It's in a bucket on the porch...

This year, as a thank-you to my family for helping me re-hab the house I recently purchased, I hosted Thanksgiving.

I did everything myself, except for removing the bag of turkey guts from inside the turkey. I cannot handle sticking my hand inside a bird carcass. I even had rubber gloves and still couldn't do it. Call me a wuss if you like, but this wuss was not about to fist a fowl.

I decided, under direction of an Alton Brown Thanksgiving cooking special on television, to soak the turkey overnight in a brine. This worked well for two reasons... it made for a juicier turkey and also eliminated the need to bast the bird at all. (anything that eliminates a cooking step is okay with me!) I didn't have a pot large enough for the turkey to fit and be fully submerged in brine, so I had to buy a big ol' bucket from Home Depot. The bird/brine/bucket combo needed to be kept cool all night, so I ended up putting it out on the porch with the windows open.

Everything went well except for...
...the right side of the bird. Charred!

Luckily, he was dead before he got here, so he didn't feel a thing.

There is a worm in this apple.

Although fun, my New York trip did not go as planned....

What was supposed to happen: Travel by bus to NY Port Authority... meet Chet at 11am outside of Duane Reade, which is across the street from Port Authority... part ways with my mother... spend the day with Chet, doing goofy touristy things and treking to "Toy Tokyo" ... meet up with my mother for dinner ... the three of us go to the art opening .... say goodbye to Chet and catch the 10:45pm bus back to Massachusetts.

What actually happened:
Our bus got into Port authority half an hour early, which was nice. I gave Chet a call and it went straight to voice-mail, which was fine because we had gotten into town early. We decide to double-check the bus schedule for our return trip back. Oddly, there isn't a 10:45pm bus, as the printed schedule says exists. Wonderful. The next bus was at 4:30am. I'm too cheap to book a room anywhere, so my mother and I decide we'll just diner-hop after the art opening. The opening ended at 9pm... so we'll have about 7 hours to kill before our morning bus.

Eleven rolls around and I'm loitering outside of Duane Reade with no sign of Chet. After several phone calls and over an hour of waiting, I come to the conclusion that Chet is still sleeping. I leave a message and decide to spend the day with my Mother. It was nice of her to let me join her, as she likes to wander around the city alone and now she had the company of me forced on her.

Part of my original plan was to walk over to an obscure toy store that I visit everytime I'm in New York. My mother, the saint that she is, said she wouldn't mind going. I'm horrible with directions so we end up walking 127 blocks to get there, which in actuality took us in a giant backwardy path. It should have only taken us about 15 blocks to get there. In my defense, the several other times I've been there, I've walked there from "Kid Robot", and I only know one way to get anywhere. Heehee.

Chet finally calls and we meet him at the gallery. The opening was fantastic, obviously. Then the artist shows up...
In general, I have no problem speaking to anyone with any amount of celebrity, but for some reason, I get really red in the face and star-struck in the presence of Josh Agle. It's odd.

At the last opening of his that I attended, I rambled on to him about whether or not he found it irritating to be referred to as a "retro" artist. (For the record, he says he's used to it, but that he himself doesn't think of himself as "retro" or "throwback").

At this opening I end up rambling on about his use of color and some questions regarding a set of paintings which are a departure from his regular work. Then, I actually told him I was nervous to be speaking to him! Fantastic. Fantastic. How stupid. He's really gracious, and I assume it isn't the first time that some idiot fan gushed over him and his art, so he took it in stride, thanked me and drew me a little martini glass on a gallery postcard. I could feel my face turning crimson. We spoke for a few more minutes and then my mother, Chet and I got the hell out of there for fear I would throw up from embarassment. Thankfully, I did not.

We ambled over to a diner, as my face slowly returned to its normal, near translucent paleness. Since we had seven hours to kill, we ate very very slowly. Chet and I walk around Times Square to people watch, while my mother decides to sit in a theater lobby.. something about her feet hurting a bit because of "that freaking long walk just so you can buy some tiny plastic food." eh. It was a really warm night for this time of year, so Times Square was really crowded. We saw 2 people dressed as Spiderman for no apparent reason. Chet eventually left to catch the subway back to Queens.

I met up with my mother and spent the next 5 hours killing time by watching a movie, eating and then just sitting in Port Authority, listening to the audio book of "The Kid Stays in the Picture" on my Ipod. We shared a pair of earbuds.. how cute.

The bus finally arrived and I'm pretty sure we both fell asleep before it even left the station.

Put the Lime in the Coconut...

My yard needs this thing. Not only is it really neat looking, but a cooling mist rains down from the top of the palms, where a fine mist generator is hidden in one of the fake coconuts. I could waste many a Sunday afternoon lounging around in this thing.

Hey Frank.

This weekend I'm going to New York which is really great for several reasons...

1. I'm going for an art opening of works from one of my favorite artists. (I say "one of my favorite" because I find it alarming and weird to claim something as your number one favorite anything, but trust me, he's up at the top of the heap of artists I like.)

2. I'll be meeting up with a friend I haven't seen in a year, the last time being a funeral. It'll be nice to see him in happier times.

3. The abundance of street vendor food possibilities makes me giddy with anticipation. Sure, we have food carts in Boston, but not nearly as many or with the vast variety that the carts in New York City offer. Hmm, although we do have "The Sausage Guy," but that's another story. Last time I was in New York I walked the perimeter of Central Park and grazed all the carts on the sidewalk, resulting in my eating 5 hot dogs in roughly forty minutes. I wish I was kidding. Takeru Kobayashi, look out.

Recent Things of Note...

the house across the street from mine caught on fire • found a few more pieces of "Blue Heaven" dishes at a tag sale • my kitchen sink has been fixed, although now there is a leak in one of the pipes • candy corn is still gross • the grocery store near my house has stopped carrying my frozen pizza of choice, which is more devastating than you would think • for the past week I have poured roughly 200 lip balms a day • i've been having re-occuring dreams about Coney Island, which is odd, as I've never been there • the world juggling competition was on last night, and it was oddly compelling • rainy weather really compliments breakfast foods