At (e:uchina)'s house we watched a ton of baking shows. One was Cupcake Wars. The other was the Great British Bake off. The latter was much classier.

The bake off has 12 contestants competing in a weekly elimination in three different baking contests. Inexplicably, they're also cooking in outdoor kitchens on the lawn of a giant British estate. The judges aren't mean, they hug the losers and the host Mary Berry says things like "Your sponge is perfectly moist! Bang on, pussy!"



You quickly come to love/hate most of the bakers real quick. Norm is the boring grandpa you love. Ian is the beardy one. Diana is the cheating grandma, and Chetna is just my absolute traumfrau. She is from India and always has the best sounding dishes (onion and pine nut rolls). She's also the most beautiful contestant, so I'm obsessed.

She has a website where she teaches you how to make all sorts of cakes and desserts but also Indian food.




Terry and I made her chana masala. Suprisingly it wasn't as hard I thought it was going to be. I always was afraid of cooking Indian spices but we followed the video and it turned out amazing.



Browning the onion with coriander, cumin seeds, salt, garam masala, bay leaves, cinnamon and cloves.

(e:terry) chopping up garlic and tomatoes

Cook until brown


Simmer chickpeas in the mix until soft.

Amazing. I was so sad we ate it all

We did a little less lounging on Sunday and explored (e:uchina)'s neighborhood (I think it's called Highland Park). She has hills near her and I was so happy to climb them.

The temperature was warm. I wish I had brought shorts.

We stopped at a urban yuppie mall for egg sandwiches. There were a lot of soccer moms.

We took a few dog quizzes while walking around. It turns out (e:uchina) is a terrier/dachshund depending on who you ask.

Up at the top of another hill is the Rochester reservoir called Hemlock lake. Water from Hemlock lake flows down to this hill in a creek and is pumped up here. They have a fancy marble pump house and a nice path around the whole lake.


Everyone was on the track when we were walking. A man flying a drone way better than we ever could, a kid possibly spreading ashes on the hill (?! thankfully not in the water, gross), all the dogs you would ever want to spot



The hill has a good view. I wish Buffalo had a steep elevation change somewhere



360 foto for your VR viewing. I really want to get a 360 javascript viewer on (e:strip).


While we were walking around we noticed all these slides on the ground. At first I thought they were going to be someone's photos but it turned out they were old slides with photos of bacteria and a bunch of presentation text. The best was when (e:paul) found one with e. coli stuck in a pile of dog poop D: ::blech::.
Why did they end up next to a public trash can?







A radio transmission tower at the top of the hill

A secret swing. There was also secret mountain bike trails/ski paths

Saturday was a lot of crafts and lounging at (e:uchina)'s.

We went out to brunch and (e:terry) had a giant fried french toast. I had a tofu scramble.

While we were there I tried my hand at crocheting. I am not very good at keeping my hooked holes tight.


Later back at the apartment, we drew a little bit. Masumi made valentine's, Paul made his trippy animals, and I drew an otter. Sometimes I wish I could draw better, but it's low on my list of things to practice. I try to follow those "sketch a circle, and another circle etc" tutorials - is that how people actually draw animals?




This lovely work of art was made by (e:uchina) at a Japanese restaurant near her house. Beautiful! I feel like I'm being swept away at some fancy ball(s).

Friday night we headed up to Rochester to go to our friend Tom's dj thing at this bar called Skylark lounge. We met up with Liz and (e:uchina) at her apartment.

The music was pretty good for house music but I think the best part about the bar was meeting and talking to all the Rochester gays. I think most of the bar was gay.




They also had a "Lord of the Rings" pinball machine. Here's Masumi and (e:terry) getting balls right in the flaming eye hole.




The night wrapped up at Tom and Derrick's awesome house a short walk away from (e:uchina)'s aparment. We frolicked around until 6 am with all sorts of drunken craziness.

The next day (e:terry) and I went cross country skiing with (e:holly) and Brian. (e:paul) nursed his broken pinky toe at home (a casualty of the living room UFC tournament).



We went down to Byrnecliff Resort out past Wales. It was Brian's first time so we tried to stick to the easy trails - but at one point, a wrong turn had us going down hairpin curve on the hardest trail, which had little snow. It was fun but even (e:terry) fell the whole way down.

I got my skiing bearings by the end - we finished the afternoon with the a medium trail called Rusty Nail. Too bad we couldn't do the steep downhill path called powerline - but maybe another time when there's more snow. I like the isolation of Alleghany better but this is less than half the distance.

On the way home, we stopped to eat in East Aurora at a sandwich shop, before eating a cupcake next door. The food was good - but something drives me nuts about that town. It's all too quaint and suburban yuppie for me - like if you extracted only the expensive food and knicknacks off of Elmwood and dropped it in a place where everyone must drive.

Later we got home and relaxed a little bit. - then continuing on our consumption binge via another (e:paul) birthday dinner. This time it was with my parents and Mary. Birthdays now extend to three days apparently ;).



They came over after dinner for dessert, and we finally showed them around the upstairs of the house. I