Always Coming, Never Here

And so, the tri-state birthday tour is complete. Three birthdays in 30 hours across 300+ miles, two of which were 30th birthday parties.

The milk bar was fun, I got to meet several of my sisters' NYC friends, and they're a really cool bunch. The bar had these milkshake drinks that had a few shots of booze in them - extraordinarily tasty, and horrifically bad for me. My sister-in-law got hammered, and I stupidly left my debit card at the bar (thanks to my sis for getting that back for me after my parents and I had left the city).

Stayed overnight in Connecticut with the folks, and then got to help them clean out their garage some more by taking some lawn chairs, a cube fridge, an ice cream maker, and a couple of other miscellaneous items back to Worcester with me. I then cleaned up around the house for a couple hours, and set out for Christina and Jim's chorale concert at the Holliston congregational church. The chorale rocked the house, even though the orchestra was a little flaky. Recordings should be available soon...

There was an after concert party a couple of houses away where we had cake for Christina (carvel ice cream cake!) and good gravy, was it ever an awesome party. HUGE spread of scrumptious food, beautiful house, very nice people. I'm actually considering joining the New England Chorale now just so I can go to the rockin' parties.

Around 11:30pm, I got a text message from Justin responding to my "happy birthday" text message of several hours before (brak: txt msgs r GR8 buD!). I slogged my way back to Worcester and ended up hanging out at his place until around 3am or so, delivering good humor and foot massages to the masses.

Tonight - Bijou-y goodness!

I went down to visit my folks in Newport, Rhode Island this past weekend; they were on a weekend getaway at a condo on Thames Street with my godparents Marc and Joyce. My dad turned 50 on 1/30, so I went down to spend some birthday time with him and hang out with all of them.

My folks brought back a bunch of goodies for me from their most recent Hawaiian excursion. They got me a bottle of Roy Yamaguchi's own sake - the super high quality stuff that you serve chilled. So now I have to have a sushi or Japanese food party of some sort so I can drink this wonderful stuff! They also brought me back a musubi maker; musubis are these "sushi sandwich" kind of things - they consist of nori (seaweed), rice, and SPAM and sometimes other ingredients (whatever leftovers you have around that'll fit in a sandwich). The musubi maker is the perfect shape to fit a slice of SPAM. Musubis are especially good if you use spicy SPAM... it's lots of fun to go to local church fairs and stuff in the towns on the islands because they have all kinds of great food like this for sale.

So anyway, about the title... My parents got the condo for the whole week, but they only stayed there this past weekend. I have access to the condo until Friday morning, and I could go overnight on Wednesday or Thursday night if anyone would be interested in taking a quick trip down and hanging out on the island. It's only a little over an hour away from Worcester! The place doesn't have an oven, but it's essentially a two bedroom apartment with a big jacuzzi tub and washer/dryer. There are some great restaurants open down there now, and all the stores are pretty much open too.

Bueller?

This holiday week was pretty memorable - I actually went to three Thanksgiving celebrations over the course of seven days.

First up was the Sunday D&D session, where my housemate prepared the meal for the gaming group that comes to their house on a biweekly basis. She made turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, dinner rolls, and canned cranberry sauce. The stuffing was a modified version of the Caprio family stuffing recipe that I had at all my childhood Thanksgiving dinners. It was a good repast, and it was fun having a meal with all those folks (even though the nine of us were just kind of standing around in the kitchen). Apple pie and pumpkin pie for dessert.

Second was the journey to Connecticut and Thanksgiving, Caprio style. My mom and dad made dinner for us and my paternal grandmother and maternal great-grandmother. A small dinner, since my sisters went to Indiana to visit in-laws for the holiday. Mom did a great job with the stuffing - she went with the traditional recipe using Arnold's cornbread stuffing, thyme, sage, and browned hamburger instead of sausage. The first course, naturally, was homemade manicotti... man, I love those. They come out so thick and tasty... I'd never order manicotti, even in the best Italian restaurant, because I know my folks make it better. Mom also made my Aunt Millie's stuffed yams (a recipe I have to add to the online archive) and they came out deliciously. Oh, and lest I forget - the stuffed artichokes?? Man, those rocked. So we had manicotti, stuffed artichokes, stuffing, stuffed yams, turkey & gravy, canned cranberry sauce, and dinner rolls and italian bread. Homemade cheesecake for dessert. Phew!

Last, but not even remotely least, Saturday night's dinner and holiday crafts party at lionlady's! What an awesome awesome time we had - fourteen of us, I think. lionlady and buddhagrrl were the cooks (with help from lionlady's sister), and they prepared an incredible, amazing meal. The turkey and gravy were completely phenomenal, with stuffing prepared inside and outside of the turkey (everyone ate the stuffing that was inside, of course).

I can never stay out of the kitchen, so I made my own contribution by preparing the mashed potatoes. They were a hit - but all I really did was salt and pepper the potatoes (always season!) and add ten tablespoons of butter, three quarters of a cup of milk, and a whole lot of mashing action. There were easily four quarts of mashed potatoes for fourteen people, but they got reduced to about a cup or two, even with all that other food! *proud*

Third Thanksgiving was composed of turkey and gravy, stuffing, candied yams, mashed potatoes, steamed kale with garlic, and asparagus (but no cranberry sauce this time! oh well). Apple, blueberry, and pumpkin pie for dessert.

I'm going to have to be real good with my caloric intake this week. :)

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Unrelated side note: I'm still not moved into my new apartment in Worcester yet. The heating oil company is giving the landlord a hard time, they apparently missed three appointments with him all last week. Hopefully they'll pick up the ball and set things up Monday or Tuesday... as soon as that's all set, I'll have heat and hot water. Next step will be updating my bedroom!

Good breakfast. Good visit with great-grandma. Good visit with uncle, aunt, and cousins. Good restful afternoon. Good pizza for dinner, good cake. Good swim in pool, and good stew in jacuzzi...

Good, good day.

Got a massage today at a spa one town over. It was soooo good. I haven't gotten one in quite a long time, and I've been so stressed out recently that I really, really needed it. The therapist was excellent, it was one of the best massages I've ever had. I came out of the spa so relaxed I was in an almost dreamlike state. You get this great out-of-body type feeling when all your muscles have been rubbed and you've oxygenated yourself like crazy.

And of course, for karmic balance purposes, I had to have a downer to complement the highlight of the day. Had a brief phone conversation with my mom, and she got on the topic of dating (as is wont to happen) and I really wanted to not talk about it, but my parents insist on trying really hard to "help me out" in this area. Which only manages to depress me more, of course. Feh.