X Featuring Sean O'Connor and d.phantOM.

A Meal of Moroccan Magnificence.

Still playing catchup as I gather pictures from various cameras - so this is a throwback to a few weeks ago and a very fun evening as we gathered at Marrakesh to bid farewell to a friend. Marrakesh is a Moroccan restaurant on New York ave.

You begin the meal with a man pouring water over a basin for you to wash your hands with. Everyone sits around a pillow-clad u-shaped booth with a towel that serves as both plate and napkin. Your fingers serve as utensils as they bring seven courses of deliciousness.

The atmosphere is equally as delicious. You enter by knocking on a large and impressive door, answered by a woman in seemingly traditional Moroccan garb. Mid-way through the meal a belly dancer is escorted onto an assembled stage in the middle of the room and puts on a beautiful show.
More Tourist Time.
About the same time Keith's plane took off to Dhaka, Stephen's plane landed from California. The tourist time continued as I played tour director to Stephen and his family. Outside of work and class time, I spent time with them along the Mall and visiting some of Washington's finest. We went to the Botanical gardens, a peaceful facility that is photogenic like no other spot in DC. I missed the large orchid exhibit that was on display last time I visited, but it was still quite beautiful.
Some of the flora on display:

Other days we stopped by Eastern Market, the Portrait Gallery, Chinatown, and some of the monuments/memorials. The WWII might be even more spectacular by night. Thanks for the photo, Stephen. The Jefferson is one of the last that I haven't revisited since moving here. Once you could ignore the busloads of tourists on their night tour, the memorial is quite amazing. Not having my good camera with me, we had fun trying to get pictures with our little point-and-shoot cameras. It is a beautiful spot to look over the tidal basin to see the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and various Smithsonian and government buildings. Quality Time with Gouache.
I took some time to put on my student hat and work on paintings for Color Theory. I went over the the great house in Georgetown where Brad is house sitting and we spent a few hours painting and chatting. I redid my monotone bedroom, much preferring version two. Then moved on to the color study and room sampling for the analogous dining room. I was given orange, yellow-orange, and yellow-green. And the final painting. I still would want to rework the saturation level of the orange run, but it's time to move on to triad and complement (coming soon).
It Tastes Better When You Pick it Yourself.
(Thanks to Emily for the pictures!) Saturday we went on an adventure to the country of Maryland for apple picking. Though the orchard was more of the Disney variety of orchards - with expensive hay rides, hoards of people, and credit card machines, they did have some great apples and vegetables ripe for the picking. We hopped out of the car and discovered that Fall had arrived overnight. CHILLY! Vara and I - the two southerners - were a little shocked by the sudden drop in temperatures. Brrr!

We grabbed some bags and went for the broccoli. In the interest of (mostly) full disclosure on this blog, I sheepishly admit that we had to ask someone what we were looking at. It didn't help that we were around broccoli plants that had already been cut, so the head was missing. But when we got into the thick of it, we found some big heads still in tact that we claimed for our own.

Then we went on to the radishes.

They're fun to pick! I grabbed a few to try to dye some yarn with - the color that comes out when you squeeze them is pretty spectacular.

Next up: spinach! We hoped that the farm hadn't yet resorted to using pesticides, as we had to sample everything before picking some.

We dropped our veggies off and moved on to the main event: apples!

Emily loved the sweet ones - diving right into the Fuji apples.

Lorraine filled up her bag, despite knowing she was going to leave for Costa Rica in a week. It's hard not to go overboard when surrounded by all of the fresh goodness!

Last stop was the little market where we picked up some pumpkins, cider, and other assorted goods.

We were all starving from our outdoor adventures, so we stopped at a country store on the way home for some sustenance. This is where I tried my first moon pie - quite delicious!

This day was one for the list of cramming impressive amounts of stuff into small cars. We fit 5 people and bags and bags of produce into Emily's little civic!


X Featuring Sean O'Connor and d.phantOM. This month's X brought two friends to the spotlight as Sean did a live graphic design and Danny did a live painting. The theme of the evening was superheros v. villains. Music featuring Aligning Minds (woo!) and Body Language. Sean worked in Illustrator to create an interesting cityscape under attack, throwing out an X-themed bat signal. The guy next to him, Graham, took photos throughout the evening and photoshopped them into a beautiful black-and-white image featuring one of the dudes from Aligning Minds. The third guy played around with the X logo for a few hours and then packed up his stuff and left. Disappointing. Kelsey and I played the supportive girlfriend and friend. I heart alien baby shirts fell through, but we were his number one fans. Danny worked on a Union Jack-inspired painting. The evening segued into Pulse and we bid farewell to Bebar. Woo! So we bundled back up and ventured home in the chilly Fall weather. I'm wearing a new merino scarf made with my stitch in olive you green - I don't think I've documented this new addition to my scarf collection.
A lovely week to all!