everyone's been there and I don't mean on vacation

<< Me in the middle of running errands around the Burgh.

I'm slowly using up some film on the kitchen, trying to get good shots of the dishes we're producing and our daily meez. Once I have it done I'll spend the cash to have it made into a CD again; it seems like my camera is reliable enough to wait that long to see the pictures. Today was a "chef's salad" invented by Chef Hunt, which includes iceberg, Boston, radicchio, watercress, and frisee. It's accompanied by a red lentil crepe filled with ham, cheeses, and lightly blanched carrots, bound by chives, and garnished with julienned yellow pepper, kalamatta olives, and roasted cherry tomatoes. Yeah, that's right.

Ashley. I hang out with her lots. >>

Ashley's birthday is Sunday, and thus I will be in Monroeville this weekend celebrating and meeting some more of her friends. Yesterday I took the T (PGH public transportation system, a subway system downtown that branches out into surrounding suburbs and boroughs as an above-ground lightrail) to South Hill Village, almost at the end of the service line, for gift-shopping. It was about a 50-minute ride, but I love seeing the urban landscape as well as the countryside here. If you've lived in Texas your entire life, you're missing a lot. For example--and try to stay with me here--there are endless steep hills in this state, covered by deciduous forests unpopulated by harsh predators such as rattlesnakes and fire ants. You can actually sit down in the grass and not worry about being poisoned by something with long stingers. Anyway, it cost me a dollar to get really far south of the city, only because my bus pass only covers one zone. Riding the T or the busses in this city is free if you just travel within downtown; no one crashes into expensive and useless public works projects in the middle of Main here, because these people actually know what public transportation is supposed to do.