Kate came in this weekend. I thought we might like a quiet night in, so I decided to make the "easy skillet lasagna" in my cookbook. Note to self: never assume something labeled "easy" will actually be easy.
I had a rocky start, substituting dried tortellini for the frozen cheese ravioli the recipe called for. Of course, there's no real way to tell whether a packet of dried tortellini is equivalent to a pound of frozen ravioli...so I ended up with a heck of a lot of tortellini. That might have been okay--they all fit in the pan, even with an entire jar of sauce--but the recipe called for spinach and I, with my usual waste-not-want-not attitude, decided to put, like, half a bag of spinach in the sauce.
There wasn't much splashing, really, but I was already fed up with worrying about how much spinach was going to fit, how I was going to transfer this into containers evenly, how much cheese I was going to get in the sauce... So I switched it up, threw the tortellini in a baking dish, and baked it. I call it, "lazy lasagna." Next time maybe I'll do it on purpose and throw even more vegetables in.
The meal wasn't done with me, though. After forgetting the bake in the oven and rescuing it at the perfect moment, I apparently forgot to turn off the oven. Come 4:30AM, the carbon monoxide alarm woke us up with its shrill beeping. Since Neline set the smoke alarm off a couple weeks ago with a steak (that did not, in fact, burn) we now know that the alarms sound different. Anyway, we turned the oven off, opened a bunch of windows, set up the fan, prayed the landlord wasn't regretting letting us move in, and went back to sleep. Aiyah!
The Week at Work
Last week was crazy busy. B.F.'s new assistant, E.S., finally arrived--the same week that everyone was holding massive, hour-plus meetings every day of the week! Poor E.S. had a rough time of it, but he was a good sport about it. Of course, between training and the meetings, I was a bit rushed to get things done--but done I did get them! The whole new Business, Economics, and Finance team went out for lunch to get acquainted, and I think we're going to do some good work together.
E.S. and I ended up getting some extra time together. He'd moved up from D.C. with four potential rooms to see...only for all of them to back out. Since Neline and I have a small living room and a futon, E.S. came to crash with us a couple nights to get out of the hostel where he had been staying. Makes me very grateful to have found my first room so quickly!
The Weekend with Kate
This was the bit I was looking forward to all week--Kate came to visit! Unfortunately, her bus got stuck in traffic, so we didn't end up going straight home to eat that tortellini bake. Yep, really. Instead we grabbed dinner at Munchy's in Port Authority--nothing fancy, of course, but they've served me well in a pinch and before interviews a couple times.
On the way home, we swung by Martha's Country Bakery, the same place where dad and I had sampled two thirds of the non-sweet offerings on the menu after the first round of move-in. I figured it was a good day for a treat...though we had quite the task in settling on which pieces of cake we wanted. We finally agreed to split a slice each of raspberry cream and a triple chocolate fudge, then headed home to curl up on the futon and watch Pacific Rim. Good old Guillermo Del Toro--his signature world building was superb, even while Neline was giggling at the cheesy lines, Kate and I were rolling our eyes at the cliches, and all three of us were making irreverent comments about the fight scenes.
Neline and I got an early start to the morning. While Kate slept in, we hauled the boxes containing Neline's new bed platform upstairs, then set about assembling it. Two hours later, I woke Kate up for eggs before we headed out to the Brooklyn Flea to poke among the vendors. We were amazed how many fur coats we saw! Unfortunately I didn't find anything that fit my few apartment needs: interesting coat hooks, small boxes for sorting our silverware, a neat glass bowl for us to pool our discount cards and mailbox key, a small mail basket for the wall, etc.
We then swung by my old neighborhood to visit the Housing Works thrift shop and bookstore in the Lower East Side (ish). Housing Works is a great organization that raises money to help those with AIDS and HIV find support, shelter, and services. Earlier this summer I happened upon their massive outdoor book sale, so I thought we'd stop in to support a good cause. I'd known the bookstore was a good find--Kate found two books she'd been wanting at half their Amazon prices--but the thrift shop was flooring. One pair of jeans with an original tag that read $139 was on sale for $10! I found a fantastic, fitting pair of work slacks similar to the ones that go with my suit, which I love, for the same amount, that were originally from Banana Republic.
Kate talked me into heading up to Times Square (though I was quite vocal about my disapproval of all the rude tourists) to see if we could get tickets to a show...but the line for discounted, last-minute, nosebleed seats was so long that we took one look and gave up. Kate then gamely walked across the width of Manhattan with me to see Grand Central Station...and the nearby branch of Midtown Comics, where we bemoaned the price of gorgeously illustrated comics and graphic novels.
After a quick warm-up cup of hot chocolate from Le Pain Quotidian, we decided to hurry to the nearest movie theater to catch the next showing of Thor 2. I was all for 12 Years a Slave again, but Kate didn't have her glasses and, given that she cried a contact out at Les Mis, was absolutely certain that she would not keep her contacts in for that movie. As it turned out, Thor 2 hit the spot. The gorgeous fantasy world, fun pseudo-science, and ridiculous plot were just what we needed. We rounded out the evening with Subway before hitting the subway and crashing at home.
We had a slow start on Sunday, starting with a viewing of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special before packing up and heading into town. We'd decided to hit the museums, since we had to bring Kate's bag with us (not enough time to get back to Astoria to pick it up) and we figured we could leave it at the coat check.
Kate had just visited the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., the weekend before with Mom and Dad, so we went down to Battery Park on the very southern tip of Manhattan to visit it's sister museum, the imaginatively named National Museum of the American Indian-New York. In addition to a historical exhibit that was actually about American Indians (there were spotlights on Canadian, Central American, and South American tribes in addition to those located in the future US), there was an absolutely amazing exhibit of historical, contemporary, and modern art done by American Indians.
Unfortunately, after that the wind was so cold that we couldn't bring ourselves to battle our way across the point to the Jewish Museum, where we'd planned to see the Art Spiegelman exhibit. Instead, we made a very long subway trip up to Port Authority, where we hung out with hot drinks and chatted until it was time for Kate to go.
And now, since I didn't manage to post this before Thanksgiving, it's time to wrap this up and move on.
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