Friday was a long-ass day. Aside from being ridiculously busy, an announcement was made that means more Big Upheaval, and if I didn't see the writing on the wall before, it's damn clear now. Omens, people. Pay attention to them.
Anyway. This is about Baltimore. Baltimore was fun. Mike came to pick me up and our ride down was fairly uneventful, save the Finnish Metal music that I just couldn't handle. Somewhere in Maryland I snapped and plugged in my iPod and forced to Mike listen to real music.
We were the last to arrive, everyone was already gathered in the kitchen when we arrived, sipping beers and being jolly. Al was cooking. Lauren was helping. Nina and Dave were speaking at the decibels expected should one of them be in North Dakota, arguing about God only knows what. Mike joined right in. Teresa could do nothing but laugh. And I hauled out my camera immediately.
Al, because he is a frickin' genius, made The Best Damn Sangria I've Ever Tasted. I'm sort of kicking myself for forgetting to get the recipe from him.
Notice how it is GONE. We drank 2 pitchers of this stuff. It was light, sweet, refreshing, and most importantly, alcoholic. Al made chorizo con queso, which I think was made with Mexican sausage, cheese, and awesomeness. He made an out-of-this-world bean dip, a fiery salsa that caused Dave to cry, and the fixings for both chicken and beef tacos. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If Teresa hadn't already nabbed him, I would so marry Al and live out my days eating anything he cooked and being a jolly fat woman.
Speaking of Tree and Al:
They're rather adorable. Hosts with the most! Anyway, Dave came with a play he's written and asked us to do a table reading to help him iron out problems. This allowed for Mike to perform his Orson Wells impression and allowed Al to showcase his old timey-radio voice. As you can imagine, this led to a lot of laughter.
Or maybe that was just the sangria. After a lot of eating, drinking, and chatting, we made our plans for Saturday and headed off to bed.
Saturday morning brought about some girlie time, and us ladies headed off to an Herb Festival at a local park.
Plants were everywhere, Teresa bought at least half of them, we confused fennel and dill, Lauren nearly became orgasmic smelling the Mexican sage, I took a frillion photos, and we had a fabulous time. As we were following the path through the park, we turned a corner and suddenly OWLS.
They were just there. And really close. And having lived all my life in the vicinity of owls, strangely enough I've never been really close to one like this before. It was kind of cool. Lauren called them "cat birds" because they were so alert and...wiry. It felt like they were about to pounce at any second. There was a wee tiny screech owl that I wanted to keep in my pocket.
After all the herbs, we headed back to the house and began planning the rest of the day. Al decided (okay, okay, we begged him) to make homemade Dark Chocolate Rum Walnut ice cream (I KNOW) and this led to Lauren and I accompanying him on a quest to get the ingredients. When we got back, Al began cooking again (bless you Al, bless you) and we went to the back yard/park to play frisbee.
Plum tuckered out from frisbee, we came back, sat on the front porch and feasted on organic hot dogs and hamburgers, with the aforementioned ice cream for dessert.
Sunday, after a big breakfast Dave and Lauren left us (losers) and the remaining cool kids headed to the streets of Baltimore for an art festival. More precisely, SoWeBo -- South West Bohemian Art Festival. And here my camera exploded because I took SO MANY pictures.
After the arts fest, we went off to grab some dinner. We went out for Egyptian food, which was fantastic. I had fata with lamb. I am still unsure what exactly fata is, but whatever the hell it was it was delicious. Then we walked around a local book store (of course I bought 4 books, Jesus) to kill time before going to see a movie.
A word about the movie. I had already seen the movie (Pirates) with Jim and Stephanie on Thursday, and I didn't mind seeing it again. However. I was beyond fan-girl excited that we were going to see it at The Senator. See, The Senator is the last big movie house in Baltimore. It seats a thousand, and the interior is all art deco and cool. But I knew about The Senator because it's the theater my boyfriend worked hard to save and has many of his movie premiers/fundraising screenings there. So when Tree suggested we go to see a movie there, the very first thing that popped out of my mouth was, "That's Edward Norton's theater!" Outside of the theater they have squares of sidewalk showing the movies that have premiered there, designed to look like the movie titles and such, with the key actors names signed in the concrete ala Grauman's Chinese Theatre. I may or may not have reached down to briefly touch one of the obviously fake EN signatures. Shut up.
Shut UP, I tell you.
The theatre was great though. I'd forgotten what it's like to see a movie with that many people -- I vaguely remember seeing some movie as a kid in a theater like that. I'm sure it was soon replaced with a multiplex. It's a whole different energy in a place like that. It was grand.
Monday Al, Mike, and I headed to more bookstores for good deals (...and I bought 4 more books...leave me alone) while Nina and Tree planted the plants purchased at the herb fest. After book goodness (Atomic Boooks was closed due to holiday, bah), we ate Indian food and headed back to PA.
All in all, a fantastic weekend. Happy Memorial Day!
Anyway. This is about Baltimore. Baltimore was fun. Mike came to pick me up and our ride down was fairly uneventful, save the Finnish Metal music that I just couldn't handle. Somewhere in Maryland I snapped and plugged in my iPod and forced to Mike listen to real music.
We were the last to arrive, everyone was already gathered in the kitchen when we arrived, sipping beers and being jolly. Al was cooking. Lauren was helping. Nina and Dave were speaking at the decibels expected should one of them be in North Dakota, arguing about God only knows what. Mike joined right in. Teresa could do nothing but laugh. And I hauled out my camera immediately.
Al, because he is a frickin' genius, made The Best Damn Sangria I've Ever Tasted. I'm sort of kicking myself for forgetting to get the recipe from him.
Notice how it is GONE. We drank 2 pitchers of this stuff. It was light, sweet, refreshing, and most importantly, alcoholic. Al made chorizo con queso, which I think was made with Mexican sausage, cheese, and awesomeness. He made an out-of-this-world bean dip, a fiery salsa that caused Dave to cry, and the fixings for both chicken and beef tacos. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If Teresa hadn't already nabbed him, I would so marry Al and live out my days eating anything he cooked and being a jolly fat woman.
Speaking of Tree and Al:
They're rather adorable. Hosts with the most! Anyway, Dave came with a play he's written and asked us to do a table reading to help him iron out problems. This allowed for Mike to perform his Orson Wells impression and allowed Al to showcase his old timey-radio voice. As you can imagine, this led to a lot of laughter.
Or maybe that was just the sangria. After a lot of eating, drinking, and chatting, we made our plans for Saturday and headed off to bed.
Saturday morning brought about some girlie time, and us ladies headed off to an Herb Festival at a local park.
Plants were everywhere, Teresa bought at least half of them, we confused fennel and dill, Lauren nearly became orgasmic smelling the Mexican sage, I took a frillion photos, and we had a fabulous time. As we were following the path through the park, we turned a corner and suddenly OWLS.
They were just there. And really close. And having lived all my life in the vicinity of owls, strangely enough I've never been really close to one like this before. It was kind of cool. Lauren called them "cat birds" because they were so alert and...wiry. It felt like they were about to pounce at any second. There was a wee tiny screech owl that I wanted to keep in my pocket.
After all the herbs, we headed back to the house and began planning the rest of the day. Al decided (okay, okay, we begged him) to make homemade Dark Chocolate Rum Walnut ice cream (I KNOW) and this led to Lauren and I accompanying him on a quest to get the ingredients. When we got back, Al began cooking again (bless you Al, bless you) and we went to the back yard/park to play frisbee.
Plum tuckered out from frisbee, we came back, sat on the front porch and feasted on organic hot dogs and hamburgers, with the aforementioned ice cream for dessert.
Sunday, after a big breakfast Dave and Lauren left us (losers) and the remaining cool kids headed to the streets of Baltimore for an art festival. More precisely, SoWeBo -- South West Bohemian Art Festival. And here my camera exploded because I took SO MANY pictures.
After the arts fest, we went off to grab some dinner. We went out for Egyptian food, which was fantastic. I had fata with lamb. I am still unsure what exactly fata is, but whatever the hell it was it was delicious. Then we walked around a local book store (of course I bought 4 books, Jesus) to kill time before going to see a movie.
A word about the movie. I had already seen the movie (Pirates) with Jim and Stephanie on Thursday, and I didn't mind seeing it again. However. I was beyond fan-girl excited that we were going to see it at The Senator. See, The Senator is the last big movie house in Baltimore. It seats a thousand, and the interior is all art deco and cool. But I knew about The Senator because it's the theater my boyfriend worked hard to save and has many of his movie premiers/fundraising screenings there. So when Tree suggested we go to see a movie there, the very first thing that popped out of my mouth was, "That's Edward Norton's theater!" Outside of the theater they have squares of sidewalk showing the movies that have premiered there, designed to look like the movie titles and such, with the key actors names signed in the concrete ala Grauman's Chinese Theatre. I may or may not have reached down to briefly touch one of the obviously fake EN signatures. Shut up.
Shut UP, I tell you.
The theatre was great though. I'd forgotten what it's like to see a movie with that many people -- I vaguely remember seeing some movie as a kid in a theater like that. I'm sure it was soon replaced with a multiplex. It's a whole different energy in a place like that. It was grand.
Monday Al, Mike, and I headed to more bookstores for good deals (...and I bought 4 more books...leave me alone) while Nina and Tree planted the plants purchased at the herb fest. After book goodness (Atomic Boooks was closed due to holiday, bah), we ate Indian food and headed back to PA.
All in all, a fantastic weekend. Happy Memorial Day!
Labels: Happy Things, Holidaze, Photography
3 Comments:
Homemade dark chocolate rum walnut ice cream?!?!
[drools]
I miss you, Katie. We must tear down the walls.
mmmm. that was some darn good ice cream. but the bean dip! I'm certain you still don't get it... :p
I agree that the bean dip was amazing. I got it, believe me, I got it. My hips are the proof.
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