Adventures in Gastronomy

This is like a youth reunion week for me. Last night I got together for dinner with my friend, Jen, who I worked with at Record Town 15 years ago while a poor struggling college student. That was back when the Prudential Center shopping mall didn’t exist (it was an unpleasant outdoor concrete arcade with an Au Bon Pain and some banks), Urban Outfitters sold cool clothes, and the Happy Mondays and Soho were all the rage on FNX.

Anyway, last night we met up and headed to Hanover Street for dinner. After getting the run-around from the host at one restaurant (“Your’e table is being cleared now,” “just a few more minutes,” “the people are paying the bill now,” “almost ready!”) we ended up going to Mother Anna’s. Jen ordered a delicious ricotta gnochi with scallops, lobster and shrimp. I ordered some other seafood dish with shrimp, proscuitto and mozzarella (hers was better).

YUM!

2,984,386 calories later, we walked up to Gelateria and ordered gelato (mine was banana and chocolate..a good mix). We walked and talked and laughed our way to the Prado and made obscene comments about the parade of cows. In fact, whenever we hang out together (unfortunately a rare thing) it’s like I’m 20 again. The silliest (and most immature things) make us laugh.

Tomorrow night, I’m getting together with two high school friends (ugh – going back 19 years now). One of them, Jessie, is my ex-girlfriend from junior year. The other, is my friend, Cookie, who actually wanted to date me at the same time as Jessie and I had to choose between the two of them. It was so scandalous (to me) back then and I find it so ironic now that I’m having dinner with both at the same time – nearly 20 years later. Anyway, I’ve remained friends with both (though did lose contact with Jessie for a decade when she moved to Austin). In fact, I’ve not seen Jessie since I was about 19 so this will be very intersting. Wait – I just remembered that she’s linked to my blog as the Tao of Davis: great sense of humor.

Fittingly, I suspect Friday night’s dinner will be as hilarious as last night’s with Jen. And with three twisted minds instead of two, I’m looking quite forward to it.

August 10th, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 2 Comments

And yesterday’s post managed to create just that. I think that may be the most traffic this blog has seen in ages. I should be controversial more often.

Coke or Pepsi? Discuss.

August 9th, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 18 Comments

I got my credit card bill the other day and, on top of all of the other unexpected costs associated with my trip to Europe, a hotel reservation that I had canceled still appeared on my statement for $170. I contacted the reservations agent and forwarded a copy of my credit card bill, my hotel reservation confirmation, and most importantly, my reservation cancellation confirmation emails. Hopefully that will be sufficient information to get that expense corrected.

Despite (fortunately) having free lodging the entire time I was in Paris, this trip ended up costing me quite a bit of money when taking into account the lodging in Amsterdam (an unexpected expense that came about after we realized Mike wasn’t going to Oxford), the car rental/tolls/fuel for going to Amsterdam, and the train from Paris to London (because we weren’t sure about the Oxford thing we weren’t able to purchase the tickets in advance and we got screwed price-wise). UGH.

On the plus side, I may be able to save some money going forward. I promised my parents i would pay to put hardwood flooring in their townhouse as their 40th anniversary gift. Well, I spoke with the flooring company and realized that I can take advantage of this weekend’s State Tax Holiday and not pay taxes on it. WOO HOO! It’s only a few hundred bucks…but I’ll take it.

And on a political note….there was a tiny 3-paragraph article in the Metro newspaper this morning about a group of American soldiers in Iraq who gang-raped a 14 yearold girl, then shot her in the head, and also murdered her parents and 5 year-old sister…all following some golf practice. After the rape and murders, they grilled chicken wings and had dinner.

UMM – why does this get 3 paragraphs in the middle of the paper when Lance Bass’s sexuality warrants a front page? The article says this happened in March. I watch the news every day and I don’t recall hearing about this (maybe I missed it…it’s possible). But still – where is the outrage? Aren’t we over there to supposedly protect? Who is supervising these people? We’ve got abuse in Guantanomo, abuse in Abu Ghraib. And now this?

This is the democracy we’re trying to spread to the middle east? Give me a break. I want these guys in prison for life. I want their bunkmates to rape them violentely for the next 50 years. I want them to be miserable for the rest of their lives. I want world peace, fluffy puppies and ice cream cones.

August 8th, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 12 Comments

Now, I know that it’s illegal to serve acohol to minors. And, I believe the law states that if a person looks like they’re under 28 (or 30, or some such age) that you should ask to see their ID anyway.

But is it still required to ask senior citizens? That’s practically what happened in front of me at the Prudential Center Shaw’s market. A couple in their early 60’s (my guess) were purchasing three bottles of red wine and the cashier saw the wine and immediately asked to see the man’s ID (since he was paying). Shocked, he pulled out his driver’s license and showed it to the clerk. His wife stood on the side smirking at the silliness of asking a person his age for an ID to buy wine.

But it got worse. The cashier then asked his wife for her ID, too, since she was accompanying the man purchasing the wine. What’s up with that? Does that mean if a father and his toddler go into a package store to buy wine for a romantic dinner with his wife that he can’t buy the wine? Or was this cashier (who was also quite slow in completing all of her transactions) generally a slow person?

Either way – it made the three of us chuckle (except for the cashier who didn’t get it).

I also saw a movie this weekend. It’s the first one I’ve gone to in ages. I went by myself which is also something I’d not done in years. I rather enjoyed it (the movie…and going alone). The movie was “The Oh in Ohio” (hence the play in my blog title today). It starred Parker Posey who was my movie idol in the 1990’s. Paul Rudd (whom I also adore) played her husband, Heather Graham played a lesbian sex shop owner, Danny DeVito played a pool salesman, and Liza Minelli played a women’s masturbation coach (hilariously, I might add).

It was essentially an indie romantic comedy with a bit of raunchy humor thrown in. The funny thing is I’d not heard about this movie at all. I had planned on seeing “Little Miss Sunshine”, but also saw this movie listed and figured that “Little Miss Sunshine” would be around for at least a few more weekends. Maybe the reason I’ve not heard much about “The Oh in Ohio” is that it’s about a mid-30’s woman who has never reached orgasm…but finally does through the use of a vibrator. She then becomes addicted – to the point of inserting her pager into her unmentionables while in the car and while working. Her husband, who was never able to bring her to orgasm before, did manage to bring her there unintentionally by repeatedly calling her in anger one afternoon.

Anyway, it was cute. I laughed and I left smiling.

August 7th, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 4 Comments

Actually, it does pay somebody. Unfortunately, that somebody isn’t me. In fact, I’m the one doing the paying (some of it, at least).

You may recall my mysterious sore throat/rash combination from a few months ago (wow – has it been that long?). I finally got the bill for my trip to the emergency room and I nearly yelped out loud when I saw it.

The first thing I should mention is that I have insurance so this is only costing me $60.00.

The second thing I should mention is that I was only in the emergency room (I was never given an actual room in the normal part of the hospital). I was also not given any medication (except for Tylenol), but I was still on IV most of the time (I used 4 bags). My entire stay in the emergency room was less than 24 hours (mid-afternoon Saturday through mid-morning Sunday). I was not provided lunch or dinner on Saturday and was only given some cereal, milk and orange juice on Sunday morning as I was sent home.

In my naive little head, I was expecting such an experience would cost around $2,500 or $3,000. That seemed logical. I mean, there was no surgery. I was basically just being monitored.

Well, apparently, a few hours of simple monitoring these days is worth $12,907.00. That’s more than a minimum-wage earner makes in an entire year! And that’s how much this hospital got for looking at me for only 18 hours or so. More infuriating, even at that price the hospital still misdiagnosed me! (my primary care physician confirmed what I had at a follow-up visit to his office on Monday…and it wasn’t what the hospital claimed I had).

ugh.

August 4th, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 5 Comments

Now, I know that, statistically, the southern states are the fattest states in the country*. I believe that Colorado, Washington (state), Oregon, Massachusetts and Vermont are considered the thinnest states. After living through the past few days of extreme heat and humidity I don’t understand how that can be. I mean, all I ate yeaterday was cereal, yogurt, some grapes, a granola bar, 1/2 a turkey burger and some crab meat. That’s it. I couldn’t even contemplate having dinner. Hell, I could barely eat 1/2 of my turkey burger at lunch because the thought of eating repulsed me so much.

My diet the day before was also similar: just add some broccoli, replace the crab meat with chicken hotdogs, and assume I managed to finish the entire turkey burger.

That’s normally the quantity of food I consume before midday…let alone in an entire day. I stepped on the scale last night and was 5 pounds lighter than I was on Monday. I’m sure most of it was just the loss of “water weight”…but I’m doing my best to stay hydrated (I had over 3.5 liters of water yesterday).

Anyway, if it’s like this almost daily in the south for 3 or 4 months of the year…how can people become obsese down there? I’d think instead it would be the most emaciated region of the world.

*After writing this post I did some research on a website called http://www.obesityinamerica.org/geographic.html. it appears that New England has surpassed the Mountain region (including Colorado) as the thinnest part of the country – though even the New England region has become fatter between 1991 and 2000.

August 3rd, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 7 Comments

I’m miserable. This week is a perfect example of why I consistently bitch about summer. I’d take a blizzard over this any day.

You know it’s bad when your cell phone rings, you pick it up, and it’s an automatically-generated recording from NStar advising me to conserve energy.

You know it’s bad when you get in to work and there are emails from facilities asking you to conserve energy.

You know it’s bad when the commuter rail is having to reduce it’s speeds because the tracks are rippling/expanding from the heat (leaving passengers with an extra 20 minutes on potentially 100+ degree platforms.

You know it’s bad when a pregnant woman dies at a Red Sox game while sitting in the sun-drenched bleachers.

My commute home last night was dreadful. Why is it that there always seems to be the biggest complications on bad-weather days? I got to Harvard station last night and waited with hundreds and hundreds (or more?) of passengers on the platform for a train that never came for 20 minutes. We were all sweating to death. Finally a train arrived. It was the longest train I’d ever seen: it must have been the length of three train station platforms. It appeared that two (TWO!!!) entire trains (not just the cars..but the entire link of trains) became disabled so a third group was pulling all of them.

Of course, that train went by and wasn’t taking any passengers.

Then I switched at Park (from red to green) and five (FIVE!) Government Center trains came by before one that went the two extra stops to my stop (North Station). This has always been a pet peeve of mine. North Station is the 2nd or 3rd most major transit hub in New England yet the MBTA doesn’t have all green lines go there. WHY?

Anyway, a train finally arrived after I waited on the humid 95-degree platform (with no fans to circulate air…well, they have fans – they just weren’t on!). But the train had a wheelchair bound person on it. And, since the line is not effectively ADA compliant, there was a 5+ minute delay while the train drivers got out, brought over the portable lift, raised it, brought out the ramp, lowered the platform, removed the passenger, put the lift back together again, and rolled it away.

I wanted to die.

And the poor man in the wheelchair: all of the heat-miserable passengers get upset with him as if it’s his fault – and then he’s stuck getting stared at while subway employees have to help him off the train. There has to be a better, less humiliating, solution to accomodating mobility-challenged passengers. At the very least, don’t the drivers have communication systems? Couldn’t they have called ahead and had people prepare the lift in advance to speed things up?

Or better yet, if the entire region is incapable of handling such heat (warranting recorded messages from utility companies and employers asking us to conserve energy at work) shouldn’t we just close all offices and send people home? Think about how much energy would be saved by turning off all of that electricity. Hell, we do it for 6 inches of snow. This is much worse.

August 2nd, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 6 Comments

…but come on!

Who the hell in their right mind would be vain enough to allow a man to perform costmetic surgery on themselves…in a basement…on a freaking massage table…next to the washer and dryer?

I mean, it’s tragic what happened. It shouldn’t have happened. And I’ll be very curious to find out what type of 30-day work visa the Brazilian man could possibly have received from the U.S. government (I’m guessing it wasn’t to peform illegal and unlicensed surgeries in somebody’s condominium basement). But I wouldn’t let a person pierce my ear in such an environment – let alone perform a surgical procedure.

For those of you out-of-state readers (yes, I have a few), a Brazilian doctor has apparently come to Framingham, Massachusetts periodically for the past few years and performed illegal plastic surgeries (nose jobs, liposuction, botox, breast augmentation, lip enhancements) during each 30 day visit. Apparently, the local Brazilian community lines up at the door for his services (there were four waiting when this 24year old patient was rushed to the hospital and died this week).

Amazing.

In other local news – it appears we’re to expect the hottest weather in years (possibly decades) over the next two days. By tomorrow the temperature could exceed 100 degrees and, with the humidity, it will feel like 114-117 degrees. Of course, this bit of news is also for my out-of-state readers. The local readers are already aware and are ready to kill me for reminding them.

August 1st, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 6 Comments

I was supposed to get together with Mike on Friday night, but he was too tired. Instead I ended up watching the massive storms roll through before calling it a night.

Saturday was oppressively miserable. I did manage to go to the hospital and visit my sister-in-law for a while in the afternoon. She’s doing much better and is expected to be released early this week. However, she’s then scheduled for a few weeks at Spaulding Rehab to build-up muscle strength again (enough to go from the wheelchair to the bed or the toilet).

After the hospital, I met up with a friend who works at the Custom House. He gave me a tour of the property – not only of the semi-private observation deck (which offers amazing views) but also to a few of the rooms in the building that only members get to see. Great stuff.

We then grabbed lunch and walked along the waterfront (trying to stay cool….which was useless).

That night, Mike and I got together and, for the first time since May, I went to his place to hang out. I shall state now that it will be the last I time I visit until at least October. Climbing up that mountain he lives on in this heat/humidity…even at 8PM…was too horrible. I arrived at his place and had to sit on the floor in front of the AC and fan for about 20 minutes before I could join him on the sofa without saturating the fabric.

We ordered pizza and watched two campy movies. Things started with Mommie Dearest – a movie that I found horribly sad the first time I saw it a decade ago. I can appreciate the camp factor now, but I still find the movie sad. Imagine my relief when Mike said the same thing (perhaps we BOTH just don’t understand camp?)

The second movie was the original Poseidon Adventure….ah Shelley Winters. Love her.

On Sunday morning I went to breakfast with Mike and his mother, then went to the market for groceries. I visited my sister-in-law again in the afternoon and was joined by my brother and my niece and nephew. It was a good visit and I even brought my camera. Heidi wasn’t too keen on being photographed in her hospital bed (understandably) so here’s a shot of my brother, nephew and niece (Paul, Nick and Katie, respectively). With the wonders of computers you can crop the photos so much that you can barely tell it was taken in a dismal hospital room.

I then took the scenic route home and walked through Chinatown, the Greenway, the waterfront and the North End…and took more photos!

Obviously, this first photo is of Chinatown

This frightening little display was in a shop window on Salem Street in my neighborhood. If you loved me, you’d buy it for me.

This is just a typical residential building off my street. The Italian flag was blowing in the seabreeze so you can’t really tell what it is.

July 31st, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 4 Comments

I’m normally a man of routine. I hate change. I typically like things just the way they are and I avoid rocking the boat at all costs.

But I have to say that I’m quite ready for a change….in weather. This humidity is just ridiculous. I don’t understand the (few) people who love this stuff (“best of summer”, my ass). There’s nothing to love. It’s like having a pet turtle. There’s no love there – it probably has no clue who you are. It doesn’t care about you.

And speaking of people (and things) not caring…what’s up with G.W. Bush signing an extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act? Why does it need to be extended by 25 years? Shouldn’t voting rights be an automatic thing the original act should have made permanent? Perhaps I’m missing something (I’m the first to admit that I typically avoid politics) but it just seems logical that this act should give minorities the right to vote indefinitely, no? Who drafts these things?

Anyway, back to the superficial stuff that I’m good at. It’s finally the weekend and, for the first time since Europe, I really don’t have anything planned. No family visits, no Provincetown getaways. Mike and I are getting together tonight for a possible dinner/drinks then it will be DVD’s in the climate controlled environment of my home. After that – nada.

Oh, and I skipped Meditation class last night. For the past few weeks the room has been hotter than hell and it’s packed with people oozing body heat (and not in a good way). I just didn’t think I could handle that scene last night. Besides, I don’t appear to be getting anything out of it. My mind races constantly and I seem incapable of relaxation.

Great – I can see it now: heart attack by 37.

July 28th, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 6 Comments