But today, on a Groupon adventure, Rob and I found falafel.  Tahina’s is so well-designed and efficient, it looks for all the world like a chain restaurant; Rob dubbed it “the Middle Eastern Subway.”  I would say it’s closer to Chipotle, as the ingredients are all fresh and beautiful. My research, however, turned up an even better scenario: it’s a brand-new venture by a marketing firm who wanted to try out some of their tactics on their own business.  They’re calling it the “first of 300.”  Boy, do I wish I had enough venture capital to be number 2!

Like Chipotle, you choose a centerpiece (beef, chicken, or falafel — and who in their right mind wouldn’t choose falafel?!) and a presentation (pita or salad.)  Then the fun begins.

There are a staggering number of vegetables (crispy fried eggplant rounds, red cabbage, sprouts) and salads (carrot and cilantro, cucumber and tomato, spiced chickpea) and sauces (baba ganoush, hummus, and yes, tahini.)  You can also get slightly inauthentic toppings like pickles, cheese and honey mustard. As many as you want (my salad teetered precariously as I carried it to the table) for about $6 per entree.

The restaurant also sells fries; eggplant and sweet potato options are a nod to the Mediterranean, and a “sauce bar” is meant to evoke Belgium’s frites shops, I think.  After our falafels, we didn’t want anything else.  But we will be back.  And you should join us!

I understand that even if we all recycled, it still wouldn’t be enough — we need to drastically curb, if not stop, our consumption of one-time-use goods.

I understand that we should be moving toward beverages that come from rivers and fruit trees and herbs, not bottles and chemicals and processing plants.

But I can’t see something like this and not be encouraged.  An Austin architectural firm has found a way to make recycling entertaining, and to help concertgoers work together to create a temporary thing of beauty, all while calling attention to a problem most people just don’t want to think about — the incredible amount of trash we generate and the lack of options about what to do with it.

Cup City, you just made my day.

That’s what Legos used to be about: creating something unique, special, unexpected.  That’s why they were (and are) such a fantastic toy.  On the other hand, if you’re looking for Legos, you can also buy this:

As much as I think Frank Lloyd Wright’s descendants deserve every penny they can milk out of his genius, I draw the line at paying $40 for a set of bricks that can really only build the Guggenheim Museum.  More and more of the Lego lines are like this — brand names like Star Wars and SpongeBob, with so many specialty pieces that there’s no imagination involved, just a one-time setup so it can sit on a shelf and grow dusty.

If you must buy toys, please, please get something that requires thought and creativity to enjoy.  I have several such toys in my studio, and they rarely fail to keep the attention of even the wiggliest little ones.  Besides which, they’re pretty.  And they don’t make any noise except the pleasant kind that comes from little hands going about the business of creation.

But.  BUT.  Meeting in the school lobby early on a Friday morning, and then wickedly, gleefully, walking OUT.  Waiting for the train in the crisp fall air.  Talking to your students about their college plans, favorite football players, your shared love of pulled pork and dislike of overzealous air-conditioning systems.  Letting slip a sympathetic, “That sucks,” and not realizing it until four or five sentences later.  Feeling not like teacher and student, but like humans — just humans out for a day of fun.

The Newseum is incredibly well-designed and boasts more than a dozen interactive, dynamic exhibits.  My students said gleefully, as we left, “That did NOT feel like a museum!”  We played a game about ethics; they got to get in front of a live camera and read the teleprompter; we watched countless short and long film segments, read gripping accounts of reporting as it merged with personal lives, searched databases of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs and journalists killed in the line of duty, and more than once were overcome by emotion while reading about or re-experiencing a historical event.  Case in point: watching a documentary about sports coverage, I got choked up hearing the TV announcer squalling, “The RED SOX are WORLD CHAMPIONS!”  And we all know how I feel about sports.

I visited about a month ago in preparation for the trip, took copious notes, and made up a four-page handout with trivia to collect during the trip and writing prompts to respond to for homework.  Between that visit and yesterday’s, about four hours each, I think I saw just about everything, though I barely scratched the surface of the wealth of information in each exhibit.  I’m seriously considering a membership.  (For families, that’s the only way it would be affordable, at $20 a pop for tickets.)

My colleague and fellow chaperone took a photo of us at one of the exhibits, a story about the Berlin Wall that included several sections of the actual wall.  The East German side was bleak and blank, but the West German side was filled with angry, playful graffiti.  I wish I could publish it here, but for privacy reasons I don’t want to put photos of my students up.  You’ll just have to imagine it: we stood, smiling, relaxed, having a great Friday full of ideas and freedom.  That’s what field trips are all about.

I’m putting together a little quiz of frequently-used French phrases for something to do on the plane this week.  But I’m also finding ways to waste time on the Internet.  (Who knew you could do that?)

As funny as these are, they’re also depressing.  Graphic designers, soyez originale!

I knew there was a reason I liked both of these shows . . .

Disney, stop skimping on the animators!

I always hated the Colonel with his WEE beady eyes.

I'd just like to say that I've been doing this since the first time I looked at a map.