The Nadine Scene

As a general rule, I work from home on Mondays.  I don't need to be on campus and it helps me ease into the week, getting things done before all mayhem cuts loose on Tuesdays.  Plus, I like working from home - it means I get to do laundry while I'm getting some writing done (or, in today's case, blogging).  It also means that I feed myself real food, as opposed to the take out that generally keeps me alive most days (assuming, of course, I've gone grocery shopping).  Which brings me to today's discovery: while making lunch (soup), I discovered that  there are 11 boxes of pasta in my cupboards.  That's right, eleven.  For clarification, I am a single woman who lives alone with two cats (insert bad spinster joke here), so why in the world do I have 11 boxes of pasta? It doesn't stop there.  I have 3 boxes of rice and 2 of quinoa. I have 2 boxes of gluten free bread mix, 4 cans of coconut, two bottles of BBQ sauce, and two bottles of curry sauces.  Plus some

As any athlete knows, watching the Olympic games brings back a rush of all of the old emotions, good and bad, that come from a lifetime of participating in sports.  For me, watching the women cross the finish line of the marathon was one of those moments where the flood of memories was stronger than ever and I was once again appreciative for everything that running has given me over the years - friends, confidence, the ability to set and achieve goals, and even a free dinner or two (hey, those gift certificates to fancy restaurants for winning races in grad school were always welcome!). For me, these last few years have also meant that there has been a lot of pain associated with my running, by way of surgeries, severe injuries, and generally, feeling like an arm chair quarterback.  In a run a few years ago - with people who knew me as a slow runner who was always injured - I started to feel a bit like Al Bundy, reliving glory days while everyone around me rolled their eyes and wonde

My apologies to all of my vegan and vegetarian friends, but this post is about an amazing dinner I had in London at a restaurant called Burgers and Lobsters.  Seriously.  Turns out, the name is everything that you need to know.  This place is fantastic and my kind of place - quality food, not a lot of fancy pants stuff, and pages and pages of a drinks menu.  How is that not fabulous ? I ended up there because my friend Jen, with whom I went to high school, has been living in London for the past two years while working on a post-doc (working on cancer research, which makes her pretty cool).  She thought it would be a fun place for both the bar and the gluten free options (unless my lobster was snacking on cupcakes in a former life).  It was an inspired choice! After all, the four of us (me, Jen, Steph - also a high school classmate - and Martin - Steph's fiancee with a funny accent) know our way around a drink's menu and since 3 out of 4 of us are New England natives, we felt