Archive: Out of Town

One day at the beach, JG accompanied Mimi for the morning bakery run, which usually includes a dozen glazed pretzel-donuts, half a dozen chocolate frosteds, a handful of muffins, and something called “sticky pull-apart.” There are a few anomalous family members who eat things like cereal or fruit for breakfast, but most of us opt for the dessert-like items. Hey, we were on vacation!

I had returned from doing my C25K workout and was cooling off under a ceiling fan when JG and Mimi returned with pastry boxes full of baked bounty. JG called out, “RA, we got a present for you!”

A present?

“It’s a big pickle from a barrel!” JG crowed triumphantly, and he handed the small, waxed paper packet to me.

“You got me a pickle from the bakery?”

“No, it’s from the market next door.”

Oh, well, that made me feel a little better. It is no secret that I love pickles, but I hardly ever have them because they incite domestic unrest due to my alleged terrible breath. JG knows that I am especially partial to pickles from the giant vats on the street in New York City, so it really was a sweet thought. I put my present in the door of the fridge for safekeeping until lunchtime; even I can’t do pickles with donuts.

After a morning on the beach, I came back to the house, made myself a roast beef sandwich, and retrieved the pickle from the fridge. The cousins eyed it suspiciously, but there was no talk of sharing. That vinegar-soaked cucumber was meant for chomping, not cutting into spears and eating neatly. I took a few bites of my sandwich and then dug in eagerly.

It was a decent specimen of pickling. It didn’t hold a candle to my favorites, but it was refreshing to have alongside my sandwich, and it was mine, all mine. But I couldn’t quite tell what type it was. Dill? Half sour? Garlic? I turned to JG and asked, “What kind of pickle is this?”

He said matter-of-factly, “The barrel said, ‘Jewish pickles.’”

Despite my best efforts, I could not suppress the peals of laughter from pouring out of me. Ha! Now I know what to request for the next time!

When JG and I made plans to spend some of our spring break in the Poconos, we had two main objectives:

1. Relax
2. Go snowmobiling

Unfortunately, (relatively) warm temperatures eliminated snowmobiling from our itinerary, so we spent our days sleeping in, ordering in breakfast, working on crossword puzzles, and general drifting around. It was great. But not so much picturesque. Sure, we had a nice view from our little balcony, we had fun taking advantage of the enormous game room, and we stopped by an old haunt for a nice lunch, but really — relaxation does not photograph in a particularly entertaining way. Just take my word for it: the Poconos treated us well.

In the planning process, we also made a point to spend time JG’s aunt and uncle, who have been entreating us to come visit ever since I met his aunt at my bridal shower a mere three years ago. Before we headed out to our Poconos hotel, we spent the weekend at their house, just outside Scranton.

Yes, Scranton. As in The Office. As in the home of the third-largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the country. This was going to be good.

Upon our arrival, JG’s aunt ushered us into our room and immediately presented us with sweatshirts because “you have to have a sweatshirt if you’re going to the parade!” I was planning on wearing a super-green sweater, but a drunken Irishman on my stomach would fit the bill, too. JG and I donned our parade garb and headed out for a short tour of the city before the parade started. But let’s not get our priorities mixed up! Knowing that we were fans of The Office, JG’s aunt made a beeline to where she had heard there would be an Office tent, and we snagged fun t-shirts and an autograph from Andy Buckley, who plays David, the CFO! It was all very exciting.

I am not really a parade person, but the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Scranton is something to behold. Oh, there was the usual parade paraphernalia of clowns, majorettes, animals, and motorcycles. We got an eyeful of shriners and wacky floats, and local businesses made a showing alongside historical groups. It was clear, however, that Scranton’s parade-viewing audience was no ordinary crowd. I was astounded by the sheer volume of people packed into the downtown area, dressed in all sorts of green get-up that made my sweatshirt seem downright tame. Mini-skirts, knee socks, boas, puff-painted shirts, and tall hats were just the beginning for this creative mob. The festive atmosphere made way for the Dunder Mifflin limo, bearing a non-waving Andy Buckley, and there was a rumor that Hillary Clinton would walk through the parade route. (She did, eventually.) Giant campaign signs, including green “O’Bama” posters, were out in full force. Despite what could have been a derisive environment, everyone we encountered was generally good-natured. Scranton did itself proud.

Between informative anecdotes from JG’s uncle (a high-school history teacher), local pizza, and a shopping trip with JG’s aunt that yielded two cute — and cheap! — bags, the rest of our weekend was lovely and uneventful. It was so nice to see JG’s aunt and uncle, take in the sights of Scranton, and then have some time alone. I declare my three vacation days well spent.

In a reprise of events from this time last year, JG and I spent a long weekend in Philadelphia under the guise of helping to chaperone a trip of sixty high school students. The kids are incredibly motivated, well-mannered students, and they were in Philadelphia to participate in a Model United Nations conference. While they were on lock down in a hotel, trying to submit resolutions for their various committees on climate control and economic policy, the adults took turns gallivanting around the city on the school’s dime. Aside from a bowling excursion and drinks with dinner, the entire weekend was covered. Not a bad deal.

Other than frightening logistics including shepherding all sixty students from a school bus to a local transit train and then down four city blocks to their hotel, the weekend was a lovely departure from the norm. Plus, I was able to take my first days off from the new job and break in the new bag. That said, why am I so exhausted? Due to my low frequency of brain-synapse firing, I must defer to the bulleted list for the weekend’s events.

Thursday

• Wake up at 5:20am so that I have enough time to shower and accompany JG to school. Bitterly acknowledge the irony that on my first day off at the new job, I am getting up ridiculously early. Cruel.
• Camp out in JG’s teacher lounge for the rest of the day. Get through forty pages of Anna Karenina. Explain repeatedly that I am not a substitute teacher nor an observing college student.
• Meet in the school lobby in the early afternoon and herd kids onto two school buses. Count them over and over because JG and I keep getting different numbers. I finally make them count off on their own, military-style, to get a final number. My count is vindicated.
• After corralling the kids from the school buses, to the transit train, and then to their hotel, eating a buffet dinner, and a enduring painful opening ceremony, I collapse on the bed.

Friday

• JG gets a phone call at 5:30am informing him that school has been canceled back home. We wake up to a gray skyline and cold, cold rain.
• We accompany a group of kids to the Franklin Institute, and I get freaked out by the Chaperone sticker.
• Lunch on our own at a fabulous Italian restaurant. We marvel at the quiet after the hours spent with shrieking school groups for the morning.
• Back to the hotel for our night “on duty.” We order in from the hotel’s seafood restaurant and I eat every bite of my crab macaroni and cheese.
• The other chaperones return from dinner out, and JG and I beat them soundly in Cranium Wow, despite my inability to communicate “hamster wheel” via silent gestures.

Saturday

• The kids are “in committee” all day, so the chaperones take advantage of the clear, blue skies, and go out for lunch and bowling at Lucky Strike. I have a yummy sandwich of turkey, brie, and apple butter on a ciabatta roll.
• My bowling is consistently mediocre; I rack up scores of 82 and 81, even with my improbable strike in the first game. I curse my weak fingers.
• Dinner out at Chris’ Jazz Cafe, an appropriately smoky place with tasty food, great music, and a mighty strong mojito.

Sunday

• Join JG to guard the group’s luggage. Thankfully, it means that we don’t need to sit through the excruciating back-patting of the closing ceremonies. I start my dozenth NYT crossword puzzle for the weekend, only to be stymied yet again.
• We successfully marshal the kids from the hotel to the train station and on to the train. JG and I plan on ordering takeout for dinner. I declare the new bag a success.
• Ted is oh-so-happy to see us, after spending the weekend with JG’s sister, who was kind enough to dogsit. I confess to a tiny bit of heart-melting when he put his paws right on my lap in greeting, tail wagging away.
• Dig in to Chinese food as the Super Bowl starts.
• The sales lead commercial with the broken-English-speaking pandas completely offends me, but then I’m charmed by the Stewie-Underdog-Charlie Brown Coke commercial.
• Upload pictures as I vacantly glance up at the game every so often, and then I am astounded by the outcome because I missed everything leading up to it.

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This post was drastically delayed due to my being barred from making my Philly photos public during my lunch hour. Surprise! Flickr is now on the list of my company’s blocked websites. Wordpress, Blogger, and GoodReads all joined that list as of this morning, and I am undecided about whether I should be paranoid about this development.

After a whirlwind weekend in Washington, DC, I am back at home, behind at work, and slightly heavier, I’m sure, due to all of the super yummy food I devoured over the weekend. In lieu of a coherent narrative, I present: Highlights of a DC Weekend — Blurb Style.

Holy Hotness, Batman
At the risk of being ballyhooed by DC natives, I have to point out how ridiculously hot and humid the weekend was. What in the world? I can’t remember going through so many sweat-dry-off cycles in one day and that’s saying a lot, what with my summer camp job in college. In addition to the normal crankiness that comes with being hot and sticky comes, well, the stickiness. I don’t glow in a ladylike fashion; I perspire way more than is reasonable for a tiny girl and it is not pretty. Thank goodness for air-conditioned apartments and malls, I say. Amen.

Quack Attack!
Because I know that there are people who, at the sight of a giant, amphibious vehicle driven by a loudmouth tour guide and packed with kazoo-toting tourists, dismiss it as something hopelessly corny, I hereby shake my fist and proclaim that these naysayers should not knock things before they try them. See, duck tours, though tacky and obnoxious, are loads of fun and highly educational. Riding around on a vessel originally designed for invasion by land and/or sea while being bombarded by useless historical facts cannot be topped in the realm of cheesy tourist activities. I don’t deny that it’s cheesy; I simply challenge anyone who says it’s not entertaining. Of course, if your duck boat leaves at noon on The Hottest Day Ever (ahem), your fun quotient may decrease just slightly. Fortunately, the combination of a witty and knowledgeable tour guide, possession of a yellow plastic quacker, and the breeze off of the Potomac River will make it all much more agreeable.

Meet and Eat and Tell
I had the pleasure of meeting up with Zandria for lunch while I was away. I didn’t prelude this meeting very much because I was trying to quell my inherent nervousness. If I tried to craft a post about how I knew Zandria but didn’t really know her, I had a feeling that I’d be this close to writing up an index card of Topics to Discuss and stressing about whether shaking hands was too stiff. So I just avoided thinking about the meet-up and chose to wing it as much as is possible with me. Well, any worries I may have had dissipated upon meeting Zandria. Taller than I expected and with a slight southern accent (at least to me), she made conversation easy. We talked comfortably about our backgrounds and blogging as we chowed down on enchiladas and tacos. I can breathe deeply now that my first in-person blogger meet-up has gone down without a hitch and hopefully, Zandria wasn’t put off by how tiny I am and that I laugh really loudly. Because I would have warned her of that if I had written about how nervous I was. Good thing I didn’t do that.

After I got back from lunch, I ended up telling my sister about the blog, unprovoked. I wanted to get her permission to post pictures of her on the internet, but really, I wanted to get her reaction, which was more “How you say, blog?” than “Why didn’t you tell me?!” She made me bring it up right then and commenced to coo over the most recent pictures of Ted. It is just fine with me if that is the extent of the impact of this divulgence.

Delayed Wedding Present
When JG and I got married, we received two $100 gift cards from my grandmother’s sisters as a wedding present. How generous, right? Except that they were not redeemable online and we did not have a store location within a feasible drive. And the gift cards were to Saks Fifth Avenue, where one can buy two small throw pillows for that sum. Oh, I was annoyed. I knew that I should not look at a gift horse in the mouth (I wrote two rather awkward thank you notes), but when we were in need of things like glassware and comforters, this gift felt impractical and not very thoughtful. If only we had received a check, I moaned.

Those two cards languished in a shoe box for two years until I finally used (most of) the money this past weekend at a trip to the Saks by my sister. I had hoped to get a home good of some sort that someone may have bought as a wedding gift, but everything in that section of the store was miles beyond my price range. What’s a girl to do? Buy a dress, of course! I don’t know what my grandmother’s sisters expected me to buy, but I doubt that the cute, BCBG faux-wrap dress popped into their minds. What the heck — the price of the dress fit neatly within the gift card allowance, and best of all, it made me feel great. I handed over those gift cards with no regrets. Later, when I modeled the dress for JG, he made soft sounds of approval. It seems as though we’ll both enjoy this gift in the end.

In retrospect, I realize that this post is not so much brief. Oh, well.