music machinery, verbal wizardry: November 2008

Long weekenderrr.

Thankgivin Dinner:

Roasted brussel sprouts with carmelized onion
Twice baked potato, stuffed with cabbage (made by Hunter)
Sweet potato souffle
Cornbread stuffing
Maple and orange roasted turkey (I did not eat)
Biscuits
Berry cobbler

We were at Nell/Dan/Dominic/Josh's house in Charlestown, along with Pablo (Argentina,) Maria, Anton and Artem (Russia) and Josh's brother Seth. We stuffed ourselves and then read Shel Silverstein and sang all of our national anthems and the Russians taught us how to do shots of vodka the Russian way. Then we had a jam session, crawled around in the attic and were in bed by midnight.

Our hostess

The spread

Dan printed out several informative pieces of paper that evening

Pablo read us a poem in Spanish

Cheers

Ohhh lordy

Seth/Gordon Lightfoot

Talkin and jammin

Hangin in the attic

Somethin

Friday I chillaxed - Saturday we had breakfast with Cat and Pete at Kelly's Diner, and Cat and I headed to Saugus to hit up the SA and Christmas Tree Shoppe. I have been against the Christmas Tree Shoppe, but I was psyched that they had huge bottles of spices for like 89 cents. Awwwesome.

Last night I hung out with Heather and Michael and then went up to C&P's for a bit. wowowow.

Oh and I bought myself a new ipod - cause it was $100 off and I had some gift certificate left from my b-day. Woot.

Sorta love and want to own this hat.

According to Weather.com, it's 26 degrees right now, but feels like 11. It's only 4:22. It's going to get down to 18 degrees. :( :(

I went to Toronto on Thursday, for a surprisingly smooth trip. I woke up at 4:15 to shower and get a cab to the airport to fly out at 7am.. 2 hour flight, 15 minute cab ride and I was at Bell. 2 hours there - back to the airport Sheraton for quick meetings with Warner, Universal and Sony. Then back on the plane - landed and straight downtown to meet Hunter for a screening of Slumdog Millionaires. Ahh adventure.

Yesterday we went out to celebrate Nell's birthday. Mexican at Catus Club and then Top 40/80's night at Phoenix Landing. Apparently they play Paper Planes at "clubs" these days?

After we got over the awkward standing around and had a couple beers, the dancing on tables started. Well more like benches than tables.

I need to make special mention of the creepy mustache that Dominic shaved. I don't think it will last, but at least there's photographic evidence.

Dinner at Cat & Pete's tonight.. looking forward to the short week next week. Yesss. We are having Thanksgiving at the Desmond's. Apparently there will be Russians there. It will be spectacular.

My friend Dave is in a Guns N Roses tribute band called Mr. Brownstone and they were on Letterman last week! For some reason! Ahah. Dave is in the leather vest. Oh man. Classic.

are you cheeky

I am baaaack from the wilds of Kennebunkport, Maine. We got in Friday evening and checked into our rooms at the Captain Lord Mansion, a three story B&B, with a crazy amount of patterned wallpaper, creepy oil paintings and animal figurines.

The place was lovely - very ornate. Our room was called "Ship Ophelia." The bed was so high that they gave us a step to get up to it.

We had a fairly low key dinner and went to sleep fairly early. The next morning we joined in the breakfast (stuffed french toast? Yes please) and headed out in the car. It was pretty foggy, but we stared at George and Barbara Bush's summer home from the road for a while Fun fact: G.W got his DUI right outside Kennebunkport. We were on the very street he no doubt drove down drunk! HISTORY.

We saw quite a few amazing houses, like the "wedding cake house"

We also drove along the water for quite a while. I got hit in the face with a bug when we were walking around but other than that it was lovely.

Anddd antiques (though I did not find anything)

There ended up being a mix up with the place we were staying, so Hunter's parents had to move to a different B&B down the street, which was fine because it was run by the nicest people ever with a cute dog. We moved their stuff over and eventually went out to a nice dinner at Hurricane, where everyone had some huge lobsters, I had the butternut squash ravioli. We were in a food coma in no time.

Today we had breakfast and went back past a few things that we saw yesterday, now that they were unfogged.

The Bush compound! It is an amazing piece of land with several buildings out on this little peninsula. This is just the main house. It has 9 bedrooms.

Dinner was at Dali, which is between Hunter and I's apartments. Spanish tapas! Woo.

So I guess this weekend was mostly about eating, looking at houses and looking at water. And eating. These are some of my favorite things in life, so all is well. Next week is a lot of running I suppose.

Oh, and I'm going to Toronto for work.. for 7 hours.

oh gee I'm so sad I missed Madonna and all her talent and duet with Britney.

Just because you do 800 hours of pilates doesn't mean you can give up on singing on key. Ughhh.

Lust

I've been a wee bit better about not going crazy shopping and trying to shove more clothes in my closet the last couple of months, but I sorta fell off the wagon today.. It was totally worth it though!

Cat, Aimee and I drove out to the Salvation Army in Haverhill, which may sound like an odd reason for a road trip, but when you're trinket and clothing collectors like we all are, it's very exciting to go to a thrift store that isn't picked over like they are in Boston.

We only had an hour, but I managed to find a glorious sequined butterfly shirt that really fits into Hunter's belief that I like collecting old lady things from the 80's. I really couldn't pass it up though. It's spectacular!

I also picked up a great dress which I suppose is a mumu, but with a belt, it work quite well!

I picked up a couple sweaters and some white/grey slingbacks will have to wait until spring.

Then we headed across the street to an antique store.. they were closing so we only had a bit of time, but I found a great white metal birdcage (that is now on my bookcase,) a like-new Banana Republic button down polka dot shirt and a couple of other surprises.

After we'd had our fill (well actually, the stores closes) we came back and went to Market Basket, where I picked up supplies for tomorrow's Chili Cook off at the Abbey. I won the last one, so there's a bit of pressure! I'm going to be cookin beans at like 9am tomorrow morning.

Last night I hung out with old roommate Jon. We hadn't seen each other since he moved, so it was good to catch up. We ended up at Shays, where some of his bike friends came and hung out. I've never seen a group of people talk strictly about bikes for over an hour. Like laptops out, discussing spokes and tires. It's times like these that I entertain myself by playing "what band is playing over the stereo right now?"

Hunter's in San Francisco until Wednesday - wandering the city on his bum knee and texting me about all the nutty things he's seeing. His dad is getting there tonight for a conference, so they'll be hanging out for the next few days... Then he comes home and we leave for Maine on Friday with his mom and step-dad. I'm looking forward to the trip - the place we're staying is beautiful and has a big ol' tub to soak in. It may be a little rainy, but it'll be a good escape.

I'm flying to Toronto for work the week after that, but for less than 10 hours. Ridiculous!

But for now, I'm heading to bed, so that I can deal with the beans in the morning.

I voted

After rolling out of bed.

First things first, my brother got himself engaged last night to Shannon. We've known it was coming (the wedding planning came before the official engagement) but now it's for surreee. The date is set for Feb 14 in Seattle.

Congrats big brother..

I spent Halloween seeing Birdmonster at TT's with Laura and at Pete and Cat's house for the remainder of the evening. I did my whole "sorta dress up but, but not as anything really." Laura and I decided over dinner that I was French. So naturally, I had to eat mayo from the packet.