Neighbors and Nachos and No Nightmares

We met a lot of neighbors at the ___ Ave. potluck last night, people we had seen in passing and people we had never seen along with neighbors we know real well and got to know even better.

We made Chesnut Brown Rice Casserole from Lorna Sass's Complete Vegetarian Kitchen. It had brown rice and chesnuts (of course) but also wild rice, spices and salt, orange peel, and apple juice. It was gooo-ood! I followed Stacey's idea to add cranberries (toward the end) and toasted nuts (pecans) and that made it so super-fancy and delightful smelling. We have a little bit leftover, so today I'm going to stuff some of my white acorn squash with it. Mmm, squash!

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! In the end, Aaron, tiring of debating the merits of various ideas, picked up the cookbook and flipped to the page and said "Let's make this!" And that's what we made.

At the potluck, everyone drew pictures of their house and and then had their picture taken with a polaroid camera and put next to their drawing. I checked out our picture later and noticed I was somehow showing cleavage in our polaroid (!) but other than that, it was a totally sweet idea! I can't wait to check out how they put it all together, and it will help me remember who lives where. My neighborhood keeps getting both bigger and smaller all the time.

Sometimes I walk down my street and can't believe how much I lucked out :)

Probably the highlight of the evening for me was getting to finally check out Terry's bus/recording studio. We pass by that greyhound every day and always want to go in but are too shy to ask. It's amazing in there! Like a little, wonderful home with tons of records. We enjoyed the rest of our evening listening to Terry's record and just talking and talking. So nice.

Saturday afternoon was sweet, too. When we ended up going out, it was to our local coffeeshop to celebrate International Day of the Nacho with them cause they were serving vegan nachos! They were really good: tortilla chips, veggie chili, avocado, salsa, vegan cheddar and sour cream!

Other than that and riding my bike to pick up some groceries for the potluck, it was one of those homey-type of days. The best kind.

Friday was also super dreamy, going to Vanessa's and making dream pillows with special blends to stop nightmares and listening to mixes called "goodtimes casual" and "freer than ever" and singing along with the Velvet Underground. Those kinds of times.

A cozy weekend, for sure.