Holy Hail

The photo above is from yesterday evening's big old storm. After getting knocked on the noggin by marble-sized hail as I skittered from my front door to my car, I drove on rivers of hailstones to the grocery store, then wisely tried to wait out the little bastards before going in to fetch my tortilla chips. This is my blurry documentary photography; the rain and hail were coming down way too hard to open the window. Freaky.

Completely unrelatedly, have you heard the NY band Holy Hail? They're pretty good--I discovered them on Hype Machine the other day. Listen to Minute Man (mp3). You can hear more on their MySpace.

Thinking about missing Bumbershoot again has me longing for more live music. It's too bad Denver's so far away and that most of the shows I'd like to see fall mid-week. A friend and I are pondering going to Monolith--the Saturday lineup looks most promising.

I did catch the Jalan Crossland Band set on campus the other day. I enjoyed it, and the students seemed really into it, singing along and getting really crazy during "Trailer Park Fire." I was too tired to stay for the headliners, Head for the Hills, so I'm officially old.

last weekend of summer, part 2

Sunday brought more hot weather, but also storms. I headed up to Vedauwoo with Chad in the afternoon for the last vertical dance performance. Right as we arrived, the storm broke and pounded freezing cold water down on us. We waited it out in the car before hiking up to the site, and consequently missed the first ten minutes or so of the performance. I wonder if I missed the best part, because I remember some much cooler moves from the show two summers ago.

You can't really see the dancers in the photo above, but I wanted to show the scale of the rock. It's impressive, to be sure, though you need a better vantage point than I had to really see everything. The first time I went, we got there early and staked out a much better spot.

After the show, we drove across the valley to Centennial and hung out at the Bear Tree in the back yard. There was live music, and we had some green chili pizza. It was a nice way to end the day before the semester started.

last weekend of summer

After the read-in we had in the library for freshman orientation, I headed to Denver with some friends. We had dinner at the Cheeky Monk, where I enjoyed mussels with bacon and blue cheese. So good. Then we saw the Avett Brothers at the Ogden. It was a good show, but sweltering in there. It reminded me of last summer's Old 97's show at the Wonder Ballroom in Portland. I was so sweaty that my jeans felt like they were shrinking as I wore them.

A taste:

is this turning into a food blog?

Tonight, I took a look in the cupboard and fridge and decided to make chili, which morphed into a chicken chili tortilla soup, based on what I had on hand. You guys, it's so good!

I spiced it with a ton of chili powder, basil, red pepper flakes, sea salt, and garlic powder. It has two cans of stewed tomatoes and a big can of kidney beans, chopped up chicken breasts, and some water. The contributions from the farm share are two white onions and corn. I like to add the tortillas to each serving individually, so they don't get too soggy and floppy, and I top it with a bit of shredded sharp cheddar cheese. This will keep me happy for a few days.

Last night, I baked up some muffins using that zucchini. There was just enough for a batch, and I added in raisins, dried cranberries, and chopped walnuts. I made both regular and mini muffins (I have an aversion to the jumbo muffins).



They're a good breakfast and are so tasty warmed up with butter!

confession

Forgive me blogger, for I have sinned. It's been more than two weeks since my last entry. In that time I've been busy and little of what I've been doing is blog-worthy. School is starting soon, and I'm involved with planning too many upcoming events. My workdays have been long and filled with dozens of small tasks, double checking the timelines for various projects so I'm on track, and being constantly interrupted by urgent email.

But I did start playing softball on a friends' coed team. I'm pretty much terrible, though I usually manage to hit the ball and get on base. They have me playing right field, aka the position least likely to see action, which is okay by me. I wish we had a batting cage in town, because I really need to practice. A friend pointed out that I don't know how to swing the bat without moving my whole body along with it, which is probably why I don't hit the ball very hard or far.

I haven't been at yoga much, mainly because I'm too tired to make the morning classes, and there's enough going on at work that it's hard to get away at noon or early evening. This needs to change, because I need the mental health break. It's worth it.

The vegetable bounty in my farm share seems to be improving. It never seems like that much food, but it's really hard to get through it in a week. Especially the greens. I'm a salad lover, but I'm at capacity. I've been loving the yellow squash and zucchini because it's so fast and easy to saute and eat with whatever protein I have on hand. I still have a pretty big zucchini from last week, so I think I'm going to shred it for bread or muffins. This week, I got a couple baby artichokes, some onions, beets, and sweet corn. The beets will get roasted and thrown in a salad with some grapefruit and a citrus vinaigrette. It's fun to try to figure out ways to use this stuff with whatever else I have laying around.