Friday night...

It's Shabbat at the Cramer-Russo-Adams house!

Meaning a bottle of wine... a loaf of sourdough (no challah to be found) and a couple of candles (which lost a gallant but brief battle with the ceiling fan.)

We also made polenta. The other night we made quiche with tomatos and cheese and a homemade crust, which was really good. We've been cooking pretty much every night together.

Anyway, we're all exhausted from a long week. Phil just finished his first week of work (which in his case is both emotionally and physically draining). I finished my first half-week of work, and so far so good. We're preparing for a big board meeting next week, so my more formal training has been postponed until after that is over. Meanwhile, I've been photocopying a lot and learning the accounting software. I'm also working on designing some magazine ads for the organization. None of it is boring so far because the subject matter- fair housing law- is really interesting and new for me. Tomorrow I'm going to a sort of tutorial run by one of my co-workers, which I'm hoping will be very informative. There are six of us in the office, and everyone has been very welcoming. They've also given me some good tips about the city- places I should eat, and most recently brass bands I should go see play at local clubs.

This week we also saw a play called "Bury the Dead" by Irwin Shaw, which I would recommend reading. We also celebrated Phil's 22nd birthday by going to this great West African restaurant in the quarter called Bennachin's. Despite some odd service (our waiter left in the middle of taking Phil's order to grab someone's meal- "hot food is our priority here") the food was quite good. I had spinach, coconut rice and fried plantains, as well as some ginger iced tea that was amazing but extremely strong. It was nice not to have to explain my vegetarianism to flabbergasted waiters ("aren't oysters vegetarian?")

P.S. nobody recycles here- because there's been no recycling service since the storm (the plant got flooded). Every month and a half a recycling service from Baton Rouge comes down, or you can pay a lot of money for weekly recycling pick-up. I'm going to try to get my office to start recycling paper because I just can't get over the amount of waste- I literally went through four reams of paper today photocopying this stuff for the board meeting.

Also, there's a new cat in my life. It is a grey persian with beautiful blue eyes. He (or she?) hangs out on my porch and loves to be petted.