A Lego Ragemonster Stocks Up for The Trailer

Today was a laid back day. I met my fuzzier half in Squirrel Hill (where he works) for lunch at Coriander India Grill.  (Of course Friend Sarah and I have rated Coriander!)  This means that I officially ate Indian lunch buffet three days in a row.  TRIFECTA.  There is no better $8 lunch.  Ted always orders off the menu, though -- he hates buffets; he thinks they're unsanitary.  He might be right, but if there's one thing I love in a meal, it's tasting lots of different things -- guess who has a blog and loves tapas, y'know?  Ted ordered the lamb vindaloo, and I stole a little, despite all of my buffet offerings.  Here's the thing about Coriander's buffet: it's good (today the chicken makhani was the stand-out), and I like that there are usually lots of veggie dishes (it let's me pretend the lunch is healthy).  But there's a huge downgrade in quality from the food off the menu to the food on the buffet.  Now, since the food on the buffet is still good, this should tell you something about their off the menu items -- delish.  They have the best vindaloo in the city, as far as I'm concerned, and the chana masala is also tremendous.  It's just always a little frustrating that that doesn't translate as well to the buffet as at some other Indian places.  Ah well, it was still a really tasty lunch, and I got to eat with my favorite guy!

No, I never get tired of eating Indian food.

Other than that, I just ran a few quick errands to finish provisioning for the weekend.  As previously mentioned, we're going with Sarah to The Trailer, and though we'll likely eat out in nearby Ellicottville one night, in general The Trailer exists for drinking, snacking, reading, and sitting quietly in the air conditioning.  So I've stocked up on provisions.  We're bringing:

~ Prosciutto, pepperoni, and salami from Parma Sausage Co.
~ Taleggio and Humboldt Fog cheeses
~ Whole seed bread and wheat crackers
~ Fresh apples, raspberries, and tomatoes
~ Dried figs and mango slices
~ Mixed nuts
~ A variety of olives, and pickled peppers and artichoke hearts
~ Tea
~ Dark chocolate
~ Tins of smoked oysters and clams
~ Bourbon
~ Vodka
~ Two pounds of assorted gummi candies

This isn't counting whatever Sarah is bringing, but I hear she's stocked up on Doritos, which makes me happy.  We may be overstocked, but I like having a picnic of delicious, only semi-perishable items available while I relax in the wilds of New York.

Gummi bear cubs, cola bottles, Swedish fish, and fried egg gummis.

The gummis, by the by, came from The Chocolate Moose on Forbes, which has a great selection of bulk gummis.  Also while in Squirrel Hill, I got to check out this year's Lego contest at S.W. Randall Toys.  I LOVED Legos as a kid.  You have no idea how much I loved Legos.  And it makes me a ragemonster to see how increasingly, Lego markets itself only to boys, and only in really gender essentialist ways -- back when I was a kid, there were sets of Legos, sure, but it was like, Lego Town, and you built gender-neutral things like ambulances and little stores, or Lego Pirates, which everyone everywhere could think was awesome.  And mostly, you just had plain Lego sets, which were just nonspecific giant mixes of bricks, and you made whatever you wanted; I liked to build elaborate, multistory houses, complete with furniture and grounds.  But now Lego sets are 1) hyper branded with other corporate products, like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman, etc., and I'm not saying those things aren't cool, but I think that corporate shilling shouldn't be ALL that Lego does, and 2) hyper masculine, with all kinds of like, combative wolf robots and stuff aimed exclusively at boys, which a) alienates young girls from the awesome experience of Lego (and suggests that girls can't build complicated, difficult stuff, which is horseshit), and b) alienates young boys who don't like hypermasculine combative war games all the damn time.  I mean, it's bad for all the reasons gender essentialism is bad, and it's bad for boys and girls and all gender points in between, and it sucks, Lego, it really does.  But the nice thing about the Lego contest is that you can't enter a set, it has to be something of a kid's own design, and it's remarkable how NOT gender essential the entries are, almost as if kids aren't ultra-delineated in interests based on their genitalia or something WHO COULD EVEN BELIEVE SUCH A PREPOSTEROUS IDEA.

My favorites are the Ms. Pacman characters and Troy Polamalu.

Anyway, I'm certainly not the first person to talk about this.  Here's one such little discussion, on Sociological Images.

Also seen in Squirrel Hill today were about ten times more elderly people than I've seen in months, seen by me in the span of about 30 minutes.  I'm not opposed to the elderly per se, I'm just saying it was sort of an odd demographic shift -- I'm not sure it bodes well for the neighborhood.

After that it was a grocery store quick hit, and since then I've been dicking around on the Internet, periodically telling myself I should read a book instead, while Floyd naps on the couch next to me.  Later tonight, we've gotta tidy up and pack, and at the moment I'm wondering if 4:36 is too early to start drinking on a Friday.

I know, Floyd, sometimes reading can just be too taxing.

Oh, and before I close out for the weekend, here are two things I missed from earlier in the week.  First, here is a picture of bees that I took at this Monday's farmers' market, where I bought some honey from the Fine Family Apiary.  Apparently, the queen in here wasn't doing well in her hive, so they replaced her and moved her to a smaller set-up to see if she does better; in the meantime, she's reppin' the apiary.

Bzzzzzzzz.

Second, we had a mildly fascinating arachnid encounter earlier this week.  I was sitting at the kitchen table, and felt something tickle first my arm and then my leg.  I looked down, and on the floor was a pretty intense looking black spider, who escaped uncaptured.  The next day, he was spotted again on a wall, and this time Ted caught him in a glass and released him outside, where he leapt away into the grass.  Some googling tells us that we had a daring jumping spider on our hands, which sounds pretty impressive to me.  I didn't get a picture of our actual spider, but here is a good photo of what he looked like.

He was a pretty intense little dude.

He was probably about the size of a dime.

So that's that -- enjoy the holiday weekend, and I'll be back Tuesday.

Death

Today started out ... varying.  On one hand, I've had a backache for 2+ days now.  My spine is my enemy.  I've had surgery on my lower back twice, and it and I are still in contention.  It's the sort of thing one just has to live with, and I do, but, y'know, allow me a couple of sentences to bitch about it.

But the day perked up when Friend Nick asked me join him for Indian lunch buffet, this time at People's.  That is two Indian lunch buffet lunches in a row, which is #Winning.  People's is very good, but variable: by this I mean, some days you go and it's good and spicy, and some days it's bland -- there's no way to know until you're there.  Today, unfortunately, was bland, though the food was still good, just too mild for the likes of me.  However, two things about People's that are always good: it's $8 even, and they put out delicious chai with the buffet.  Mmm, chai tea.  (Yes, Friend Sarah and I reviewed People's for the Great Indian Buffet Tour.)

Plus also I got to have a nice long chat with Nick, who is one of my best friends, and whom I always enjoy seeing and chatting with.

After that, I spent the afternoon reading Atonement by Ian McEwan.  It was recommended to me by Friend/Boss David, who raved about it.  So far I find it compelling, but also flawed, in ways that I plan to discuss when I finish it.  Wait for the review.

The big event of the day, though, was visiting Friends Katie and Randy at the viewing of Katie's father, who passed away very unexpectedly this Monday.  I felt helpless, and mostly talked to Randy (her husband), who is the sort to make jokes in the face of sorrow, which is also my wont.  I don't know what to do around death, in part because I inherited my mother's stolidness on the subject: they're dead now, what was there is gone, and so that is that.  But I realize that other people aren't like this -- which is probably a good thing, because my mother and I might be dancing the line of sociopathy on this one -- and since it's a friend, I want to help.  But how? I didn't know what to do with my hands, and I kept sweating, which I do when I'm nervous.  Katie said she wouldn't turn down a casserole -- it was all I could think of.  Mumford & Sons, which is a band I like but isn't necessarily profound or anything, has a song containing the lyric, "In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die."  Something maudlin comes after that in the song, but I kept thinking of just those two phrases today.  That's all there is to it.  I think the only way most people can live their lives is to forget, from moment to moment and day to day, that they will  some day die -- and even when you have it put in front of you -- in this body I live and in this body I will die -- you still can't actually embrace it; something in your brain turns it aside and paves over it, over and over again.  At least, that's how it works for me.

Take that, mortality.

After the viewing -- Me to Katie: "We're gonna head out, we're helping your husband be inappropriate" -- Ted and I got in the car and drove, literally, across the street, to D's Six Pax and Dogz, the one on Northern Pike in Monroeville. It's not as good as the D's in Regent Square: the pizza wasn't as good (though it certainly wasn't bad) and the service was indifferent, plus the entire place had the faint odor of raw potatoes to it.  But Ted and I ordered a large "Three Little Pigs" pizza -- sausage, pepperoni, and bacon -- to, as we put it, spite death.  Because what else can one do?  I've paved you over, today, Death, with pepperoni.

A kitten picture, since things were getting a little heavy, there.  Did you know Matilda is laser-equipped?

A Day in the Life

I did a lot of stuff today, though I'm not sure I have much to say about it.  Mom came to visit, and we went to Tamarind, Flavor of India for lunch.  Tamarind's lunch buffet, although small, is absolutely fantastic, and in fact, it is still winning my and Friend Sarah's Indian Lunch Buffet blog ... contest?  I don't know if it's a contest since there's nothing to win, but we've made it a point to visit several Indian lunch buffets and assess them critically and rank them, and Tamarind is winning.  So, you should probably go eat that.  Also read about it, here.

This was Round One of Indian food.  Not pictured: the goat I ate during Round Two.

After lunch, Mom and I went to the Strip, where I chiefly shopped for provisions for the upcoming Trailer Weekend.  Sarah's parents own a trailer -- though it's really nice, so I think "foundationless house" is a more accurate term -- up in New York, near Salamanca, and last Memorial Day Weekend Ted and I and Sarah went up to western NY and really enjoyed ourselves, so we booked The Trailer for this MDW as well.  If you want to read about last year's trip, you can do that here and here.

After that I dozed off on the couch.  Then I went to Casbah for their wine happy hour, where Ted met me.  I'm a huge fan of Casbah's happy hour: $6 a glass for really good wine.  Is it cheap?  No.  Is the atmosphere good, the service great, the wine delicious?  Yes.  Am I bougie?  Sure, everyone knows I'm a snob.  So there you have it.

SO MUCH DELICIOUSNESS.

While there, I informed Ted that we had two dinners for the next two nights based on my visit to the farmers' market on Monday and the Strip today: pasta with swiss chard and a Parma sausage, and stewed beet greens with a Parma sausage and some Mancini's bread and butter.  Which means one night between today and Saturday we have to go out.  He chose tonight, so we ate out at Point Brugge, which is one of my favorite places to get dinner in the city.  It's not cheap, but it's a good value for the quality.  We shared the cheese plate, with sausage (also Parma), which tonight turned out to be smoked meats -- YUM.  Then Ted got their chicken sandwich, which he loves, and I got the moules frites, red curry.  1) Best French fries I've ever had, anywhere, hands down, no other contenders.  2) The curried mussels are amazeballs.  Go there and eat them.  Also, excitingly, they had a beer I last had several trips ago at Pizza Paradiso in DC on the drink menu tonight, Saxo from  Brasserie Caracole, which I was super pleased to drink again.  Such a cute label!

That snail knows how to play the saxophone.

Now we're at home, and I might have a tiny Trader Joe's ice cream cone for dessert.  I love summer.