Air and Space

Cold War plane. SR 71, known as Blackbird. I'm like a kid in a candy store.

Test

This is a test

Comings and Goings

Last week, Dan and I had an epic 3 nights, 3 dinners fiesta with our dear friends, Suj and Shamita A. Dinner #1 was grilling, Dinner #2 was home-cooked Indian food, and Dinner #3 was spring foods like prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, citrus salad mix, and zucchini fettuccine. I love the Acharyas. Here's me and Shamita.

Quick jaunt to Washington (the state, not our nation's capital) for another interview for Dan. The Pacific Northwest is really the most beautiful place I could live. Outside of perhaps Lake Tahoe. Totally breathtaking. Too bad it rains so much.

The realtor even humored me during the community tour by showing me the high school where Twilight was filmed. Not going to lie, I totally squealed.

Even got some time to have brunch with one of Dan's old roommates and friends from Chicago, Chris C and his lovely girlfriend, Julie D. Here's Dan waiting at the restaurant in Portland.

Then it was a detour to Memphis (another interview), and finally back in Chicago. 3 airports and 4 flights in 7 days. I missed Chicago. You don't really appreciate it until you see other parts of the country.

Spring is a coy thing in Chicago

Spring arrived in a brief glorious moment two weeks ago in Chicago. Bewitched by the 80+ degree weather, Dan and I joined our fellow Chicagoans in pretending like this wasn't Mother Nature's joke. Hey, here's awesome weather, oh wait. Just kidding. It's back to the 40's and 50's. Haha. Blame the lake effect, right? They blame every bizarre weather pattern on the so-called "lake effect."

Like other cheerful, winter-crazed Midwestern denizens, we engaged in summer-like activities for that one pseudo-summer week.

Dan cut low-hanging branches on the tree in front of our house to prevent me poking my eyes out.

 

We went to Opening Day of the Green City Farmer's Market to look for the first spring vegetables: asparagus!

We walked around the neighborhood admiring the newly installed public art pieces.

Of course, we went to Costco to see what other interesting products they added to their offerings. 53' plush bear, anyone?

Finally, we made delicious spring-based foods: caprese salad from Costco mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes, proscuitto-wrapped blanched asparagus with truffle salt and olive oil, spring mix with cinnamon sugar-toasted walnuts, fuji apples, and nice citrus dressing.

 

I even started putting away winter clothes. Silly me, it's cold again and I need to pull them back out. I don't know what I was thinking. It must be the lake effect.

Weekend of Solving Math Problems...Naked

This past weekend, Dan flew to Los Angeles to spend time with his grandmother. She was recovering from major surgery following a hip fracture, and Dan was worried. The decision was made, tickets were purchased, and off Dan went in short order. Good news: she's recovering nicely.

 Here's grandma at our wedding last year during the Korean bowing (paebeck) ceremony. Isn't she adorable?

I went to the opposite coast to the 25th anniversary of the founding of the my MIT sorority, Alpha Chi Omega. Dan asked, "So what are you doing to do this weekend in Boston?" I automatically responded, "Pillow fights..naked." It's hard for most people to juxtapose their conceptions of "sorority" and "MIT". So I make it easy. Kristie T, my best friend and stalwart sorority leader, had a better answer. "Solving math problems..naked."

Here is Kristie with the MIT fight song.

For those of you not math-inclined, here it goes:

I'm a Beaver, you're a Beaver, we are Beavers all

And when we get together, we do the Beaver call!

E to the U du dx

E to the X dx

Cosine, secant, tangent, sine

3.14159

Integral radical mu dv

Slipstick, slide-rule, MIT!

Yes, we are that AWESOME.  You know what else was in the same category of AWESOME? The interesting (some new, some old) public art that MIT had installed throughout its campus.

In front of the Stratton Student Center:

 Spinning transparent oblong thingies hanging in the Green Building corridor:

 

The beautiful Stata Center is a piece of art in it of itself.

The five of us that showed up from my year (Ariya L., Kristie T., Cat K., Vicki S., me) had a lot of fun reminiscing and making vaguely inappropriate jokes. I'd forgotten how much silliness and unadulterated joy I could have with my girlfriends. And how amazing they were. Among the stories heard: social worker involved in novel financial literacy programs, minister to campus youth promoting cohesion, an active F-16 fighter pilot, grad students in every conceivable discipline, physicians, engineers, housewives, it goes on.

From left to right: Cat, me, Kristie, Ariya, Vicki:

Back to the silliness. We were discussing ways to encourage sisters to donate to the AXO Scholarship Fund. Cat K suggested donations of $69.69 for obvious reasons. Here she is in front of the legendary 69 Smoots mark on Harvard Bridge.

 

A brief foray into the always fascinating MIT Museum found me clutching salt and pepper shaker robots. I WANT.

Other notable details: Deep discussions into the mechanics of vajazzling, taking over a not-yet-opened Cambodian restaurant in Central Square and promptly turning it into an impromptu dance club, running out of alcoholic whip cream, and two-stepping.

I leave you with this picture of Cat trying to fight her way through the aforementioned alcoholic whip cream to the ACTUAL alcohol. Bravo!

p.s. My good friends from b-school also got engaged in Boston this weekend, and I was fortunate enough to attend their (surprise) engagement party. Want to see the ring? Yes, yes you do. You can start forest fires with it, I bet.