus the acoustics were awful, he got lost in the din.  There was one of those companies that models environmental solutions (solar power collection, water resistance) off of natural shapes; their booth had nothing a couple of photographs and the conversations were mainly about positions of employment.

Later on we met up with our friend M&M, whose boyfriend, visiting from SoCal, just happens to be working currently on the next Mars rover, which will look for more conclusive signs of (past) life - I learned more sciencey stuff from him than from any of the booths.

This one intrigued me. 

There was a crowd, because it seemed to be an interactive booth - but I couldn't tell, was some schmoe actually controllign the game with his MIND?  That would have been pretty neat.

Outside were the art installations.  My friend had his exploding bubble thing that attracted a huge crowd after the sun went down (it was interactive); there was a little, um, tenty thing that was highly decorated along central Asian lines where people would just go and sit, 2 or 4 or 5 at a time, and ding the incense/begging bowl. 

I climbed over the doorframe, sat down and asked what the purpose was, and the guy there already said it was a meditative space (or something), a quiet place to get away from the hubbub.  But there were no walls or anything, so it wasn't actually quieter than where my friends stood waiting, two feet away.  But then the guy gave me the begging bowl so I felt morally obliged to remain until I planted it on the next victim. 

At one point one of the stages featured a Cirque de Soleil type acrobatic act, people hanging from fabric attached to the ceiling.  That was pretty cool.  And a lot cheaper than Zoomanity.

The food lines were phenomenal.  Of the six hours Tina and I were there, I estimate we spent four hours standing in line.  There was a booth for organic stuff, a booth for raw stuff, a booth for coffee that wasn't doing a lot of business, and a beer line that wasn't too bad, maybe just 30 minutes from back to front.  I got to the end of the beer line and remarked on how long it was, and the guy in front of me joked, "You should see the weed line!"

We all laughed, and then his friend pondered aloud why there wasn't any pot being smoked.  And we pointed out all the Federal officers walking around.  Or maybe, said his friend, it was the 40-foot tall "No Smoking" signs painted on the hangar.  "Jet fuel and doobies is so not a mellow combination."

The people watching was AWESOME, which made the long lines completely bearable, and actually part of the fun.  A ton of silver and gold lame.

Plenty of people dressed up as astronauts or cosmonauts (or just plain Soviets, with those big fur hats); plenty of people dressed outlandishly but not necessarily futuristically (some goths, a Pirate couple).

Plenty of fairies and fantasy whatnots (women in fishnets and other sexy combos).

 

That angel's wings operated independently - they went up and down.  Plus she was really sweet.

But my favorite was these guys - I wish I had a full length photo.

Oh, and these guys.

Have I mentioned everybody was really nice?

Tina and I were standing in a porta-potty line, and the guy behind me remarked, "Are you wearing contacts, or your eyes really that color?"  I was inordinately flattered.  The three of us made small talk, until his friend came up and they both walked away. 

Away?  "Didn't he just stand in line for the bathroom for 20 minutes?" 

The lady behind HIM, who was now behind us, said, "Yeah.  He said earlier he just likes standing in lines." 

"I guess you get to meet people..." we said.

"He said it was that when you leave prematurely, everybody behind you gets a little thrill, and he likes to spread that around."

Sure enough, he made about thirty people a little happier.

Tina and I danced a little.  I saw these coffee cups and had to share them with you (you don't even need sound):

That's some serious bass.

Steve, M&M's rocket scientist boyfriend, just happened to know when the International Space Station was going to be skimming overhead, and sure enough, we were standing in the beans-and-rice line as it made its unblinking passage.  I tapped the girls behind us, and they were all excited.  It seemed appropriate.  I tapped the really tall guy-I-thought-was-a-woman in front of us, and pointed out the space station, and in his British Accent he was all, "Really?  The ISS?" 

Ooh, "the ISS."  I was totally not cool enough, because I didn't use the acronym.  But he was psyched anyway, and passed it on to his friends.

The last thing we did was participate in an art project that was a whirligig connected to stationary bicycles, so that the harder you pedaled, the higher and faster the people in the chairs would fly.  It took four cyclists and four enjoyers, and you switched off - a great study in moral obligation.  Also, with three beers in me, it was exhausting and dizzying.

One thing I will say for this event - everybody, and I mean everybody, was in a great mood.  Maybe the perfect weather had something to do with it.  Everyone was friendly and openminded and helpful and eager to show kindness and patience.  I found it very easy to approach strangers and ask for pictures or inquire about a mystifying booth...or whatever.  (I saw one guy doing his Japanese homework; we chatted, traded cards, and he emailed me today - now I have a conversation group to join in the city!)  I'd hate to think that such a warm environment is only available for a $40 cover charge.