Adventures in Gastronomy

Randy left a week ago to visit his family in Tennessee. From there he incorporated a business trip into it and went to Dallas for a few days. So, after 7 nights of my living the single life he returns this afternoon.

But while he was away he dropped the bomb on me that he might be going to Asia in April or early May for another business trip.

It’s funny how his travel schedule seems to go from famine to feast. He’ll go 5-6 months without a business trip and will then be gone for nearly an entire month (as happened last November when we went to Asia for 12 days, came back for a few days then flew to Portland for business, then less than a week later flew to Virginia for Thanksgiving for nearly a week).

I guess something similar his happening now. Though, I am tempted to tag along on the Asia trip this time (whether he likes it or not). The only thing really stopping me, I suppose, is the class I’m taking (the final paper is due May 13th).

Or maybe I can claim it’s a field trip for the class and get an extension. I mean, it is an urban planning class after all and you can’t get much more urban than Tokyo.

March 25th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 1 Comment

Despite Randy being in Nashville visiting his brother, I had a really good weekend in his absence (though I still would have prefered that he was here). On Friday night I had friends over and watched “What’s Up, Doc?”….a classic slap-stick comedy from 1972 with a young-n-sexy Ryan O’neal, a funny-n- pretty Barba Streisand (love the long hair), and a brilliant Madeline Khan, who steals the movie.

On Saturday I planned on venturing into Boston to enjoy the sun and walk around. But in the morning I got a text message from my friend, Pete, asking if I wanted to grab lunch. So I morphed the two things into one: getting lunch, but doing it in Boston. We met at Parish Cafe only to find huge crowds and a long wait list. A stroll down Newbury Street and Boylston Street only brought similar results (“I’m sorry, it’s a 2 and a half hour wait”). Eventually, we found Vox Populi with only a 30 minute wait.

Twenty minutes later we were told it would be another 20 minutes. Finally, we got a seat. I ordered the prix fixes meal of baked chicken stuffed with provalone and asparagus over parmesan risotto and peas. It was actually quite tasty. For dessert it came with custard type dessert with chocolate shavings and whipped cream, however they erroneously delivered an apple tart (they ended up swapping it out and leaving me both desserts).

Pete, on the other hand ordered a salad and burger, but the salad never came. Instead they said she should order dessert and he picked the chocolate bread budding (which the staff said was award winning…it was pretty darn good).

In the end, the waiter left the check. With tip it would have been between $40-$50. But then the waiter took the check, voided out everything, and placed it back on the table. All we ended up paying was the tip.

They couldn’t have done it because of the wait (everybody there was having to wait). And although inconvenient to have a salad forgotten and/or the wrong dessert delivered, they in no way ruined the meal. I would have though they might comp a dessert….but the entire thing? DAMN! The waiter was gay, but I doubt it had anything to do with that, either.

Anyway, we ended up with an inexpensive lunch, then I walked around the city for a while before heading back. I could get used to weekends like this.

March 22nd, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 1 Comment

Plain and simple, commuting so far this week has been a bitch. The weekend’s heavy rain caused the Alewife Brook to flood the Alewife Brook Parkway (Route 16) in Arlington. Now, my commute doesn’t even take me down Alewife Brook Parkway, but it does intersect it at Massachusetts Avenue – and that’s where the trouble began.

Understandably, Monday’s morning commute was a disaster and it took me over an hour and a half to go the 3.5 miles to work. The afternoon commute, still in the rain, wasn’t much better as I waited 30 minutes for the bus.

But yesterday, the sun was out, the temperatures warmed up, and spring had sprung. The morning commute still took an hour (better than the day before), but I expected the water to have receded enough so that my evening commute would be normal. In fact, I took precautions to avoid rush hour altogether by going to the gym after work.

Big mistake.

I got out of the gym slightly after 6PM, then went outside to wait for the bus at Porter Square. I could see that traffic was backed up to the Cambridge Common and there wasn’t a bus in sight. Still, I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

More than 30 minutes later not a single 77 bus drove by. At this point, there were 20-30 people waiting. Impatient, I gave up and decided to walk. I made it just about to the Arlington Center fire station before seeing my first bus. It was a 79 bus (one that starts at Alewife Station and avoids Massachusetts Avenue and Alewife Brook Parkway). Sweaty from the walk, I hopped on the bus for the three stops it takes to get to my place.

Fortunately,  my commute this morning took just over 20 minutes as the parkway is now open to traffic. YAY!

March 17th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 2 Comments

Or does anybody else find it disturbing that nurses commute to work on public transit in their nursing uniforms? I mean, isn’t the whole point of the uniform that whole sterility thing? Otherwise, why not just let them wear jeans?

Yet almost on a daily basis I’ll see people commuting into work already geared up for a day helping the sick (an occupation I commend). But considering nurses seem to have more frequent contact with patients than actual doctors, I’m surprised they are allowed to wear their uniforms while they take the bus and subway.

March 16th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 13 Comments

I feel so waterlogged. My normally 25-35 minute commute tripled itself this morning to an hour and a half as a result of the rain. Because things were so damp, the windows of the bus were all fogged up so I couldn’t see why were in stopped traffic for most of the way. But last night while driving home from a play/dinner, we noticed that Alewife Brook Parkway (Route 16) was closed due to flooding. I’m guessing it was still closed this morning causing the chaos.

But the weekend was good otherwise. We had friends over for dinner and games on Friday night. On Saturday we did our weekly shopping for the first time in 3 weeks (as a result of our trip to Mexico). That night, we caught up on all of the shows that had recorded on our DVR.

On Sunday we checked out an open house at a unit across the courtyard from us in our complex. All of the units in our complex are roughly the same size and look identical from the outside. However,  small differences were incorporated as new buildings were phased in. Our building was the first building built and offers two rooms on the top floor and siding glass doors in the small breakfast nook off our kitchen that lead onto a small back yard.

The unit in the building we saw yesterday had a slightly larger breakfast nook, but with no yard. Their guest room was also much smaller than ours as a result of a bay we have that they don’t.  In addition,  their top floor had only one room. They lacked a back yard and had trees (from the bike path) that, come spring, will completely block out any natural light in the living room, master bedroom, or top floor room. But the worst feature of those units was that the garage was made thinner to allow for a wider foyer. Consequently, the car doors could barely be opened. I’m guessing those tenants must enter the garage by walking out the front door and back into the garage door.

Overall, I’m much happier with our unit. The owners set the price at about $4,000 than we paid for ours, however they are expected the buyer to take over payments on an assessment that went into place last year (our previous owner paid for it in full for us). So, although the unit is selling for only slightly more than us, the additional $20,000 makes the asking price more in the range of $24,000 more than we paid.

To be honest, I suspected that the huge assessment would scare buyers off. But our broker emailed us last night and said that the unit got 3 (THREE!) offers on the first day on the market. I had to admit I’m shocked. Not that our unit is the Taj Mahal of townhouses, but the inside of that unit wasn’t so great, either. Though nearly unimaginable, the carpeting they had was even worse than the stuff Randy and I despise in our place. The firt stairway carpet was like the industrial carpet you’d find on the floor of a CVS.

Anyway, I used to envy those units because they were set further back from the street. But I’m glad we’re in the building we’re in because of the sunlight, extra rooms, bigger garage, and even the back yard.

Oh, and last night we saw the latest Gold Dust Orphans play, “Phantom of the Oprah.” I don’t know how they did it, but this time they snagged Varle Jean Merman to star. Go Orphans!

March 15th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: Comments Off on Naked Monday

Randy and I attended our first annual condo association meeting last night. Out of 22 units, there were representatives for 12 units present (two by proxy, technically).

It was a pretty straightforward meeting, and much more uneventful than the ones I attended in one of my previous condos. When Matt and I lived in Salem our condo building had 107 units and held meetings every quarter. At the time, I was the youngest tenant in the building (I was in my 3o’s) and the majority of residents were elderly retirees.

Anyway, all of the the meetings dragged on as pasty white seniors complained about every little thing, from the curtains in the lobby to not wanting to maintain the indoor pool/gym. Living on fixed budgets, they all wanted to cut corners at, well, every corner.

Overall, last night’s meeting was far different. There was only one retiree (grumpy, but humorous) and the population of the complex is much more diverse. However, there is always one person who stands out. Last night, we’ll call him Guresh (at least, that’s as close as I could tell his name was because of his heavy accent).

After the property manager ran through the previous years expenses and next years budget, he opened up the table for conversations/concerns. Guresh spoke first. I knew we were in for something bad when he started speaking and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Oh lord, here we go.

For at least the next ten minutes he ranted on about snow plowing. Apparently, from what I could understand, he was upset because our snowing contractor is too efficient. He is happy with the results (admitting they do a good job). He’s also content with the pricing (we pay per inch, not per the number of visits).

His concern? Plowing is loud.

Seriously. We had to listen to him kvetch for 10 minutes about how plowing is disturbing to him and he finds it obscene that during a snow fall, the plows will arrive more than once to plow the driveway area. He said the noise is disturbing and when the snow plow recently came at 3PM and then again at 11PM, it managed to keep him awake all night.

Honestly, a plow being present for 30 minutes causes him to be awake all night long? If a 30 minute distraction prevents sleep for 8 hours, I think he’s got bigger issues than a snow plow.

Anyway, you could see in the eyes of every other resident that they were ready to move on. Whenever Guresh would stop talking to see how others felt, nobody would respond. Then somebody would ask what, exactly, Guresh would like done since nobody else seemed to have an issue…and since snow plowing is essentially a given up here in New England.

Guresh would have no answer, and just start repeating his case again and again. Ugh.

The meeting finally ended with nominations for a new board member. Randy kept nudging me to nominate myself, but after hearing Guresh, and having only lived there for 5 months, I wasn’t sure I was ready to run for office. However, if nobody else offered after a lengthy silence, I figured I might consider it. But then Randy, bless his heart, jumped in and said “I nominate myself.”

And he received a unanimous vote. Yep, I can now proudly say that I’m sleeping with a member of the board.

March 11th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 3 Comments

Despite snow last Wednesday, we managed to make it out of Boston and catch our connecting flight in Philadelphia without problems. In fact, despite some delays in Philadelphia, we still arrived early at the Cancun airport. And unlike last year when we arrived midday, our evening flight allowed us to breeze right through immigration/customs.

Note so self: always arrive in Mexico at night.

Anyway, I’d reserved a driver to drive us the 50-60 minutes south to Playa del Carmen so we wouldn’t have to take a taxi or rent a car (which we did last year and got pulled over by a corrupt officer threatening to hold onto my license unless I paid him $100).

Our arrival at the hotel was uneventful. We’d walked by the place last year as it appeared to be opening and it looked quite luxurious. On the same block as the beach, and only a block or so to the main shopping/dining street, the location was perfect. We checked in and went to our room, a spacious suite with a full kitchen, private balcony, and large bathroom. It was dark so we couldn’t really see the view all that well, but we could tell that at sunrise, we would have a pretty nice view of the Caribbean.

And what a spectacular view it turned outt to be (see photo). After breakfast we took care of the “adminstrative” stuff of the vacation by heading to the local supermarket (Mega) and stocking up on breakfast foods, snacks, bottled water, sunblock and wine. After that, the remaining 5 days were a blur of beach and mojitos.

We did have one overcast day (Saturday) but that didn’t stop us from laying around by the pool and relaxing. From that day forward, the weather just got better every day – with our last day being the best.

But all good things must come to an end and the driver returned to pick us up yesterday morning (how depressing to think that just 24 hours ago I was standing on the balcony overlooking the turquoise waters of the Carribean).

Since we’d been to Playa del Carmen before we didn’t take as many photos as we normally do. But I should have a few things posted to my photo gallery (link at bottom right) and on Facebook within the next day or so.

Oh, and while we were down there our friends, Ben and Sandy, invited us to stay with them in their timeshare in Puerto Vallarta in November. hmmmmmmmmm…decisons, decisions.

March 10th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 1 Comment

Why today? The past two days have been reasonably nice considering it’s been so stormly over the past month. In fact, the next five days look gorgeous by New England standards for the month March.

Yet we’re not supposed to be flying out later this week. We’re flying out this afternoon…and it’s been snowing. And our first flight lands in Philadelphia before switching planes. And this storm is stronger to the south of us (as most have been this winter).

My fingers are crossed that the weather will cooperate enough to at least let us catch our connecting flight (if that one is delayed it would suck but wouldn’t be the end of the world). But if our first flight is delayed and we miss our connection? oh oh

Otherwise, Randy and I are all packed and ready to go to Playa del Carmen, Mexico. WOO HOO! I’m packing a new beach umbrella that my friend, Pete, got me last year. It separates into small enough pieces that I can fit it it in my carry-on. However, the bottom portion of the stem of the umbrella is pointy so it can dig into the sand more easily. Hopefully the TSA doesn’t consider that a weapon. It’s only plastic, and it doesn’t even come to a sharp tip. You could probably do more damage with sharp fingernail, but I guess we’ll see.

Vamos a la playa!

March 3rd, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: Comments Off on Snowbird

Randy’s fall down the stairs aside, I don’t think I could be much happier with our new townhouse. I’m reminded of that at times like this weekend, where we had a friend from Portland visiting and we were able to walk within a few minutes to a decent restaurant for dinner. Better yet, we had options for dinner.

Although a town and not a city, Arlington has a surprisingly diverse collection of restaurants in the town center (where we live). Within a few minute walk we can choose between Thai, Chinese, Japanese/sushi, Italian, Indian, Turkish, Middle-Eastern, pizza, bagels/breakfast, sub shops, standard American, high end “European (whatever that is)…even Argentinian, which is what we opted for last night.

Plus we’ve got various coffee shops, banks, stores, and even government services (post office, town hall, library) all nearby. And a 20+ mile bike path practically across from our front door. I’d hate for Randy to hear me say this, but I probably have more restaurants within closer proximity to me now than I did living in the North End (since my place in the North End was quite a few blocks from Salem Street or Hanover Street). Plus, there’s more diversity in dining options in Arlington (not just Italian).

Anwyay, once the weather actually improves I hope we’re ambitious enough to take advantage of our location.

Oh, and speaking of good weather, it looks like we’re in for some good weather in Mexico this week. The 10-day forecast for Playa del carmen shows sunny or mostly sunny days with highs in the upper 70’s/low 80’s…with no rain!… for our entire trip. YAY!

March 1st, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 3 Comments

Poor Randy. It’s bad enough that he’s had a busy week at work. It’s bad enough that he was kept busy last weekend helping my mom with her new laptop. It’s bad enough that our upcoming weekend will include cleaning the house (out, damn dust bunnies, out!).

But last night he was heading downstairs after dropping stuff off in his office on the top floor when he slipped on the stairs and fell. I suppose it’s fortunate that our stairs are C-shaped (with two landings) so that his fall was blocked by a wall just 3 steps away. But he landed so hard I heard and felt the thud from two floors down. I ran up to see if he was ok and he was still lying on the stairs, feet against the wall of the landing in front of him. In fact, his feet hit the wall so hard that the drywall pushed in slightly and caused the nail to push out a bit (creating a bump in the paint).

But that’s the least of my/our worries. After a few moments he finally got up and I lifted his shirt to look at a look at his back. His fall landed him right on the edge of one of the carpeted steps causing an enormous rug burn that ripped up the flesh. It’s probably 8 inches long and 3 or 4 inches (it varies) in depth. Within minutes it began swelling.

This morning he woke up to an unpleasant shower (ouch), skin stinging, and a sore back underneath. Although the surface wound is scariest to look at, I’m most concerned with his actual back from landing so hard on it.

So far, he’s not in any extruciating pain. Knock on wood, that will remain the case.

Poor guy. And we’re off to Mexico in less than a week. Hopefully it will be healed by then so it won’t be so noticeable when he takes his shirt off at the beach.

I guess it’s also a good thing we never replaced the carpet with hardwood floors. I can’t imagine how hard that landing would have been.

Ouch!

February 25th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 2 Comments