I have found an advantage to posting to my blog only every few months. It naturally causes me to write only about the things that have made it into my long-term memory, which, I reason, must be the more important stuff. Right? Right?

So here’s my recap of what I’ve been up to since my last real blog post, which was OCTOBER of last year.

  • Thanksgiving — At which we made vegan mashed potatoes, vegan stuffing, a turkey, cranberry sauce, and other goodies. We bought a folding table to fit everyone! Cooking without meat, milk, butter or eggs is a bit of a challenge, but everything turned out yummy.

  • Anthropomorphizing Chimpanzees — At work, we put a Santa hat on a chimpanzee using Photoshop. Hilarity did not ensue. I have the letter from the International Primatological Society to Science outlining how damaging this was to the image of chimpanzees and conservation efforts somewhere if you want to see it.

  • chicken dance elmoChristmas — Hosted at our house in Virginia. We sported our new Team Santa pajamas and puzzled over Herb’s Chicken Dance Elmo present. Thanks for the Flying Spaghetti Monster T-shirt mom and dad!

  • Don’t Plan an Event At Brasserie Beck — Tried to get 15+ people into this restaurant that has a really awesome selection of Belgian beer and really nice bartenders for Herb’s 30th birthday. Unfortunately, they overbooked and gave me the runaround for over an hour past my reservation time. We walked out, and over to RFD’s where they served us promptly. Take that!

  • Playing Tourist In DC — My friend Abby came to visit with her husband and baby. Got to see the Anne Leibowitz and Ansel Adams exhibits. My sympathies to historians trying to find jobs. There is too many of you and not enough work!

  • AAAS Annual Meeting — I set up a Twitter account and manage to get people together for a party through Facebook. Go AAAS! Also around the time of this meeting, we mint, market, and make money off of a shirt featuring human chromosome 1. I thank the blogosphere for their love of our geektastic genome garb.

  • I Can Now Officially Plan a Wedding — After many moons, Herb and I are engaged. We have been looking around at places to get married, and at the very bottom of the pile is La Fontaine Bleu in Glen Burnie. Herb said first that it smelled like a funeral parlor, then like cigarette smoke and broken dreams.

  • NTEN Conference — I am sucked into the vortex created by constantly checking Twitter, eat chargrilled oysters and good African food, learn some stuff, and lament not staying an extra day in New Orleans. Should have known that as soon as the flight was delayed the first time that I would be spending the entire evening in the airport. 5:00 pm to 3:00 am in transit. Yay!

  • Ah, Nashua — Facebook also has a great group “You know you’re from Nashua when…” Emmon!

  • Boston, Part Deux — At NSTA in Boston, we were evacuated from a lovely dinner at Anthony’s Pier 4. The lobster bisque and steamers were halfway gone when the alarm sounded. We were evacuated while waiting to pay the check. We were nice and dug some cash out. I went to Taranta’s with my buddy Ed and pals and had brunch at Katie’s.