First Part of the Trip

Vacation was incredible. Hopefully I can start to get all the good shit down. A week and a half of traveling goodness. Mary Beth and I headed out Wednesday morning (the 11th). It was a pretty fine drive and we were making good time. The goal was to get to Asheville before the Moog store closed at 6. We were making such good time that it was looking like we'd get there much closer to 4 than 5 (which was the expected arrival time, more or less). I was excited until around Knoxville I realized we had completely forgotten to take the time zone change into account. But we were making such good time that it didn't matter and we arrived about 5:15, pretty good timing except the fuckin' place had closed early! I was kinda pissed. Waiting for it to open in the morning would set back our trip to Philadelphia, but oh well. We stopped by that Static Age cd store and I picked up Shostakovich / Vasks / Schnitke: Dolorosa (when I got it I thought it was all Shostakovich, but it was really cheap so it's okay). Hangin' around the city, walkin' around and shit. We ate ate Salsas again and it was incredible again. A couple of the bookstores that were open that late (didn't get nothin'). We had chocolate at French Broad again. Then in the morning we ate breakfast at Early Girl and hit the Moog shop. Last year when we went, it was just like a week before the shop opened up (we visited the factory). So it was nice to finally see it. I got to play on a few of the things, most notably the Moog guitar and the Voyager XL (though I only had one patch cable so I didn't get to make full use of it). Talked to the guy working there and he was nice. Got myself a couple of shirts as souvenirs: one with the panel of the Moog Source and one with a bunch of modular panels ("Moog Model 15 Synthesizer"). So yeah, I got my Moog fix and shit.

Then it was straight off to Philadelphia. The drive up was where things started getting annoying, driving-wise. We hit DC and that was horrible. We didn't go straight in the middle of the city, of course, but all roads within a 50 mile radius or whatever are just total shit. We did not make good time getting up there. Then when we got into the city and were trying to find the exit and road for our hotel, there was a complete disconnect between the signs we were seeing and what google maps had told us. We eventually asked at a gas station and a customer there was very helpful, luckily we were not far at all. After settling in we went out to this bar that supposedly had amazing food. It did. Best popcorn I've ever had (Alan Benton bacon fat). Getting there we took some more interestate road stuff and it was kinda complicated with some frustrating driving, again. But that place was awesome. They also had really good barbecue. I started relaxing and enjoying the city. And the city just got more enjoyable from there on. Aside from some messy interstate confusion, getting around in Philly is extremely easy. Nice after having been in Chicago so recently.

We were lucky to choose to spend a whole day in Philadelphia. The next morning, we first went to Federal Donuts and I had the best doughnut of my enter life. Then we went into the downtown area and checked out this giant market they've got. We were too full from the awesome doughnuts to try too much food, but I finally did get to have goat milk and it was great. Then we met Rob at this place called Paesano's and I had one of the best fucking sandwiches of my entire life (it sounds like I'm shooting out a lot of hyperbole here, but I'm not, and I'm not saying this one was THE best, but it was a damn damn close up there). It was nice seeing and hanging out with Rob, he was on a lunch break but we made plans to hang out later. There was this used book/record store right across the street so when we were done we hopped over there. I picked up a couple of cds: Alice Coltrane: Journey in Satchidananda and Miles Davis: At Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East. And that was the entirety of my cd buying during the trip, a big change after my Chicago insanity. Next we checked out the Müter Museum. You may have heard of it, I had not. It's a collection of Victorian era medical and surgical stuff, originally intended for the education in the realms of medicine and surgery, but now more important for its historical insight into the era, etc. A lot of it was pretty gross, but it wasn't as gross as what I initially thought when I heard it described as a museum of medical deformities or oddities or whatever. Most remarkable is the sadness when you read about the specific cases and the people and all. I was especially fascinated/saddened by the guy with the ginormous colon. Afterwards we walked around in the area and looked for this one bar (kinda in the speakeasy style Mary Beth has been checking out lately). It was supposed to be open according to the time she'd seen online, but we buzzed and they said they weren't open yet. We figured they were maybe profiling us and not letting us in (which turned out to not be the case as I'll later mention either in this post or in my next). We went to this other bar or pub or whatever and I tried a bunch of fancy British sodas. Then we walked around and had some gelatos.

After that it was time to meet Rob and Rachel at their place. They have a real awesome apartment right next to downtown and literally right next to a subway station. I love the view across to the monolithic white building right across the street. Rachel wasn't home yet, but we hunt out with Rob and Zebu (their awesome dog) for a little bit until she arrived. Zebu was all about Mary Beth and didn't really seem to notice me one bit. Oh well. He did his lick and pause trick to her a bunch. After hanging out a little bit we set off to eat at Zahav (this family-style Jewish place). We took the subway so I got to try Philadelphia public transportation! It was kinda cool, but there was some weird delay which caused us to run behind. My favorite part was all the ads for the unfortunately named subway: SEPTA (makes you think "septic" right?) how I guess they're trying to get past a tarnished reputation. I guess it's fallen into the subway-prone pit of being filthy and crummy. One ad I saw before I knew what it was, driving along the street earlier, showed a hip young girl wondering whether SEPTA was clean or not (the caption was something like "But is it clean?") and then there's a message along the lines of, yes, SEPTA is actually clean, we promise! I guess the implication being that it's really not so filthy anymore. Then there was one on the subway about how their motto was change or improvement or something like that. Anyway, I'll need to continue this post later. I am making a note to myself that I need to backtrack just a little bit and mention the toilets. I also need to make an unrelated note that this current cd is fucking INCREDIBLE.

The Next Part

Going back to the toilets thing I mentioned: your standard big city fare. Philadelphia does not have much in the way of public restrooms. Even in a restaurant establishment you patronize and eat at (and that's not even a tiny little hole in the wall), there often isn't even a restaurant for paying/dining customers. So finding somewhere to go can be a challenge. Had one in particular after Paesano's and went all over the place looking for one with many of my standard tricks thrown out the window. Nothing too exciting, that's all.

So I believe I left us off on our way to dinner with Rob and Rachel. It was really good. The place was fancy and surprisingly huge for being in the downtown area. It was hip but the food was good. There was a bunch of stuff and we all passed around and shared as is the way with family style. Before this, during the day, my thighs had started chaffing. Instead of walking straight back the way we went, we started on a tour of the downtown area where we started out towards a subway stop that wasn't as close in order to see more. Well, we ended up walking all the way back to their apartment (and not in a straight line either). That's fine, it was a fun walk. We even got to see the Liberty Bell. This was not kind of my already chaffed thighs, but it was a really nice night and a nice time. On the way back to the hotel after we had parted ways with Rob and Rachel, we went back to that bar we thought might have rejected us, but got in no problem and they were even nice and stuff. The atmosphere was actually pretty cool inside. If it weren't for the not-drinking, it'd be the place to hang out all the time and stuff.

The next morning we got up early again to head on out of the city to Cape Cod. We couldn't leave Philly without a cheesesteak so we went down the street til we found a neighborhood place we could get one. It did not take long at all. Really just down the street from the hotel we hit a little neighborhood deli/cafe or whatever and had a couple cheesesteaks and they were great. I washed it down with a Black Cherry Wishniak and even had some Tastycakes. I felt pretty hardcore Philly there. Well, off to the next place. This was another horrible day of driving. Traffic was just awful, as I guess it generally is in the eastern corridor. New Jersey sucked and was backed up. Then our route had us going through Manhattan on the fucking Washington Bridge. And up to about halfway through Connecticut it was all just bumper to bumper with tons of stops and just general traffic hellishness. Oh, I forgot to mention in conjunction with the previous driving day: most people in this part of the country know how to get out of the left lane when not passing. Most of the trip we made good driving time, but not this part. Well, after all that junk we got into Chatham on the cape and found the house Mary Beth's parents had rented along with the other family we were staying with: Judd and Jeanine and their two little kids: Jr. and Bailey. After dinner and meeting everyone we went out and drove around the area to check things out, get the lay of the land. After driving around we stopped off at this bar that, I guess, serves as something of a club for the locals with nothing else to do. There were lots of funny license plates covering the walls so we spent most of the time laughing at and discussing those.

Okay, now we're up to our frist full day on the cape: Sunday. We were kinda lazy about getting up at first, but we went and had breakfast/lunch at what I believe was called Hangar B. It's on the little town airport. While eating really good food, we twice saw people skydive into the field across from us as well as other small planes taking off. Then we went to the Chatham beach. The water there was really fucking cold. Mary Beth remembers it as so from her childhood. She loved it. I got in and tolerated it, but it's a bit cold for my personal taste. Most freaking me out about the water was being swarmed by these tiny fish that made me think of flies in the water. Anyway, I can't remember much else we did that day. It was a low-key first day. Maybe there's something else we did and I can't remember now. I'll update if I'm leaving something out. A good bit of the evening was spent at the house grilling out and stuff.

I believe we had another day of a lazy start. We started up a little bit into the forearm of the cape. We had breakfast or lunch or whatever at this place called Chocolate Sparrow and then we were going to go to First Encounter Beach (mostly for the historical bent, not the beach itself), but just to park was $20 so we were like screw that. A lot of the cape was like that, but here we didn't think it was worth it for what we were going for. Instead we went to this nearby natural sanctuary. It was really nice. We walked around on the trail and went way out to the beach via this boardwalk through the salt marsh. It was just fucking beautiful. The colors: the green of the reeds, the blue of the sky and water, the brownish yellow of the sand. And the best part was the swarm of fiddle crabs. These tiny things working on their holes in the sand. Mary Beth said it was like stop-motion the way you'd move and they'd suddenly disappear into the holes right next to them and skitter about. We tried to go to Nauset beach, but the parking lot was full (and there was nowhere around, parking on the cape was a bit of bitch in that it just wasn't allowed about anywhere). Right nearby (at a place you could park for 30 minutes) we saw these Three Sisters lighthouses and looked at them for a minute. After that we went to Marconi Beach, which was my favorite beach. The water was nicer and the waves were pretty great. Mary Beth and I went out and body surfed and I tried to get pummeled as best I could. It was a lot of fun. We ended the day by stopping by the Beachcomber bar. I had a few ginger beers. We were there pretty late and then got kinda lost trying to get back home. I turned in the wrong direction in one place. After that I had my internal map down pretty good, but we got pretty lost for a minute there.

Tuesday was an awesome day. It was our first forray into Provincetown (my favorite part of the cape). We were going to go on a whale watch, but found they were full so bought tickets for one on Friday. Well, we were there so plan b was to poke around town. Stopped at the nearby Portugese bakery then started walking in one direction. We went in the direction that quickly became a long row of nothing but art galleries. A lot of the art was really good. We found the Provincetown Art Association and Museum and that was really awesome. About half the museum was closed due to working on it or moving stuff around or whatever so we got in real cheap. The two rooms that were available were pretty great. They had this awesome shirt in the gift shop I wanted to get, but the guy couldn't find the price and then all they had were smalls and mediums anyway (he was certain by looking at me that I couldn't pull off a medium). More walking and looking at good art. We started in the other direction (but didn't finish). We got a Jackson Pollock puzzle in the game store. I know it's gonna be hard, but I just got it 'cuz I liked the picture. I'm sure I'll regret that later. We stopped at a couple bookstores, one had new books and the other (Tim's) had used. It's in this house kinda behind the other shops and you have to walk down this path to get to it. I thought it was pretty awesome, small but the selection was good. I got: The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai, Puttering about in a Small Land by Philip K. Dick, and The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces 1839-1860 by Herman Melville (the Dick I'd never heard of and it was kinda expensive too, but I'm excited about it). A little more walking and it was time to head back. On the way back home we stopped and had fried seafood at Arnold's. This was great stuff, we got the basked for two and it had: scallops, shrimp, oysters, calamari, whitefish, and mussels (so good!). Mary Beth went with her mom and Jeanine to a market and I went to the gym. The YMCA was a bit of a ways away kind've in the middle of the beginning of the cape (in Barnstable). It was okay. At first I didn't think they had free weghts, but then found they did. I got sunburned on Sunday (put suncreen on with my shirt on and didn't add more when I took it off at the beach). Squatting with sunburnt shoulders was a little uncomfortable. Anyway, yeah most of the rest of the trip was me contending with horribly chaffed thighs and sunburnt shoulders. I should add that the place we stayed had a ping pong table in the basement. I don't remember if it was this night, but twice Mary Beth and I played some ping pong and it was awesome.

Wednesday was the day we stayed in the bicep area. We went to this little place right on Sesuit Harbor that had lobster rolls (which we had too). We sat at picnic tables by the water and enjoyed the pretty view on the little harbor. Then we got to Dennis and realized we were low on cash so made a mad dash to find an atm. We went to a beach over there too. I first wanted to go to Cold Storage Beach (for the name, yes, This Heat reference), but it said it was a private beach so we went to the beach next to it (Sea St. Beach, Seaside St. Beach? something like that). Well, you'll hear more about whatever this beach was called in a future post.

Getting There, Really, Almost Done...

So we're back to Sea St. Beach (I looked it up). Parking was a bit much but it was a good time. This was on the bay side of the cape so the waves were nonexistent. It was actually kinda freaky how calm the water was. It seemed like a dream, such a massive expanse of such still water. Mary Beth and I went out a bit and were enjoying it when I felt something bump against my foot. I thought it might be a fish but I look down and there's this really big crab. That was pretty cool, then it started walking toward me. Then it kept walking toward me. Then this fucking this is like chasing me. I thought maybe it wanted me out of its area at first but it kept on and on. I'd move a bit and then give it a moment to catch up ('cuz it was cute and fascinating to look at). But the damn thing followed me all the way to the beach. At that point I went the other way and it kept going forward. I'd say we both just happened to be going the same direction, but it kept moving towards me all through the journey. I dunno. We saw a ton more crabs, some hermit, some like this one (I don't know the name, like a standard crab). That first one was the biggest. One other crab saw me and went poof into the sand at the bottom. Then I went behind it as it waited for me to leave and I was near it as it got out and it was kinda freaked out and charged into Mary Beth's direction. It was fun hanging out with the crabs. We also spent a good bit of time floating on our backs. After the bech we thought we'd check out this Cape Cod Museum of Art we'd seen on the map. We thought it might be kinda cheezy and chintzy, but it was really really good. It had a temporary exhibit on the art of Provincetown which was excellent, but then the permanent collection was mostly really good as well. I saw some just fucking amazing art there. It was great. Oh, I suddenly reminded myself of something that happened in Philadelphia very loosely concerning art that I'll need to revisit later, but I'll continue first. Anyway, it was so good I had to pick up the little book about the exhibit: The Tides of Provincetown (Pivotal Years in America's Oldest Continuous Art Colony (1899-2011)). After this we had lunch at this sandwich shop that was very good. The sandwich I had was called Dennis the Menace (see 'cuz the town's name is Dennis). It sounded bizarre and enticing: corned beef, cole slaw, and swiss. It was a great combination (not as good as the god-sandwich I had in Philly, but a great one nonetheless). Also they had this blueberry soup that was spectacular. There was all this art upstairs and I even inquired about purchasing one piece, but the girl couldn't get the owner on the phone and as we were traveling (and probably had spent too much money to justify the purchase anyway) it wasn't worth going through extra trouble. It was nice, if not very similar to the one piece of original art we already own. Then we went to this bookstore a town over (I think it was in Yarmouth, heheh) called Parnassus. It was pretty awesome, just a force to behold. It was this old house filled with books towering over you in every direction. The owner was funny too. This old guy who kept saying not to believe a word the Republicans in town said about him. It was sad that his sweet dog had a week to a month to live (some kind of cancer). I got a few books: A Tomb for Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kiš, Midaq Alley ● The Thief and the Dogs ● Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz, Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera, and Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel García Márquez. Then we had ice cream at this place on the way back as it started to storm. Everyone was freaking out and it looked like it was gonna be crazy, but when it hit it wasn't nothin'.

Okay, pause for breath. Time to go back and mention a few things I forgot in their proper order. Back to Philly. The day we spent in town I wore my Donkey Kong shirt (the one from Threadless that transforms the screen into abstract art: Arcade Expressionism is the title). I got more compliments on a shirt that day than all my shirts together in my entire life. Several people throughout the day, but the best was the dude on the subway. He gave me a thumbs-up (I think) for the shirt and said how much he loves Donkey Kong and that people call him DK. He said he even has his own barrel (that he got at the age of 1...?). Describing him like this makes him seem really nerdy, but he wasn't like that. He was really funny though. Okay, now to Tuesday night on Cape Cod. That was the night we went down to the dock after dinner and got the site of a bunch of seals hanging out and it was pretty awesome. They mostly hung out in pairs. There was also a lone turtle swimming across the water.

Okay, now I believe we're up to Thursday. We had breakfast at this place by a golf course, I guess, called Fairway. I had a lobster frittata and it was really good. Then we went to this place Mary Beth's dad told us about the day before: Lieutenant Island. This was a super-isolated point. You take this small road that gets smaller and smaller. You eventually have to cross a wooden one-lane bridge and continue onto dirt roads. The signs make you believe it's a private area, maybe it is, her dad said to ignore 'em and we did. We walked down the beach and it was pretty isolated. After a little bit a guy came in on a kayak and latter some other people came when we were down at the other end. I made an attempt to take some audio recordings: the birds, the surf, etc. Don't know if any are halfway decent or not. It was overcast, but in a nice way that made the atmosphere on the beach bearable and lovely. There were lots of horseshoe crab shells. The tide started to slowly rise up. After that we made our way into Welfleet's town and hit the motherlode of bookstores: Herridge. Another place with a really awesome selection. I got far too many this time: North by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, The Path to the Nest of Spiders by Italo Calvino, Beyond the Curve by Kobo Abe, Kappa by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, The Island of Crimea by Vassily Aksyonov, Aura by Carlos Fuentes, The Questionnaire by Jiří Gruša, Second Skin by John Hawkes, Saint Glinglin by Raymond Queneau, Monsieur Levert by Robert Pinget, Conquered City by Victor Serge, The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre, The Reprieve by John-Paul Sartre, Troubled Sleep by Jean-Paul Sartre, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson, Misterioso by Gilbert Sorrentino, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick, The Game-Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick, The Best of Myles by Flann O'Brien, and Complete Short Stories by Ronald Firbank (I also got The Divine Invasion by Dick which I thought I might already have and did, but risked it because I didn't wanna get part 3 of the trilogy and pass up on part 2 if I didn't already have it...gave the extra copy to Jacques). Okay, yeah, book overload but that's the end of books for this trip. After that we walked a little bit along the town's beach. Oh, that's the morning we picked up something from the Stop 'n' Shop. They sell Moxie in cans up there. You can get Moxie here in town, but not easily and I've never seen it in cans, in bulk. Well, the day before we picked up a 12 pack for our cooler on the beach, then Thursday morning we went back to stock up so I could have a bunch of Moxie back at home! I got the rest, three more 12 packs. Excessive? Maybe, but you must consider I may very well never see such Moxie again. Been enjoying the hell out of it too. Anyway, we went up to Truro and checked out the Highland House lighthouse. We went up it and it was pretty great. The view was excellent. I could have stayed longer up top but it was really hot behind that glass in that sun. Down a level had a nice breeze in the window as the lady told us about the history of it. Pretty interesting. Erosion's pretty bad on Cape Cod 'cuz the whole damn thing is a giant sandbar, so the whole lighthouse was moved a while back so it wouldn't fall into the ocean. We were going to have swordfish sandwiches at this one place back in Brewster on the way back, but it was closed. I used my navigation prowess to get us down south to Harwich and eat at George's: this Greek pizza place. It was excellent. Back to the house for lobsters with the families.

Friday was the last full day on the cape. It was another amazingly awesome fucking day. This was Provincetown part 2. On the way up we stopped at this French bakery and had some delicious pastries for breakfast. We parked and arrived just in time for our whale watch. This was one of the most amazing and impressive parts of the entire trip. Ooh, suspense. I'm gonna leave you hanging. More in the next post.

Where I Catch You Back Up with the Current Day

The whale watch. I had been prepared for something kinda lame, given Mary Beth's recounting of the expedition she went on in her childhood. I was prepared to be soaked and cold and miserable and not see any whales. This was pretty much the exact opposite of what we experienced last week. The boat was comfortable, I didn't get a drop of water on me (save a very fine mist twice: once from a whale splashing and once from a whale's spout), and we saw a ton of whales almost nonstop once they got going. We left the harbor and went out to sea. We got to see Race Point and Long Point lighthouses from out there (and one in between them, not sure of its name). We slowed down after riding out a bit. They said a whale had been seen in the area, but we hadn't seen it yet. Just a couple of minutes after slowing down the first whale popped up right in front of where we were sitting on the side of the boat. It was a fin whale. This is the second largest whale next to a blue whale and they're a pretty rare spot and not much is known about 'em. By the way, our tour guide on the loudspeaker was an incredible marine biologist or whatever she was. Well, she was an excellent guide. Listening to her was fascinating on its own. This whale didn't stay up much. He'd come up a bit and sink down. They have somewhat erratic diving patterns and they're fast which add to their being difficult to spot. We hung around this guy a little bit until he disappeared and then headed over to a different section. The rest of the whales we saw were humpbacks. We soon were albe to get spots up at the prow (not the very tip, but pretty close). The first pair of humpbacks we saw were a mother and her calf. The calf was splashing up a fucking storm. It was a pretty big calf, three years old or so. I wouldn't've known it wasn't full grown if it wasn't for our guide. It just kept splashing its tail on the surface. I guess it was playing. That was really awesome. Then we drove around and saw a bunch more whales. Sometimes several at a time in all directions. They tended to hang out in pairs. Sometimes there'd be bigger groups, but mostly they seemed to be simulatenous paris or a pair and another one. We'd see whales and they'd disappear and we'd see other whales and then the same whales again. They had names, one I remember is Pele. I think our guide said we saw a total of seven different individual humpback whales plus the one fin whale. A couple times we saw a whale leap and flip over. Once the whales disappeared and then resurfaced almost right under us. We were so close we could see the rest of its body that was undernearth the surface. When we headed back the prow emptied and we were able to catch the breeze from the tip as we sped back to shore. Ah! That was an incredible experience. Maybe there are details I'm missing. I'll definitely catch you up later if I did miss something. I wish I could convey how awesome that all was.

Okay, back in Provincetown. We continued along the rest that we didn't see on Tuesday. There were more art galleries spattered about. More really good art. We had a peek in the sex toy store. They had a little museum thingie in front with a collection of historical vibrators. Jeanine had complained about how in-your face Provincetown was, but I didn't see it at all. There was just the one shop and one leather shop. It actually seemed relatively family-friendly. Not like the suburbanness of much of the rest of the cape, but not Fistdudetown or anything like that. I had a stuffed clam at a place by the sea. The last thing we did was go up into the Pilgrim Monument. It's this giant tower (the largest granite structure or tallest granite structure in the...world?) and it looms on a hill over all of Provincetown. It just happened to be "free fun Friday" so we didn't have to pay $10 each. It was a trek to the top, but not as bad as I thought it might be. It was mostly ramps and not a lot of stairs. The view from the top was incredible, of course. I enjoy stuff like that. Okay, back to the house. This was Mary Beth's birthday, by the way. The whale watch made it about as perfect as a birthday could get, I think. Jr. and Bailey made us cute little birthday cards that were truly very sweet.

Saturday was my birthday and it was a day of nothing but driving. Got back up early again and headed off. We made great fucking time. We made the best decision ever to completely avoid the fuck out of NYC. Took a detour up to the Tappan Zee Bridge. A little out of the way, not much. It was something like 7 more minutes in google maps time (considering the near two-hour delay through Manhatthan coming up, I think we came out ahead). Crossing that bridge over the Hudson River, the traffic did get congested and backed up but nowhere nearly as bad as before. That was maybe a 30 minute delay. We definitely came out ahead. Oh, and that doesn't even take into consideration the $12 toll we missed just having to cross the Washington Bridge. Aside from that driving was great. The roads were relatively clear. Weather was great. The drive was pleasant. It makes me happy just thinking about it. We made excellent time. Drove all fucking day, like I said. Fourteen and a half hours or so. Made it to Tennessee that night. Had a little detour on a weird dirt road. Stopped at a time-warp motel to sleep. Got up nice and early again for like six more hours of driving. We did stop off in Nashville to track down Jeni's ice cream. It was a bit of a hunt to find, but we were making such good time that we could afford that hour and fifteen minutes. The ice cream was good. We got back in town about 2:45 or so. I had initially expected to be driving two full days and back home late Sunday night. But we saved us what feels like a whole damn day.

Trudy was super-affectionate. She's so sweet. Horace was standoffish at first, but came around pretty quick. I found him behind the chair when we got in and he wouldn't budge, but by the time I finished loading stuff in or whatever he was so affectionate. And he's stayed very affectionate. It's very sweet. I had a cd waiting for me in the mail: John Carpenter: Assault on Precint 13 / Dark Star (the Alan Howarth re-recording that just came out, autographed by Alan too, I'd like the original recordings, but beggars can't be choosers, and his re-recording of The Thing sounded really good so I'm sure this is worth it). After unpacking and unwinding and shit and all yesterday Jacques came over and we ate at Abyssinia. Woke up vigorous and refreshed. This morning Mary Beth and I did some errands and I had a smoothie at The Cosmic Coconut. The smoothie was good, but not as good as it felt like it should have been. The place was really hippieish (it's vegan) and the fact that Nirvana was playing on the overhead felt very apt. We then had dinner at Hog & Hominy and it was excellent. The poutine killed me, but the fried head cheese with watermelon was outstanding as well. What else? Is there anything else to report since we've gotten back? Don't think so. I'll probably go get completely coated in Horace fur some more right now.