Around town

Mmmmm, fresh heirloom tomatoes...

Today started with a bit of normal errands - grocery shopping (laying in supplies for bulk projects so we can restock the freezer), credit union, etc. It felt like a routine Saturday morning, and that was good.

(Of course, Arthur extended his hand towards me, expecting me to hand him cash, and that was when we crossed over into my new role as Sugar Mama. For which I am not prepared, so that felt very outside the routine.)

This evening we headed downtown for the Fifth Annual Homegrown Festival. Several local establishments selling food and drink, plus a silent auction (with some nice prizes, but we're on a student budget now) and many local nonprofits and vendors tabling. Music and some spontaneous dancing, as well.

We had a lovely time. It was great to get out and see a social space that wasn't dominated by students. (There were plenty of students there; they just weren't overwhelming.) And the food we had was great.

I stumbled onto some duck confit paella (with aioli) which was incredible. I normally can't eat paella because of all the shellfish, so I jumped at the opportunity to try this. And it was well worth it - I will be hunting down the vendor for lunch sometime when I have a steadier income.

When I was waiting in the tamale line - which was a pretty long line - I was tempted to give up and go get more paella. That's how good it is. (I almost didn't get a picture, because someone kept trying to eat it instead of hold it.)

The tamales were good, though. I was going to order a blueberry one for Arthur, but they ran out by the time I got to the front of the line.

Arthur finally checked out the Indian vendor that one of his dancing friends had recommended. And I got a pretzel from this great feeling bakery - I liked them enough that I bid in the silent auction for a gift card.

Anyway, there were tomato tastings (really good range and set up), fresh local cheeses, a couple of chocolate vendors... Truly, quite a lot given that it's a free event. It felt like something we'd do back home - again, settling in to a new normal. Very happy.

Adventures in transit

It's definitely a car culture, and tonight drove that home.

We can take the campus shuttle for free from basically our doorstep all the way to central campus. Which is great. But the farmers market (and this food festival, and apparently a book festival tomorrow) and the food co-op and a bunch of great restaurants are about a mile from main campus. Which isn't that bad right now - the clouds have finally arrived, the temperature has dropped 10 degrees to something I find more comfortable, and the sunset was gorgeous as a result - but if shlepping a bunch of food from the farmers market or co-op in cold weather... it could be limiting. Driving involves finding parking, and paying for parking... and it feels too close to be worth it.

We keep taking the campus shuttle because, well, it's free. And I have no job yet, so free equals good. But we decided to try taking the city bus back home (especially if we imbibed at the festival), since it's free for Arthur and we didn't want to be walking that far to the bus in the dark if inebriated.

Except... it turns out that the city bus had already stopped running - or at least the one to where we live. (Next bus was 12 hours later... um, no thanks.) So we walked back to the bus stop after all.

And this is where it got very not fun. It being a weekend night, the campus buses were running about every 15-20 minutes or so. There's a second bus that stops about a 10 minute walk from home, so that's a backup.

But the first three buses - of both types - were too full to take on passengers. (Two of them didn't even bother stopping.) We started to walk back to the beginning of the line, but Arthur wanted to stop because we wouldn't get there before the next bus left.

But it's good we made it as far as we did. We got on the bus - barely - but would not have had we stayed at our original stop. It was, again, too darned crowded.

So, lesson learned: on Saturday nights, either drive (yuck) or walk the extra distance to the origin of the bus route if we want to get home at a reasonable hour.

We were nearly the only people on the bus not wearing school spirit of some sort. Go us?

(This was hours after the game ended, so it's not as simple as people heading home after the game. We'll see if it's like this on an away-game weekend. Speaking of which, I did the unthinkable and actually looked at the schedule. And, er, I will have to spend next weekend cheering keeping my mouth shut or cheering quietly.)