it's amazing what some nice fall weather and a good debate can do for your mood. my office (which is full of evil liberals who work in higher education) is positively full of people grinning and laughing and they may as well be skipping about whistling zipadeedodah.

hey! i found a good recipe blog. chocolate and zucchini. i also found il forno, which is mainly italian food. i may try cooking something tonight. maybe the peperonata (pictured at right, image from ilforno) and pasta e zucchini. except all the measurements from these blogs are in grams, and i don't know how to convert them. what does 500g of tomatoes equal, anyway? well, i'll figure it out. but now i'm looking at all these delicious recipes and am absolutely inspired to have some sort of dinner party. how old and dorky of me.

this weekend is shaping up to be a fun one, i think. i don't have any plans for tonight, but tomorrow i think i'll do an 8-10 mile run (i did a great run yesterday on rock creek parkway, up an abandoned road called klingle road, and past the national cathedral back down to dupont). then in the afternoon, if it's not storming, i want to go to the greek festival at saint sophia. anybody down? sunday of course is apple picking day; i think we'll leave around 10am, stop and get lunch in charlottesville (and force frank's spinach rolls down everybody's throat), then go pick some apples. it's supposed to be 70 and sunny. perfect apple weather.

go check out DCist: later today i'll have a weekend events posting that should have some good things to keep you occupied for the next 72 hours. like the free polyphonic spree concert tonight at the kennedy center.