Holidaze

Ah, the holidays...since there's no Thanksgiving in the UK, and since we live far enough from the shopping centers to avoid seeing all the twinkly lights, I'm actually enjoying this year's build-up. Our Friday celebration was wonderful, and I'm actually glad I cooked everything from scratch -- except the nut loaf, which I should have. Ours was good, but I bet it would have been better if it also met the home-produced standard. Below, witness our wonderful biscuits, cranberry sauce (yay for the sound of bursting berries on the stove), garlic-and-muscat-wine basted potatoes, and the aforementioned nut loaf.


The real sign of a good Thanksgiving?


We spent the ensuing hours lolling on the couch, rising only when required (e.g., when we really wanted some of the pumpkin pie we made together).

Last night was a little more adventurous, as it was the Geneticals Christmas Dinner. Ever been in a room full of 40 people who spend most of their time talking about tagSNPs and linkage disequilibrium? Oh, and cricket: a disproportionate percentage of CB's lab cohort is Australian, and the Asher's is on right now. It's a massive cricket test between England and Australia. All I know is that the English got killed -- and the ones at our table were so irritated that they got up and left whenever the Aussies brought up the subject.

Naturally, as a very non-genetical person, I'd forgotten that a "dress up" event means "wear your best jeans and leave the Lord of the Rings tie at home." At least CB humored me and dressed up as well.


Then, after being pennied (see me chugging a full glass of red wine below), it was off to the Purple Turtle, a cavernous student union bar which epitomizes the term "dive bar." Swing dancing to bad '80s British rock ensued...that's what happens when CB's good bud is a former member of the uni dance team, and when you combine him with former swing-cat me.


We left the club around 1:30 and walked back to Bryan's office, where I'd wisely stashed a pair of tennis shoes for the walk to the bus. On the way, it became apparent that my feet really didn't appreciate wearing heels for the first time in months. Dancing might not have been the best idea. And that is why any late-night stragglers saw a well-dressed girl walking in nylon stockings through wet streets, heels squishing in the sunken areas where half-frozen mud and leaf muck had accumulated for weeks. By the time we reached the office, all the bits of my feet which weren't blistered were numb, and the nylons were sodden. I can only imagine the conversations his office-mates had this morning when they came in to find a pair of torn, dirty nylons in the bin.