Had a great evening Saturday night. For all you hipster wanna-bes, I have listed the stops in Saturday night’s trip to the Williamsburg/Greenpoint area. Follow along to recreate the fun — fool your friends into thinking that you know cool, offbeat places!
Of course, I can’t re-create my favorite part of Saturday night — the lunar eclipse. Fantastic.
Had a great evening Saturday night. For all you hipster wanna-bes, I have listed the stops in Saturday night’s trip to the Williamsburg/Greenpoint area. Follow along to recreate the fun — fool your friends into thinking that you know cool, offbeat places!
Of course, I can’t re-create my favorite part of Saturday night — the lunar eclipse. Fantastic.
First of all — what is OJ? OJ stands for October soJourn, due to a not-so-firm grasp of the English language. It is an annual pilgrimage to the woods, where anywhere from a dozen to twenty people gather to frolick, feast, and sometimes fornicate. Most often, though, a bunch of us rent a large farmhouse for a weekend, there is very little sex (well, that might be an overstatement), but heaps of food, music, and hugs. (Awww).
The big focus this year, due to the crappy weather, was the feast. Organized by Chef John, almost everyone played the role of sous/prep chef at some point during the day. The menu:
Doug made the desserts:
Needless to say, we were very happy. And very full.
Every year, no matter what other crap is going on in my life, OJ is one of those times where I am extremely thankful (warning — sap alert! stop reading if you begin to vomit). As I might have mentioned before, I have some amazing, giving, caring, trustworthy, generous, smart, funny, and talented friends. All of these qualities come out during OJ. We cook together, sing together, clean up together, laugh together, and still come back for more each year. It is always such a welcome respite from work, my shitty dates (or lack thereof), the grind of daily life in NYC, and whatever else is going on in the real world.
Thanks to my favorite people for yet another relaxing, fun, food, and love-filled OJ.
Word to your mother.
–Larenator
A full account of OJ 2003 is to come later, but I wanted to let folks know that the photos are up. I’m still renaming the pictures and playing with the format a little, but they are now available for your viewing pleasure.
It is fascinating to me how our minds and bodies interact with each other. Similarly, I find it interesting how what is going on emotionally manifests itself physically. This weekend started off brilliantly. I was going to Maine for Rosh Hashanah. I have been somewhat stressed out at work lately (ah, the Lost Post), and have been utterly preoccupied. So — when I made my reservation for a car service to take me to the airport at the crack of dawn on Friday, I automatically made the reservation for Newark.
Needless to say, when I arrived at Newark airport and stuck my credit card in the machine, it did not recognize my reservation. This is because my flight was out of LaGuardia. Fuck. I attempted to be very Zen about the whole thing. “No problem,” I thought, “I have plenty of time, and I’m in no rush.” I took a cab back into the city, back out to LaGuardia. Missed my flight by 5 minutes. “Zen,” I remind myself. “You MORON!” screams my internal critic. After a minor breakdown and the $80 cab ride, I reschedule my flight and attempt to sleep in the rows of chairs that have armrests on every seat so that you can’t lie down on them.
Zen. So this is how stress manifests itself.
The weekend got better from there, thankfully. I finally made it to Portland (where there is only one airport, BTW), and drove up to Bates to see my brother. We cooked a HUGE Cuban meal for 20 of his closest friends, and then I joined everyone to go see his band, Mango Quickly, play.
Returning back to Portland the next day, was reunited with a guy I haven’t seen in probably about 20 years. Our families are very close friends, and he had an interview in Portland on Monday. He wanted to come up early to check out the city. It was so bizarre to get to know someone as an adult whom you had only known as a child. Bizarre, but fun. And interesting.
I made it back to NYC without incident — whew.
A quick update. The show was AMAZING. Town Hall is a very intimate venue, and there were moments when he didn’t even use a microphone. That man’s voice makes me melt. Click here for the set list.
(and by the way, my music list has become a little Elvis-heavy these days, and Typepad seems to be capable only of inserting the image for North rather than for the correct album cover — some sort of Amazon conspiracy to promote North, perhaps?)
Gothamist highlights the fact that now US News says internet dating is okay. Thank god. I was so worried.
In other exciting news, going to see Elvis tonight. Woo hoo!
‘Nuff said. More details to come.
‘Nuff said. More details to come.
