"Never jump into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker"

Halloween has officially come and gone, and the evidence is nowhere if not in the pumpkins (shown above, fresh from their carving - that's mine second from the left) on our front porch beginning to mold and rot. this, of course, means i want them to be far, far away from me, but likely necessitates me having to touch one or both of them.

This was a long week. Somewhere in the middle of it, an error was found in the data set that I used for the paper that just got accepted for publication. That ignites about as much panic as one would expect, and I spent the majority of my time reconstructing the data set and rerunning analyses to make sure the findings that we have are still legit. Not cool. Not cool at all, and I hope I never have to do that again.

So, thank goodness that when that was over, I had already put a trip on the books to go visit Trish in Pittsburgh. She's there on internship (which she has to do since she is a clinical student - that won't be a part of my program as a developmentalist) and since you apparently make even less money as an intern than as a graduate student (I know, right?!) we did a lot of walking and hanging out. This ended up being perfect after such a stressful week. On Friday night, I had asked that Trish teach me how to make something that is both yummy and compatible with Matt's new low-cholesterol diet. Trish has always had a reputation for being an exceptional cook, and she certainly rose to the challenge. We had stemed halibut made with chives, jalapenos, ginger, and a blend of sesame and peanut oils. YUM. It was awesome and I'm putting it on the books as a "must replicate."

The only thing Trish and I felt that we needed to budget money for was a trip to H&M (where I came in $10 under my allowance, thank you very much) and dinner on Saturday night. Bless her heart, Trish arranged for us to get together with Sara and Stephanie, who were grad students with me in Missouri. Sara is in Trish's internship class at Pittsburg, and Stephanie is a faculty member at Western Psych. We all met up with Leslie, another very sweet intern who I met for the first time this weekend and I got my first experience with Ethiopian cuisine. It was great because they had a lot of spicy options, which is always good, but also because it was really interesting to eat. As suggested in the picture, the combination platter that we ordered is served on a pizza-pan-typed dish with each item creating a little pile somewhere on it. It's sitting on top of a bread that has the texture of pancake or crêpe. You unroll the bread from the roll that's placed on the side or tear it away from the layer on the pan and basically scoop up the food with the bread pieces. so, it was good AND it was fun. what's not to like about Eithiopian, I ask?

If I had a digital camera with the appropriate tools, I would also be uploading a video that I took at this place in Pittsburgh. to be fair, a german brewery was not on Trish's or my list for the afternoon (that's more of an event that Matt and I would undertake together, I think), but this spot turned out to be quite a gem. You unfortunately can't tell from the website, but the joint is situated such that the bar is at one end of a giant room and the rest of it is basically set up like a cafeteria. There are only about five booths total and the rest of the seating is comprised of long tables that made me wonder if everyone came with big parties or if some people were actually not sitting with people that they knew. Anway, the non-cafeteria feel came from a small stage that was set up on the end of the room opposite the bar. Now, Trish and I were honestly only there, because Jill's text message about the Iowa football game were making me naseous and I had to figure out what the heck was going on. But not 2 minutes after plopping down at the bar we were fixated on a very excited little old man who had taken the stage dressed in full leiderhosen. (seriously, I'm not making this up. . . and it gets better). so, said old man takes the stage, straps on an accordian, and calls out to about 20 people from different places in the room who he had apparently recruited to be a part of his shennanigans. At his bequeathing, they line up in front of the stage and proceed to do the chicken dance, which he is of course playing on the aforementioned accordian. i think this was probably not all that strange for this crowd, as other less shocking activities ensued (some i can only describe as shouting in German).

all in all it was a good weekend, and i suppose that i am ready to start on another week. although i am enjoying the beautiful fall, i must admit that i am a little sad to have the summer be over. this may be surprising, as i realize that my legs in this acl pic suggest that i haven't seen much of the sun in a very, very long time. nonetheless, daylight savings time always seems to make it official. nothing super exciting is on the books for this week. matt will be here on friday, so I will likely be working all week to be able to enjoy the weekend. hope everyone out there is doing wonderfully. love you all.