New York Craigslist

I've had two really crazy things happen to while using New York Craigslist.

The first happened about 2 months ago while we were still in San Francisco just browsing for New York apartments on Craigslist. I found a cute two bedroom in the West Village that looked perfect. I emailed them asking them to contact me if it was still available when we got out there in about a week. I immediately get this email back saying:

Angie!!!?! It's jamie from Wes! Is this you?!

It turns out it was my friend Jamie Wong from Wesleyan. She had just moved to San Francisco and was looking for someone to rent her place! While we ended up deciding to get a one bedroom instead, Jamie and I were able to reconnect a bunch over the past couple months which has been a lot of fun.

But it doesn't end there.

Fast forward 2 months. We were now furnishing our new place, and decided to look on craigslist again. I saw this glass coffee table I liked, so I sent off an email inquiring about it. I got this one back:

Are you serious?

I am sure Heather and I can work something out with you guys!!

So funny-we have got to stop running into each other like this-

It was my friend Heather's husband Matt, both of whom I also went to Wesleyan with and had already coincidentally bumped into them the weekend before when we got on the train to go to a wedding in the Hamptons.

I thought this city was supposed to be so big and chaotic!! It's like a small town for crying out loud. No one would even believe these coincidences if they were written in a script.

I am also seriously starting to wonder if the only people who use craigslist in the city went to Wesleyan. Either way though, it's been a pretty reassuring introduction to New York.

Ask Randoms

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Obama Does It Again

"We did not come here to fear the future, we came here to shape it." -- Barack Obama, September 9, 2009.

God he's good.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I encourage you to watch his whole speech on health care. I laughed, cheered, and even teared up a little at the end. If you don't have time watch the whole thing, watch from 23:75 to 31:53 where he eloquently, yet simply, explains the importance of the public plan. Also, watch 38:30 to 39:00 where he socks it to the Republicans. Now I'm no lip reader, but at 38:54 doesn't it seem like rising star Republican Paul Ryan (R-WI) says something like "That was a good point." I love it.

I have faith he'll get this thing done. The media loves drama, and Obama has a history of letting them spin a little but still bringing it home.

Pureed Wild Radish and Rutabaga

I recently coordinated a little volunteer expedition with a few friends pulling invasive species for Golden Gate Park's department out on Land's End. Land's End is near Ocean beach in San Francisco, and is absolutely gorgeous and a great place to go running or walking.

Anyhow, they had us pulling wild radish, which is an invasive species that take over the area and make it tough for the native species to thrive (there's a better definition here).

Some of the radishes we pulled up were really big (see picture of our friends Paul and Alex for size reference), so I decided to take a couple home to see if I could cook them up.

On my way out, one of the other volunteers said that if I managed to make anything decent I should email this woman Cynthia who had an invasive species cook book for recipes that include, for example, fennel or nasturcium which are invasive yet very tasty plants. Isn't that cool that someone actually wrote an invasive species cook book?!

Well, I went home, did some experimenting, and finally ended up making a nice little side dish out of those big bitter radishes. I emailed this woman Cynthia to let her know, but she never emailed me back, so I decided I'd post the recipe here. Maybe I should write a compet invasive species cook book. This could be my first recipe.

Anyhow, the wild radishes are really tough so you have to eat them cooked instead of raw. First I tried to roast them but they got really dry, so then I tried boiling them which worked much better. Also, like I mentioned, they are super bitter. I ended up having to add a rutabaga to the recipe to cut the bitterness. The radishes taste a lot like a mustardy rutabaga when boiled, so that worked out really nicely.

Here's the recipe:

Pureed Wild Radish and Rutabaga

• Peel and cut wild radishes into chunks
• Peel and cut equal parts rutabaga into chunks
• Boil radish and rutabaga together in a pot for about 15-20 minutes or until they are both very tender
• Add some milk, butter, salt and pepper to taste
• Blend with a mixer like you would mashed potatoes until creamy
• Serve as a side dish with meat or fish or anything really.
  

And here's a pictures of the finished dish. I should have taken it when it was plated and looking pretty, but you can get the idea.

It would be great to hear if anyone else out there has ever attempted to eat Wild Radish and what your recipe was.

Obama's Speech in Cairo

If you haven't seen Obama's speech in Cairo that he gave last weekend, definitely check it out. It's absolutely amazing.


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I still can't believe what a relief it is to have Obama as our president.

I'm very proud of him for being so bold and strong regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and also reminding us that Muslims and Muslim countries have played an important role in America's history and culture.

This speech is going to be one for the history books. Also, I believe this president will be viewed by history with the same reverence as we now view Lincoln.

Moving

People keep asking for an update. Before when I was super busy with work and life I felt I had a reason to slack. But now that I just quit my job, I guess I don't anymore. So here goes.

The big update is that we are finally getting our act together and moving to New York. We've been saying we're going move for about 6 months now and haven't made any progress, and apparently a few of our friends are even making bets on our timing (I think Maryam already won some money betting against our former claims we were moving in March).

But I quit my job two weeks ago so that was the first real tangible step. The next step is finding a place in NYC. We're thinking of trying to do a house swap for the first three months so we can get a sense of the city before committing, and we wouldn't have to deal with either renting out or selling our house in San Francisco. Plus Sep wants to come back in the Spring to teach a semester at Stanford so it will be nice to have our house back for that.

We're actually in New Jersey right now but we're not looking for places, we're going to Sep's 10-year college reunion at Princeton. Then, over the next few weeks, we have like 5 weddings and my parents and Aunt Lisa coming to visit for a week. We'll start really looking for a place in July/August.

So I thought I was going to be excited to be unemployed for a couple months before moving and finding a job in New York, but it actually makes me very uncomfortable! I don't like uncertainty and I really don't like not being super busy. I also didn't realize how much of my identity is wrapped up in my work and my career path. I think when I take breaks from work from now on, I need to be traveling so that it just feels like a temporary vacation instead of feeling like such a lofty transition. If I look at it objectively though, I know I'm super lucky to have this time off and I'm using it to do the things that make me really happy. Like spending more time with Sep, my family and friends, and also doing things like being in nature, getting more exercise, doing pottery, cooking, and reading a ton. So that has been really nice. I'm also looking into taking some computer science classes to get a little more technical and maybe also taking a Farsi class.

Anyhow, that's my update. I'm going to try to keep this a little more updated although I think I do a lot less political ranting than I used to. I do want to write some about my experiences cooking up an invasive species that we took out of Golden Gate park last weekend, walking Bay to Breakers, Maryam's wedding, and Emily's new baby, so those will be fun.

Also, if you're curious about the picture. That's me sitting here right now. Unemployed. In New Jersey. Sep is in the background. It's a crappy picture taken by my webcam, but I just think blog posts look better with pictures.