The text on this bag of bread reads:

"Vegetarian Friendly". A little below that is "Perfect for Turkey Sandwiches!"

Sorry for the sheisty photograph, but I couldn't really find much in the way of Creative Commons licenses for this specific pose.

Miss Bee taught her first yoga class on Friday!

It was great - there were six students, and pretty much everyone knew what they were doing. She planned her series of poses in the afternoon right before class, and I made the 80 minute mix of songs she was going to play. I think both of us were very happy with our contributions!

My favorite moment of the class was a transition that Miss Bee was very proud of. It was right in the middle of the class, and we had made our way back to Downward Facing Dog (there's a lot of that in Ashtanga). Then we did something called a Half Wild Thing, which means that we took one foot off the ground in Down Dog and twisted round. Then we took that foot and brought it all the way forward into Pigeon pose, seen in the picture. As we were doing that, a DJ Shadow song was playing called "Midnight in a Perfect World". I was so proud of Miss Bee's transition and happy at how my song seemed to be working with the class!

Listen to an extended mix of "Midnight". Highly recommended for yogic activity!


She got compliments and an ovation from everyone in the class when she was done, and one of the students who is also in the yoga teaching training asked for a copy of the mix!

Click here to download "Yogurt".
Tracklisting:

In other news:

-After the class we went to a convocation party for Miss Bee's best teacher friend Katie. Congratulations on your Masters!

-On Saturday we went shopping for some new winter clothes. I got some purple slacks at Goodwill and Miss Bee got a velour sweathshirt with a drawstring at the bottom to keep the wind out! Then at the Buffalo Exchange I got a pink cashmere sweater and Miss Bee found a gray cardigan with flowers embroidered on it - we're all ready for the Iowa Winter now. (...)

-We also went to a student's birthday party, complete with two pinatas, a brinca brinca (pictured below for you gringos), and of course, authentic rice and beans with some sort of oily roast beast.

-After the party we went to a pretty cool coffeehouse called Cartel Coffee Labs in Tempe to meet a few friends. Really awesome space, with mostly found and amateur art and decoration. The coffee itself was amazing, and very strong, from freshly (in-house) roasted organic beans brewed one cup at a time. Visit Cartel online for more information - those of you in Des Moines can try some with me, as we bought a pound of Brazilian whole beans.

-For the coup de grace, we went to see The Godfather at the Tempe Valley Arts theater. My favorite film on the big screen, in a newly restored version! Absolutely stunning.

I forgot about how Blogger reverses the order of your pictures, so they're in pretty much backwards chronological order of the way they were baked. (Of course, if this were Mac OS X software I could just drag the pictures around. Damn Windows...and Google while I'm at it.)

Ok, this was the whole spread. There are no surprises anymore. But c'mon, that's a lot, right!

Chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips.

This was a double chocolate bar with peppermints...didn't work out. These babies stuck to the pan like it was a mama bear and they were cubs. No dice.

Pound cake.

Less awesome photo. They were great, and didn't last very long.

Oh, my contribution? .... The kitchen was clean when we were done. Enough said.

These are called Blondies: brownies without the chocolate. Butterscotch chips were a last minute audible for Heath bars (we couldn't find any..) and they turned out amazing. Except for the appearance. They didn't really look right. So we ate the whole thing!

Coffee cake

This our counter after we got home from the store. Oh boy.

Miss Bee got a new toy.

I guess we didn't get a photo of the oatmeal cookies with Craisins...those were good too.

These were for Miss Bee's first grade team members. The rest went to the office staff and the rest of the faculty. It took a few hours, but it was worth it.

All recipes came from the Mark Bittman book "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian".

Holy ignoring your blog, Batman.

Since last I posted, Miss Bee and I visited Vegas, but didn't take any pictures to post. Sorry. We enjoyed a wonderful time with the family Buttar, and are just now sending off thank-yous to them for including us in their Christmas celebration.

Two nondescript weeks of work later and here we are, a mere 5 days from vacation.

Here's some links to tide you over:
The New York Times annual year in ideas 2008 - always interesting reading.
New blog from mathematician Terrence Tao - this link is to an airport-based puzzle (Hat tip Tyler Cowen)
Netflix is now streaming movies instantly to Macs! No more waiting two days for your new movie to come.
The New Yorker now has a digital edition of their magazine. As a subscriber it is free to me. Hit me up if you would like the login details to read all of the New Yorker articles.
The A.V. Club interviews Wes Anderson on the eve of the Criterion release of his debut film "Bottle Rocket". Here's the talk, here's information about the film.