joy and shadows

Before I regale you with weekend tales, I want you all to know that despite my very best efforts, Sephiroth regularly kicks my ass in Dissidia. He is an aggressive bastard with a lot of cheap moves, especially against Cloud. Fuck you, Sephiroth.

( Weekend! )

For a while now, I had been going on about wanting to go into the city to Via Emilia for some authentic Emilia-Romagnan Italian cuisine and to Vino for some Lambrusco. My husband's family is from Emiliga-Romagna, and the style of cooking there is quite different from the Siciliano and Calabrese style you tend to get in the US (lots of red sauce, cheese, and fried things.) Lambrusco is a fizzy dark red wine that has a bad rep in the US because apparently it was popular in the '70s, and it evokes a lot of disdain now. We drank a lot of it in Italy, and it's great stuff on a hot summer's day. Unfortunately, because Lambrusco is so unpopular, we had to go to a special store to get it here in the States.

On the spur of the moment, my husband looked up some room rates in midtown Manhattan, and they must be hurting bad for customers because we found four-star hotels for $200 and lower. He booked us a room in the Hyatt on 42nd and Park, and off we went. It was a lovely weekend to be in the city, because the weather took a turn for the warmer, and you could walk around outside without wanting to dive into the nearest coffeeshop.

We went to Grand Central Station because I'd never been there before, and then we thought it would be interesting to go to the UN. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything to see, because it was all closed. Then we went to the central branch of the New York Public Library, and Patience and Fortitude seemed to have gotten a cleaning since I was there last. (morgi, I wanted to take a photo of the reading room for you, but no photos were allowed.) Afterwards, we went to Teddy Roosevelt's birthplace because husband is a big fan of TR, and it was a worthwhile way to spend an hour or so. Afterwards, we got our Lambrusco at the wine shop, which was in the same neighborhood, and then husband took me to Tiffany's so I could look at all the sparklies.

Around 6 PM, we went to dinner, and we were both very pleased to get some torta fritta and some Lambrusco to drink with it. The flavors were authentic, and my husband enjoyed his wild boar entree while I had the lamb shank. By the end of it, we were so stuffed that all we could do was totter back to the hotel, though we tried to go to a Barnes and Noble for something to read and found it had closed at 8 PM (much to my surprise.)

Although we wanted to spend Sunday doing something interesting in the city, it was too nice a day to spend indoors, and I missed Biscuit. I always feel guilty about leaving her alone all weekend. We had a ridiculously expensive breakfast at the hotel ($30 each for a crappy buffet? next time, husband will be more open to the idea of grabbing a bagel) and headed home. It was so nice out that we washed the cars, and husband went for a ride on his new bike, and I made tomato cream soup with orzo for dinner. And I'm ashamed to say that I watched the Pro Bowl. All in all, a very nice time out.

Happy 2009, everyone!

We had a quiet New Year's with an unexpected surprise at the end. We thought we'd be spending it on our own, but our neighbors came over at the last minute to have a toast with us. Very nice.

So far, 2009 has been a paean to consumerism, because all we did today was spend money: his n'hers black shoes, new litter box and toys for Biscuit, some really cool kites from Costco, LittleBigPlanet as a treat, and other assorted stuff we needed like toilet paper. (One of the great things about belonging to Costco is that we have not bought TP and paper towels in over a year.) Tomorrow I'm going out to the outlets in Flemington, and then we're having dinner with friends. Sunday we'll watch the Dolphins game at my inlaws', since Mom Q is a big fan. I wonder if she'll be half as intense as my mother.

And, as a follow-up to Kitties Don't Eat Carrots:

Biscuit: Want some asparagus!

Me: Okay.

Biscuit: *chomp* *crunch*

Husband: ...Don't feed the cat asparagus!

It's not too often that I get in the shower and am truly filthy, but thanks to yardwork and flower-planting on Sunday, that's what happened. I thought I was getting some color, but it turned out to be dirt.

Good weekend spent at home - we'll be traveling next weekend, and husband will be away all week in San Diego after that, so we had to get some stuff done. On Saturday, we were expecting "weather carnage" as jaina put it, but all that happened was a downpour on my way home from Flemington after cleaning out the J. Crew outlet.

We went to see Iron Man and it was a lot of fun. Definitely would see again/buy on Blu-Ray. It seems that this is the Summer of Superheroes, between Iron Man, Batman, Indiana Jones, Hellboy, and the Incredible Hulk. There were many women lined up to see Sex and the City, most of them middle-aged, with a few token males in tow. Husband was patently glad he was not one of them.

The neighbors came over for an impromptu get-together, which was really nice. They're about our age, maybe a little younger, and one is a pharmacist and the other a dentist. It's nice to have someone nearby who we have a lot in common with. Most of the people in our neighborhood have children, so we don't have that particular social calling card.

Sunday we got really dirty, as mentioned previously, and I planted a hydrangea (blue), some astilbe (pink and red), a butterfly bush (purple), and some shasta daisies. Here's hoping that the deer don't destroy all of my hard work. Husband grumped a lot about it, but he pulled out a ratty shrub for me, and I have to go to the nursery sometime soon to get a replacement.

We had some exciting news from the family - my cousin is engaged to his longtime girlfriend! He must have been waiting until she graduated from P.A. school and moved back to Colorado. She's a delightful person, and I couldn't be more excited for them. It's good to have some happy news from that part of the family, because they've had some tough times, and it's not going to get better.

Thursday we're off to Canada! Let's go racing!

Busy weekend. We started it off with another grill-fest, when Steve's car buddy and his girlfriend and their dog Bandit came over for dinner. We really do need to get some patio furniture, because it's not a cookout unless you can eat outdoors. In any case, there was way too much steak, and Bandit was the happiest dog in NJ with a big plate of scraps.

I was up at 6:45 on Saturday because F1 qualifying was on, meaning that husband was up and rattling around like a pea in a coffee can even though qualy wasn't on until 8 AM. I hate getting up early on the weekends; it feels like such a cheat. Once qualifying was over, we went to Rutgers for Ag Field Day/the NJ Folk Festival, which we hadn't gone to in years. I was hoping to get some interesting flowers, but they seemed to have all the usual stuff for this time of year, and it wasn't worth carrying back to the car.

We had a great conundrum over whether to eat at the fair or whether to go to College Ave. to hit the grease trucks for lunch. (As an aside, I can not believe that the grease trucks have their own Wiki entry. This is truly wonderful.) Husband had a severe jones for a Fat Cat, which is two cheeseburgers, French fries, lettuce, tomato and onions on a sub roll (hey buddy, you want fat cat?) I had a gyro, because they really do make the best gyros in NJ. It was delicious, even though they left off my hot sauce. :P

Saturday night, there was a bachelorette party in NYC for a friend who is getting married over Memorial Day weekend. We went to a tourist-trap restaurant off Times Square and then a tourist-trap comedy club for a dueling pianos show. The piano show got started almost an hour late, and it left me in the position of getting home by myself from an unfamiliar train station because I wanted to take the 12:24 train home and no one else did. At any rate, I found my way home eventually, and then we were up again early for the F1 race on Sunday.

After the race, husband thought we ought to go see a movie, so we went to see "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay." It made me realize that the reason I liked the first movie was because it was set in NJ - the sequel was very raunchy, and the gratuitous amounts of frontal poontang were really not what I'd signed up for. We went out for sushi afterwards, and I tried a roll with raw fish in it for the first time. Not bad, but I'm not sure I'd make a habit out of it.

All in all, lots to do, and next weekend is going to be just as much fun. :)

I haven't updated in a while.

1. I no longer has kitchen floor. After hearing how much it was going to cost us to rip it up and the dispose of the rubble, husband decided he/we were going to do it ourselves. Some parts have been painless, but the part where we poured methylene chloride-laced floor stripper all over and then chieseled up floor paper was not.

2. We went to the opera to see Madame Butterfly for the first time on Friday 10/19. It was a good experience, but next time we will try to be more careful about the location of our seats. We were aaaaaaaaaall the way over to the right in the orchestra.

3. Wine pressing over the weekend. Imagine my excitement. Ate myself stupid.

4. Learned to fake a taiko knot by following a tutorial at the Immortal Geisha forums. Now I have a Halloween costume, w00t.

5. Thursday we leave for Florida. ...Yay?

Got together this weekend up in New York with jaina and fadingembers for a peek at jaina's new digs and a very belated Christmas. It was my first trip to the gargantuan Palisades Mall, which is like an entire block of surburbian big-box stacked four stories high. That having been said, we had a fun trip to a Japanese restaurant where the dishes travel along a conveyor belt and you are charged based on the number/color of plates you have at the end. Mitsuwa definitely makes better udon, but the overall experience was very entertaining. We also hit Kinokuniya, and I resisted the urge to buy every book on kimono in the store and instead settled for another Cosmode, a book, and a Bleach cell phone charm.

Husband is in Scotland for the week, so I'm on my own to sit in front of the TV and eat Cocoa Puffs out of the box. It's lonely, but I am taking the time to clean some crap out of the attic and decide whether it belongs on eBay, on garagesalejapan, on the giveaway table at work, or in the trash. The giveaway table at work continues to astonish me - I have put some of the strangest shit out there to take, and someone always picks it up.

Chugging right along in FFXII. If I didn't want to do any more hunts or sidequests or find any better weapons, I could probably finish the game in another night or two. The loot is getting better, and I was very pleased with myself to have won a Diakon Halcyon, until I read that all it gets you is one lousy Holy Mote. One thing I want to know, who is it that's carrying around all that Foul/Maggoty/Festering/Forbidden Flesh? You can bet it's not Mr. "I Want A Bath Now, Biatch" Balthier. Maybe it's a very elaborate hazing prank they are playing with Vaan. Also, my mind needs to stop making Suzanne Vega's "The Queen and the Soldier" into an Ashe and Basch song.

Just to see what all the fuss is about with "old-school" FF gamers, I bought "Anthology" and "Chronicles," partly to stave off the acquisitive part of my brain that wants a DS or a PSP or both. I haven't started them yet, so we'll see whether a recent fan can appreciate the old stuff. If they don't pan out, I'm definitely going to run through VS again. :D

Today we decided to go for a long bike ride down the D&R Feeder Canal bike path. When we got there, a large group of people was unloading bikes. We spoke briefly with them and they pointed out the trail head.

Later on during a water break, some of them caught up to us and we chatted about what breweries to visit in Lambertville.

In another water break, they caught up to us again and described where the brewery they preferred was.

On another stop, we chatted some more and it was decided that we should all go to the brewery and have samples.

So we had some beer.

Afterwards, we were all having too much fun so then we went to lunch together in New Hope with 13 people we didn't know and had some more beer.

Then there was money left over so we went for ice cream with this friendly bunch.

Then we went back on the trail and I finished all 32 miles with a lot of groaning and moaning. They were back loading their bikes on to their cars, and they made sure to tell us how to get to the Ship Inn, where they were going afterwards.

So we went there and - you guessed it - had some more beer.

Good times, good times.

Last week was busy busy busy. We had a new instrument installed, so most of my time was spent with the service tech, learning about the instrument and how to run it. He left on Thursday, and Friday turned into Let's All Blow Off Work and Go Out To Lunch Day.

Anyway, husband and I left on Friday evening to go to upstate New York to visit with my aunt for a biking trip. We had horrible traffic on the way up thanks to scads of New Yorkers headed to the Catskills for the weekend, but it finally cleared up and we arrived around nine or so. We spent a lot of time talking about the whole Florida issue over wine and pizza, so.

The bike ride was very pleasant. I had had some trouble with my front derailleur on Thursday afternoon, so I was nervous about the bike breaking down out in the middle of nowhere, but it turned out fine. Saturday morning, we met up with my aunt at her barn where she was having a dressage lesson with her horse Corky. There were promises of a barn cat for petting, but Buddy was nowhere to be found.

We drove to the trail head and unloaded the bikes. My front wheel didn't go on quite right and one of the brake calipers was dragging, but luckily there was a small bike shop nearby and the proprietor fixed the bike for me. The trail itself was nice and flattish - only a small grade - and the spring scenery was lovely. At one point we passed a small farm that I swear belonged to Old McDonald, with a cluck cluck here and a baa baa there (geese, a rooster, chickens, a llama, a horse, guinea hens - quite a menagerie.) We had lunch in Millerston, and I thought I lost my cell phone, but I didn't.

Steak for dinner, and then my aunt took us to a local market for ice cream. We each picked up our own pint, and mine was called "Crumbs along the Mohawk:" graham crackers in graham cracker ice cream with caramel. Pure crack. It's a good thing they don't sell that kind of ice cream in my area, or I'd be fat as anything.

We went for a second short bike ride on Sunday, again after my aunt's dressage lesson, and this time Buddy was available for an extended scratch and cuddle. Beautiful brown-and-black tiger cat, stripey all over with white just under his chin and big green eyes. My aunt said that he doesn't get a lot of attention, which makes no sense to me, because he was such a beautiful boy that I don't know how anyone could resist petting him for hours on end. Either way, he purred like motor, and the paws were going, and I almost stole him right there.

The ride home was much more pleasant than the ride up. We got home just in time to watch the very end of the rebroadcast of the F1 race, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon tidying up the apartment. My parents called late (for them) and they still don't have a house in Florida to move to after they close on the 22nd of May. Not My Problem, though I continue to puzzle over how unconcerned they are about mooching off of their friends.

This week should be a bit busy, as the big local rummage sale takes place this weekend, and I'd like to have my own small sale in our front yard to get rid of worthwhile items like the ginormous microwave we received as a wedding present. If we made a hundred bucks on the weekend, I'd be happy.

Phew. I feel like I've been on a treadmill since the middle of last week.

( cut for length )