Did you know that it takes 7 to 10 days to make a Jelly Belly jelly bean?
Or, more importantly, that you can buy an entire kilo just of Watermelon?
Just checking. Oh, hey, watch that drool, you don’t want to get any on the keyboard.
food
My mother, ever the intrepid homemaker upon the once-a-year occasion that finds me in our house for three consecutive days, rose with dawn this morning to acquire the last few items on our Italian Christmas Grocery List. We do not make ham. We do not eat turkey. For us, Christmas is all about a inordinately large pot of gravy, some sort of homemade pasta, and upwards of a dozen eggs worth of scappels. However, since i left for school, Christmas has also been the chance for the two of us to collectively gorge ourselves on high-cholesterol Italian desserts. This was the reason Elaine was out of the house just after eight this morning.
While i am a cheesecake addict through and through, my mother tends to veer more towards pastries and chocolates. This year she decided that my jumbo-cheesecake would get the axe in favour of an equally massive tiramisu, and the bakery informed her that she’d have to arrive “pretty early” to secure a nummy liquor-soaked cake for herself. They literally told her that people would be lined up around the block before the subway started running; she took it with a grain of salt and got in the car during the back half of Good Morning America.
8:25 — “Hey, it’s me… i can’t believe you actually woke up this early. … Whatever. Listen, i’m just swinging by the pastry place and running some quick errands. … Yeah, i’ll be at your apartment by ten.”
Much to my mother’s chagrin (and my endless amusement), the line at Isgro’s was around the block … not only around the block, but nearly motionless in a dead-pan imitation of its ticket-line cousin i endured while flying last week.
9:30 — “Peter, hey, it’s me … i’ve been in line for about an hour. … You should see it, it’s a madhouse … I’ll call you before i come to pick you up. … Yeah, i should be there around ten-thirty.”
And, not only was this line packed to the gills with a cheery assortment of dietary die-hard degos who had the presence of mind to bring along folding chairs and thermoses, but it was being patrolled by a Mr. and Mrs. Claus — her with pastry samples, and him with a tray of Amaretto in tiny disposable shot-glasses. Furthermore, the local news was interviewing people up and down the line, kindly declining several offers of liquid warmth … via Mr. Claus as well as the crowd at large (who apparently came equipped). Did i mention it was about 43 degrees outside?
10:35 — “Um, Peter, it’s me … Yes, i’m still in line. … No, i can’t even see the doors from here. Santa keeps asking me if i’d like a drink. … Oh, no, I should be in by eleven.”
Upon her finally arriving (let’s call it @ twelvish) my mother had bought half our housecat’s weight in Italian desserts, and she blithely informed me that she was going to be on the noon and five-o’clock news, the latter of which she was taping at that very moment.
I skipped over the bit where i hid all of the liquor in my apartment so my grandmother could come up and see it (“Jesus, do you have enough steps in this place? I swear, i’d have a heart attack with all these goddamned steps.”), and also the bit where i got zero sleep to finish my mother’s freaking Christmas present that she had better appreciate.
Does anybody rememer last Christmas? I seem to remember it being cuter than this…
Why, yes, life is exactly like that. However did you know?
Ah, the joys of our wondrous network of over-taxed collegiate bloggers. And, look, it only took three years of college to leave me vaguely stressed out.
Last night i came home miserable, which hardly surprised me — any day started off with a Venti Latté is bound to end up in tears or with me bouncing down the sidewalk like a Mexican jumping bean. Anyhow, my favorite two ways to cure misery are spending money and eating (yes, i know, it’s a very health set of habits). However, my attempt at the former was foiled by the bookstore ordering the wrong edition of the book i needed, so when i got home i was ready to do some serious binge-eating. At my disposal i had ice cream, ramen, pop-tarts, and all other manner of collegiate waste. Did i go for any of that? Nooooo. No, instead i decided to order a gastro-intenstinal nightmare sandwich with a side of cardiac arrest.
AKA : chicken cheesesteak w/extra cheese and a large side of cheese fries. Yes, you’re right, i could never be a vegan. Thanks for noticing.
Chicken cheesesteaks are a phenomenon i was just introduced to last year when i finally came off my vegetarian kick, and they’ve been one of the junkfood mainstays of my diet ever since. Somehow the two or three places where i obtain this death on a bun use incredibly lean and well cooked chicken, which is exactly why i don’t eat the beef variety: they’re nasty. However, the establishment i ordered from last night doesn’t use that lean, healthy chicken, but instead something i am currently referring to as “cheef.” Sure, it tasted nice and carnivorous on the way down, but not even a protective layer of deep fried potatos and cheese wiz could protect me from the wratch of cheef.
Said wrath basically is that over 24hours later my stomach is still twisted in knots in an attempt to cleanse itself from the greasy chow i crammed into it last night, and the only two options i’m seriously contemplating right now are an immediate switch to vegetarianism to placate my distressed digestive system, or a slightly more sinister plan than involves a lot of porcelain.
Today was a cranky day, and yes, that is the sound of me spending an entire 48 hours only departing the apartment once, to take out the trash. We are all a bit cranky tonight, and i decided after intermittently coloring in a coloring book and blankly staring at the teevee for a fourth hour to say “goodnight” and get the hell out of the living room. The thing about living in a threesome of people is that it’s always two on one, and yesterday it was me and Lindsay versus Erika so today was them versus me. Erika and i hardly ever team up against Lindsay so much as we just hang out by ourselves. It actually doesn’t bother me in the least, but the intelligent thing to do was to extract myself before it did bother me. So, i came up here and recorded a suck-ass Trio.
Meanwhile, my cold has kept me substance free all weekend, and don’t think that has anything to do with being in the house, either. The ladies put a sizeable dent into a few bottles in the wet-bar, and i consumed three cartons of orange juice and one of ice cream. Such is a sleepy weekend, solely composed of naps, guitars, musical Buffy episodes that left me gasping and in shock, and blowout Eagles games. Makes me feel real, at least…
I was essentially at a loss for words, sitting at the quaint restaurant table with Lindsay and Dante trying to explain. I couldn’t figure out how i felt about New Hope… i felt like we were trapped in one of those quaint tourist trap towns and that it was like walking around in a life-sized dollhouse where nothing was real. It was more than that, though… more surreality like rose flavored ice cream that made me feel like i was in a novel somewhere other than circling around Washington’s Crossing of the Delaware.
So, we were at dinner and Lindsay decided for me that i should have brought a notebook with me, and i’m sure that i should have because i lost everything i had meant to say. I suppose i’m just so obsessed with being in a city and being metropolitan that it seems impossible to me that people live just around the corner from these shops… selling strange musical instruments and fantastical ice cream and ultra-hot salsa only to walk back home and lay down to sleep under those same stars.
Oh yeah, you could see stars. Everywhere. Our trip straddled Pennsylvania and New Jersey and we walked back and forth across a bridge whose wooden foot path was so worn that it seemed just like walking on a dirt road. We all wondered at once where the state lines were drawn… the middle of the river, or the middle of the bridge? I finally figured that they’d probably be indicated on old claimer’s maps, but then it came down to where exactly those hand-drawn maps would set the border in real life and we were back to where we started.
Other things happened too, that i can’t quite put back together into the blog they were meant to be. There was an armor store that was selling arrowheads from 200bc, and i couldn’t fathom how just anybody had the right to own something that old and have it sitting in a display case with a “please inquire” pricetag on it. I kept arguing with Lindsay that nothing could taste like a rose after we first passed the ice cream shop while still in the car, and finally she just replied: “it tastes just like it smells. You can taste anything you can smell!” And that was that until i actually bought my triple scoop and the owner made me try it first because “some people taste it and then just walk out on me.” And it tasted like… rose petals. It was flavored in that subtle way that green tea ice cream is, with the ultra-dark pastel color and the taste that slides off of your tongue while you’re trying to absorb it.
After we had walked around for a while i finally got used to the idea of everything being real, but i still can’t figure it out. It feels like it should be some tiny historical town tucked into Massachusetts because i always forget that Philadelphia is the exception to the rule of Pennsylvania and not the other way around. Everything in New Hope was vivid… all the local teenagers we saw working in the shops were like caricatures of people i know… three times as many piercings or hair twice as outrageous or poise that’s so much more postured. I realize that somehow it’s their reaction to living in a sort of suspended time where all of the shops and streets stay the same and people from outside come in to gawk, but at the same time it felt like i was looking at a catalogue of teenaged stereotypes trying to find the ones that matched my own friends.
Of course, those are all just snippets… glimpses into my surreal afternoon, because i should have bought a notebook instead of the two cds i bought. Live and learn.