Bye Bye Purdue

I'm leaving Purdue this afternoon (whenever Pete shows up). I had a lot of fun. Yesterday I wandered around campus some more and saw the engineering fountain (really cool--wish I had a picture of it) and the physics building (where Arun spent much of his four years). I also wandered off campus to Von's, an awesome catch-all store of new and used books, used CDs, incense, candles, beads of all kinds, stuffed animals, rocks, ornate boxes, cool t-shirts, and assorted jewelry. Reminds me of Michelle's description of Rockin' Rudy's in Missoula, Montana. I would have died to come to a store like that a few years ago, with all the trinkets and do-dads; as it is now, I have more restraint, and came out of it with only an out-of-print book by Patricia McKillip called _Moon Flash_ from 1984. Last night Arun made Miso soup (yum!)with miso (fermented soybean paste), green onions, mushrooms, and noodles. Plus rice. I'll have to try to make that myself sometime. Not too hard--there are a million recipes for it on the web.

The night before Arun's friend Adam joined us for Japanese food at Kokoro in Lafayette. The food was good--although it was not exclusively Japanese food--the chef Tony calls it "Tony food" since he has studied many cuisines from all over south and central Asia. Apparently he has been cooking for over 40 years! Good sauces and good sushi. That will be my last sushi for a while...a nice change of pace from the PB & J sandwiches and frozen pizzas I've been living on.

So it was a nice mellow visit. I love making home cooked meals and good food in general, so this was perfect. :) Also I got to see new as well as previously unseen pictures of Whack and Grack* a plenty, and that was most welcome too. :) I got to (almost) catch up with email/web stuff while here, and take a break from being mosquito lunch for a while. Pete and I are going to try to get internet access for a month at the trailer with an Earthlink cd or something, so maybe I'll have access more than twice a week...

(*Those infamous two are Emily's mom's cats of a white and grey nature, to the uninitiated.)

Interesting birds sited while in Lafayette:
American goldfinch
Northern flicker
Northern cardinal
Common nighthawk
Chimmney swift (tons of them)

Chipmunks, squirrels and rabbits were also in abundance