I like skinny asparagus! I got some at the store today and roasted it. Tasty!

I also bought Cocoa Pebbles on sale today, and I have to say, they aren't nearly as good as Cocoa Krispies. But they still make a decent dessert when there's nothing else sweet to eat...

In the neverending process of reducing the number of belongings I have to move to California (I'm shipping a box of stuff every day or so, but there's still a lot left), I'm throwing away some recipes I clipped out of magazines when I had my appendix out. Most of them are online, so I don't need to keep them, but here's one that isn't online that I might like to try. This seems like the most likely place to put it where I might find it again. So without further ado:

Cosmo's "Fab" Potato Salad

Courtesy of Mark Estee, chef at Moody's Bistro, in Truckee, CA:

For the dressing: chop 6 strips of bacon and cook over medium heat until crispy. Strain the drippings. In a bowl, combine 2 tbsp each Dijon mustard and horseradish and 4 tbsp cider vinegar. Whisk in 1 cup olive oil, bacon drippings, and 4 tbsp lemon juice. Add 2 tbsp each of minced parsley and chives, plus a pinch of salt and pepper.

In a pot, boil 2 lbs. fingerling potatoes in water. Reduce to a simmer, and cook 10 minutes or until tender. Drain, cut, and toss with dressing. Serves 6.

Maybe someday I'll find a potato salad recipe that I can be known for (as in, "We should ask Caitlin to bring her awesome potato salad to our barbecue!"). I should get working on that!

I just had a delicious dinner of linguine with clam sauce. It's one of my favorite meals from my childhood, and it's so easy to make! Here's the makeshift recipe I use:

Ingredients:

• linguine
  
• 1 tbsp. butter
  
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
  
• a few cloves of garlic, sliced or minced
  
• 1/4 cup white wine
  
• a can of clams
  
• 1 tsp. dried basil
  
• salt, pepper

Directions:

1. Start the water boiling for the linguine.
   
   
2. About a minute before you put the linguine in, heat up a skillet and melt the olive oil and butter in it over medium heat.
   
   
3. Get the linguine started, and while that's cooking, make the sauce. To do this, saute the garlic in the butter and olive oil, then deglaze with the white wine. Simmer for a minute, then add the clams with juice, along with salt, pepper, and basil (I tried adding 1 tbsp of soy sauce this time around too, and it turned out pretty well). Then just keep simmering until the linguine's done.
   
   
4. Drain the pasta and toss with the sauce, then take it off the heat and stir in some Parmesan. Eat!
   

Makes 1 or 2 servings, depending on how much linguine you use.

It's not a very healthy meal, but yum! I had some steamed zucchini on the side tonight to make it more well-rounded.

In other news, I'm back in lab this week, doing a few quick experiments, but they'll all be finished by the time I go to California on Friday, luckily. When I'm in California, I'll work on polishing my thesis and article and all that. Not the most relaxing vacation, but necessary given the circumstances. I'm looking at a tentative end date of July 21st (that's when I'd give my presentation and hand in the thesis final copy), but that's subject to change. But I hope it doesn't!

For the record, here's what my haircut looks like when I let my hair dry normally (with a little anti-frizz serum for good measure). This is me making a monkey face (not intentionally, but that's how it turned out):

And here's a picture of me making a normal face, but the light isn't as good. You can only sort of make out my skinned eyebrows. They're shiny because I put neosporin on them to make them heal faster. Keeping a wound moist is supposed to speed up the healing progress, and this was the best moisture barrier I had handy. Plus, it's neosporin--its job is to help stuff heal! Don't worry, I didn't rub it in my eye.

Today I did my laundry and watched TV. And slept in! That's how a weekend should be :)

I get to see Patrick and California in less than a week! I can't wait!

I had an unplanned day out today. I called Liquid this morning to make an appointment for next week, and it turned out they had an opening today at 3:30, so I decided to go today and spend the rest of the day doing stuff around town.

First, I went to the Cambridgeside Galleria, as I'd been planning to do. I accomplished my goal, which was to buy a pair of LEI jeans. The jeans were on sale, though still not cheap. They were also marked four sizes larger than the pants size I normally wear, but I guess as long as they fit well, it doesn't matter what number is on the tag.

Next, I took the T to the South End, where I grabbed a wonderful tomato and mozzarella sandwich from Flour and got to see a baby (but no dogs this time)! Then it was time for my appointment with Holly at Liquid. Probably the last one before I move, and coincidentally, she's also moving soon--to Maine!

First she colored my hair (the same blonde as before, just a touch-up. Well, I hadn't had anything done for four months, so maybe a little more than a touch-up). No lemon bars this time, but I did get some water in a cute glass with a bendy straw, and I read some boring girly magazines ("girly magazines" in both senses of the phrase--I flipped through both Cosmo and FHM).

Next, there was a shampooing interlude. The shampoo girl is good; she massages the scalp while shampooing, which makes up for the uncomfortable sinks they make you lean your head into. I wonder if the other salon employees share their tips with her; I hope so! Or maybe I was supposed to tip her separately.

Then came the haircut. It's pretty much the same as last time. I like it. It was raining pretty hard out today, but luckily it stopped before I went outside, or else my pretty blow-dried hair would've gone back to being curly (I know, there's nothing wrong with curly hair, but it's so very rarely straight!). Oh, and I also got my eyebrows waxed while I was there. Yet again, the wax took off a few layers of epidermis, leaving my eyebrows very sad-looking. Worse than just the redness and swelling that's normal with eyebrow waxing. I'm not sure if Holly is just rougher than other aestheticians I've been to, or if my skin has just gotten more sensitive since I moved here. I'll just be self-conscious again for a few days, and then it'll heal and I'll be all better.

Here are before and after pictures of my hair (and eyebrows--Jen's eyebrows are nicer though, I think):

It's crazy how much volume goes away when it's straight (and even more when it's really straight). Maybe I'll start trying to blow dry it again. I did it for a few weeks after my last visit to Liquid, but then I lost my motivation.

After my salon visit, I went to Copley Place (two malls in one day and a visit to a salon? I guess I was making up for all those weekends I spent in the lab). I was hoping to find some simple black dress shoes, since I don't have much in the way of nice shoes at the moment. But I didn't find what I was looking for. All the shoe places were having sales, and they tended not to have my size, which was disappointing. I didn't think my shoe size was that popular; I have bigger feet than average.

Oh, but I did find a few more things on sale (everything I bought today was on sale!). I got a cute little frou-frou top at the Limited. It came with this annoying extra strap and fabric rosette attached, but I did a little surgery on it when I got home, and it's much more to my liking now. Here's the top before and after (those are my new jeans I'm wearing, but they just look like jeans). I hope it doesn't fall apart as soon as I wash it!

So, it was a satisfying day of materialism. I still feel kind of weird about being all traditionally girly and conforming to social beauty standards, having my eyebrows shaped and getting my hair dyed and styled and stuff. I like myself the way I am, and I'm glad people don't all look the same, but I still feel better about myself when I put extra effort into my appearance and grooming. That's pretty normal, I guess. I just don't want to become one of those women who are obsessed with their appearances and have fake tans and fake nails and fake boobs and wear uncomfortable high-heeled shoes all the time. I just need to figure out where to draw the line between enhancing what I've got and trying to make myself look like a totally different person. I'm not too worried.