A couple days ago, after I whined on Twitter about my dwindling money supply, a friend of mine told me about Frutober, an initiative started by a blogger who decided to only spend 75$ on food and 25$ on fun for the month of October. I am intrigued by this idea, and want to try out a modified version of it, but probably not til November. So it'll be... Fruvember. It doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but it does have the added bonus of Thanksgiving leftovers, which I should be able to live off of for a few days, at least.
In general, we don't spend all that much on food. Our grocery bill probably totals a little over 200 dollars a month for 2 people, so we're not spending too far over 75 a month per person anyway. However, if we were more diligent in planning our meals and buying things in advance, we'd waste less and save some more money. Our refrigerator is small, but usually pretty packed full of produce, so it's not uncommon for a plate of leftovers or bag of grapes to disappear long enough that we have to pinch our noses and scurry to the garbage can with it when it resurfaces. It happened with some grapes this week. And with a container of Greek yogurt (mmm) this morning.
Another major budget buster for us are vegan alternatives for butter and cheese (and occasionally meat) for E. We bought 8 ounces of fake cheese made from tapioca rice today, and it was 5 bucks for the back! And we found a tub of fake butter for 3.50 and nearly shat ourselves because it was such a bargain. Also, since I have no trouble with dairy, we end up buying the alternatives for him and the regular stuff for me, so we double purchase a lot of items. It's cheaper overall, since the margarine I buy costs 89¢ instead of 3.50 (or, usually 5 bucks), but it is kind of lame.
The mind behind Frutober advocates for stockpiling necessities in September, but I found out about the initiative at about 10 pm on September 30th, at a real low point in our pantry supplies. We've been out of eggs, bread, grated cheese, vinegar, olive oil, and various other vital parts of our diet for a few days now, and if I had restocked the cabinets as part of my 75$ monthly budget, I would have only had enough money left over to eat ramen for the rest of the month. So, I'm not sticking to a 75$ budget this month, but I'm trying to stick to spending more than $6 on dinner every night (which will hopefully include leftovers). In general, this shouldn't be too hard -- tonight I plan to make a pot of lentil soup that will cost about 4 bucks total -- but it will require a bit more thought and frugality. No more wild mushroom agnolotti for us, I guess.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Turning vegetarian
E gave up all meat/most dairy products about 4 months ago now, to manage some digestive issues. It's helped immensely, and he feels much better since then. We had already been on a low-meat diet for environmental reasons for a long while, so day-to-day the change didn't affect much. Cutting out meat, though, does require a bit more creativity in the kitchen to prevent us from eating a big bowl of random veggies every day, which is what most of my omnivorous friends assume I do anyway.
When we ate meat, I often felt like we fell into a cooking routine. Each of our meals would just be meat + starch or grain + vegetable. Usually, each component complimented the other nicely, and there was some thought behind that, but it was often pretty boring, required a whoooole ton of pots and pans and dishes to accomplish, and left us feeling sluggish and vaguely sick. Once in a while, we fall into a seafood-heavy rotation (fish/shellfish doesn't affect E the way meat does, and it is just so delicious) and I feel this way all over again. We also relied a lot more heavily on processed/pre-packaged/frozen foods, which was expensive and not healthy. Now, we do just about all of our food shopping at the local green grocer, and just about everything that comes into our kitchen is whole, green (or some other nutrient-rich color), and infinitely satisfying to eat. And a fiber rich diet does help keep the plumbing in working order.
So yes, I can't say enough good things about our new diet, especially about how we each feel to be putting so much good stuff in our bodies. Our meals are simple, fresh, and fantastic, overall. There have been a few bumps along the way. Sometimes it's frustrating that I have to accommodate his dietary needs when other options are cheaper/easier (one evening where I blew up because I was making brown butter gnocchi and we were out of vegan butter and E said I had to use olive oil instead of real butter comes to mind), but I think we're both happy with the switch -- and I'm just glad E's feeling so much better!
And honestly, there aren't many recipes I have to miss -- so many things can be easily made vegetarian. E can't do fake meat (and I'm not a big fan, either), so we usually just skip those alternatives. Last night, for instance, I made a vegetarian minestrone because the weather has definitely taken a turn for the autumnal. Instead of using beef broth or any meat to flavor the soup, vegetable stock and some carefully used spices does the job. In under an hour we had a giant bowl of hot soup bubbling away on the stove, for under 10 bucks. We froze about a meal and a half's worth right away, and I am enjoying a leftover bowl right now! I highly recommend this recipe, which is the first I've made up on my own for minestrone!
Shae's Rough Vegetarian Minestrone Soup
Ingredients:
When we ate meat, I often felt like we fell into a cooking routine. Each of our meals would just be meat + starch or grain + vegetable. Usually, each component complimented the other nicely, and there was some thought behind that, but it was often pretty boring, required a whoooole ton of pots and pans and dishes to accomplish, and left us feeling sluggish and vaguely sick. Once in a while, we fall into a seafood-heavy rotation (fish/shellfish doesn't affect E the way meat does, and it is just so delicious) and I feel this way all over again. We also relied a lot more heavily on processed/pre-packaged/frozen foods, which was expensive and not healthy. Now, we do just about all of our food shopping at the local green grocer, and just about everything that comes into our kitchen is whole, green (or some other nutrient-rich color), and infinitely satisfying to eat. And a fiber rich diet does help keep the plumbing in working order.
So yes, I can't say enough good things about our new diet, especially about how we each feel to be putting so much good stuff in our bodies. Our meals are simple, fresh, and fantastic, overall. There have been a few bumps along the way. Sometimes it's frustrating that I have to accommodate his dietary needs when other options are cheaper/easier (one evening where I blew up because I was making brown butter gnocchi and we were out of vegan butter and E said I had to use olive oil instead of real butter comes to mind), but I think we're both happy with the switch -- and I'm just glad E's feeling so much better!
And honestly, there aren't many recipes I have to miss -- so many things can be easily made vegetarian. E can't do fake meat (and I'm not a big fan, either), so we usually just skip those alternatives. Last night, for instance, I made a vegetarian minestrone because the weather has definitely taken a turn for the autumnal. Instead of using beef broth or any meat to flavor the soup, vegetable stock and some carefully used spices does the job. In under an hour we had a giant bowl of hot soup bubbling away on the stove, for under 10 bucks. We froze about a meal and a half's worth right away, and I am enjoying a leftover bowl right now! I highly recommend this recipe, which is the first I've made up on my own for minestrone!
Shae's Rough Vegetarian Minestrone Soup
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed (this can be reduced... we eat a lot of garlic and are desensitized)
- 1/2 cup white onion, chopped
- 1/4 cup carrot, chopped
- 1/3 cup celery, chopped
- 1 can crushed tomatoes (one of those big guys)
- 1 can cannellini (white kidney beans)
- 1 can red kidney beans
- 3/4 of a bunch of fresh spinach, chopped (I am not sure how much spinach is in a bunch... probably close to a pound? Feel free to eyeball this, but don't get too skittish -- spinach cooks down a LOT)
- 2 pounds zucchini, diced
- 8 cups vegetable stock (homemade or using bouillon, like I did)
- a glug of wine, white or red (this is very scientific)
- oregano, basil, black pepper to taste
- 1/2 a pound of Ditalini
- Heat your oil in a large pot on the stove over medium heat. Add the crushed garlic and the onion to the oil (Sidenote: to peel garlic easily, cut off the hard tip of the clove and crush it with the side of a knife. The skin will come off in one piece, and then you can prepare the garlic however you want). Stir to coat, and let cook for about 2 minutes, and then add the carrots and the celery. Let it cook until the onions are transparent and the garlic is fragrant.
- Add the contents of the can of crushed tomatoes. Let it simmer for a few minutes while you cut up your zucchini and spinach.
- Add the vegetable stock to the pot. Stir well. Once everything is incorporated, add the cut spinach and zucchini to the soup. Stir well, though the spinach won't wilt for a few minutes and might seem to refuse to mix in. It's okay. Its time will come.
- In another pot, start boiling some water for your pasta. Cook it until it is slightly underdone.
- Drain about 3/4 of the liquid out of the cans of beans. Dump them into the soup pot. When the pasta is ready, drain it and put it into the soup as well.
- At this point, I poured a glug of white wine in, which I think helped bring the flavors in the pot together. I used some crappy wine we bought for cooking, and it worked great. I think a red would be even more delicious, but I didn't have any on hand. I also added a bit of dried oregano, a few leaves of fresh basil, and a healthy shake or two of black pepper to the pot at this point.
- Simmer the soup for 20-30 minutes, until the spinach and zucchini are cooked and it smells divine. Serve with a shake of romano cheese and some crusty white bread. Makes at least 6 servings, depending on how hungry your crew is, and it's a satisfying, inexpensive, healthy meal.
Tessie doesn't even have to wear high heels, ever.
I am tired. The kind of tired that makes me really, really wish that there existed, somewhere, a pillow big enough for me to curl up on. And don't say, "What about your bed?" because that's clearly not the same. If I had a featherbed, I might say, "Oh, you're right, I have this featherbed," but I don't have a featherbed, so it's definitely not like a pillow. I also wish I had a tail so I could cover my nose with it when I sleep for optimum-comfiness, but that, also, is not really possible.
Anyway. Part of my exhaustion stems from my busy schedule, yes, but this weekend was also a doozy. One of my friends from my hometown is getting married in, oh, 11 days or so, and her bachelorette was this weekend. We went to dinner with her family and then went down to lovely New Haven, Connecticut, where we had a hotel room, and went out to a few bars to celebrate her
Included in our girls' night out were plastic jewelry, little black dresses, and way too many uncomfortable heels. We had a long night, and luckily the only one of the group who was really hard hit the next morning was the bride-to-be -- as it should be. I, myself, felt great, and hopped in the car to drive to Rhode Island for an afternoon with friends. So, it was a long weekend, but a great one, and in light of that fact I'll try not to complain too much about how gosh-darn tired I am.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Back
I am back in school. Classes started about 2 weeks ago, bringing to a close a very, very hectic summer full of weddings (and their auxiliary events), babies, and the first job I've ever worked that I loved enough to not dick around while on the clock. Hence my general absence from the internets.
But now I'm back in class, with lots of weird little snippets of downtime and a million overlapping activities. And, of course, plenty of time in which I should be doing things I don't feel like doing (not that this is what's going on now. nuh uh, no way, no how). This is my last semester ever (!!!), and it is terrifying and exhilarating and did I mention TERRIFYING? There are basically no jobs out there. But I am trying to distract myself from that frightening reality by making my last semester count. There are the two classes I'm taking:
Here's hoping.
But now I'm back in class, with lots of weird little snippets of downtime and a million overlapping activities. And, of course, plenty of time in which I should be doing things I don't feel like doing (not that this is what's going on now. nuh uh, no way, no how). This is my last semester ever (!!!), and it is terrifying and exhilarating and did I mention TERRIFYING? There are basically no jobs out there. But I am trying to distract myself from that frightening reality by making my last semester count. There are the two classes I'm taking:
- Interpretation & Architecture: This doesn't sound that cool, but the big project for it is developing programming (interpretation) for this property about an hour upstate! Yay hands-on stuff!
- Social Science Approaches to Analyzing Biographical & Life History Information: Okay, that is the longest title ever, but it's a class in the oral history program here, and it seems really great based on the syllabus. Right now, I am taking a break from a reading about how people become Nazis, and generational identities, and biographical versus systemic historiography and IT'S NERDY BUT COOL, OKAY.
Here's hoping.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Neighbors and Birthdays and Dogs, Oh My!
Tonight, in celebration of a friend-who-just-moved-into-our-neighborhood's birthday, we went to Manhattan. That's right, folks, we outer borough folk do head into Manhattan for some entertainment and merrymaking! Yes, we will continue to try to lure you into our realms ("I'll take you to the Beer Garden" being one of the key baits), but we also head over to the island once in a while.
Anyway, this friend and his roommate, also a friend, recently moved into our neighborhood -- a few short blocks away from our crappy little prewar apartment, in fact! -- which is very exciting because, well, as an outer borough person, most of my friends live in other, fancier outer boroughs, or in Manhattan, or even in New Jersey. So it can get lonely out here in Queens on occasion. But now there are people around the corner with whom we can grab lunch in a Greek restaurant, or make friends with the panhandlers on the N or Q into Manhattan, or sit at the Beer Garden and talk about how awesome Queens is, and how smart we are for living here. I'm stoked.
But yes. Birthday. So we went into Manhattan, and we took advantage of the absolutely beautiful day by getting a round of drinks at Pier 66 Maritime, which houses an historic barge (now a bar and grill!) and several historic ships, including a fireboat and the Lightship Frying Pan, which was underwater for 3 years before being pulled up and restored. The weather was absolutely glorious, and it was awesome to be on the Hudson, enjoying a beer, even if the swaying of the barge on the river gave me a touch of the queasies.
Afterwards, we headed down to the High Line, a relatively new park in Manhattan, reclaimed from an old elevated freight train line that was abandoned for about 50 years. Nature took over, and then landscape architects came in, refined the plants that were already there, built benches, and made it a really beautiful park for strolling above the city streets. We walked the current length of it, from 20th Street down to about 14th, and I can't wait to see what the next section to open looks like. It's a really lovely space where urban and natural mix wonderfully, and the breeze and views from that elevation are fantastic.
As the sun was setting and we hadn't eaten yet, we wandered around for a while before ending up at Benny's Burritos, which, sneakily enough, is part of the Blockheads mini-chain of Mexicali food establishments. After a much shorter than anticipated wait (think 8 minutes instead of 40), we slid into a table in the very noisy dining room and proceeded to gorge ourselves on chips, salsa, guacamole, burritos, and 3 dollar margaritas. Delicious, cheap, and a hit with everyone involved.
We split up after that, with the birthday guy having a bit more party in him than the rest of us, and E, our other friend and I ended up on a train back out to Astoria. A man got on with a service dog that must have been in training. He kept standing up rather than laying beneath the man patiently, and at one point the motion of the train must have got to him, because he vomited in the corner. I don't think I've ever seen a dog so happy to get off a subway as this dog, who practically opened the door with his nose once they got to their stop. He was clearly trying very hard, though. I have a huge place in my heart for service dogs. They're smart! They're well-behaved! They're helpful! You can't pet them! Seriously, all I want to do when I see a service dog is give it a giant hug and belly rub. This urge is probably largely because I know you aren't supposed to distract them from their work with lovin', but it doesn't stop me from wanting to more than anything else in the world at that given moment.
Tonight was no different, because the dog was young, and trainsick, and SO SO CUTE. If I had any ability to give away cute things, I would totally train puppies to be service dogs, but I wouldn't be able to give them up. Also, puppies are hard. They require walks and they puke and pee on the floor and lick you and are kind of smelly. When my cat pukes, I tend to pretend I don't know what happened until E steps in it on his way to bed and has to clean it up himself*, so I can't handle dog puke, which is obviously much more gross. Gosh, what will happen when I have children? I don't want to think about it.
*This may or may not have just happened. He's a pretty good guy!
Anyway, this friend and his roommate, also a friend, recently moved into our neighborhood -- a few short blocks away from our crappy little prewar apartment, in fact! -- which is very exciting because, well, as an outer borough person, most of my friends live in other, fancier outer boroughs, or in Manhattan, or even in New Jersey. So it can get lonely out here in Queens on occasion. But now there are people around the corner with whom we can grab lunch in a Greek restaurant, or make friends with the panhandlers on the N or Q into Manhattan, or sit at the Beer Garden and talk about how awesome Queens is, and how smart we are for living here. I'm stoked.
But yes. Birthday. So we went into Manhattan, and we took advantage of the absolutely beautiful day by getting a round of drinks at Pier 66 Maritime, which houses an historic barge (now a bar and grill!) and several historic ships, including a fireboat and the Lightship Frying Pan, which was underwater for 3 years before being pulled up and restored. The weather was absolutely glorious, and it was awesome to be on the Hudson, enjoying a beer, even if the swaying of the barge on the river gave me a touch of the queasies.
Afterwards, we headed down to the High Line, a relatively new park in Manhattan, reclaimed from an old elevated freight train line that was abandoned for about 50 years. Nature took over, and then landscape architects came in, refined the plants that were already there, built benches, and made it a really beautiful park for strolling above the city streets. We walked the current length of it, from 20th Street down to about 14th, and I can't wait to see what the next section to open looks like. It's a really lovely space where urban and natural mix wonderfully, and the breeze and views from that elevation are fantastic.
As the sun was setting and we hadn't eaten yet, we wandered around for a while before ending up at Benny's Burritos, which, sneakily enough, is part of the Blockheads mini-chain of Mexicali food establishments. After a much shorter than anticipated wait (think 8 minutes instead of 40), we slid into a table in the very noisy dining room and proceeded to gorge ourselves on chips, salsa, guacamole, burritos, and 3 dollar margaritas. Delicious, cheap, and a hit with everyone involved.
We split up after that, with the birthday guy having a bit more party in him than the rest of us, and E, our other friend and I ended up on a train back out to Astoria. A man got on with a service dog that must have been in training. He kept standing up rather than laying beneath the man patiently, and at one point the motion of the train must have got to him, because he vomited in the corner. I don't think I've ever seen a dog so happy to get off a subway as this dog, who practically opened the door with his nose once they got to their stop. He was clearly trying very hard, though. I have a huge place in my heart for service dogs. They're smart! They're well-behaved! They're helpful! You can't pet them! Seriously, all I want to do when I see a service dog is give it a giant hug and belly rub. This urge is probably largely because I know you aren't supposed to distract them from their work with lovin', but it doesn't stop me from wanting to more than anything else in the world at that given moment.
Tonight was no different, because the dog was young, and trainsick, and SO SO CUTE. If I had any ability to give away cute things, I would totally train puppies to be service dogs, but I wouldn't be able to give them up. Also, puppies are hard. They require walks and they puke and pee on the floor and lick you and are kind of smelly. When my cat pukes, I tend to pretend I don't know what happened until E steps in it on his way to bed and has to clean it up himself*, so I can't handle dog puke, which is obviously much more gross. Gosh, what will happen when I have children? I don't want to think about it.
*This may or may not have just happened. He's a pretty good guy!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
A lot of fruit has come into this house.
This summer has been positively flying by. E and I have each been very busy with our summer jobs, and we've also spent many weekends trekking to Connecticut for various events and goings-on.
We've also been perfecting our jam-making skills, as mentioned previously. My best friend is getting married next weekend (!!!) and I offered to make jam for her favors. Once they're done and wrapped up looking pretty, I'll take a picture of the jars, which are little and adorable. In this photo, Tessie is supervising E's strawberry-slicing.
The bride came down last weekend, and even though our original plans to work together on the jam fell through due to some logistics issues, we finally got to bring her to the Beer Garden, and she agreed that it was magical. Luckily the weather was basically perfect, unlike today, when it is hot and humid and our air conditioner conveniently decided to DIE overnight. I am so upset, and don't anticipate sleeping much over the next few days as the mercury creeps higher...
In other news most people don't care about, I found the most amazing nail polish at CVS the other day! This photo below, of my nails with Rimmel London Lasting Finish Pro nail polish on them, was taken a full EIGHT DAYS after I applied it. Minimal damage, despite my marathon jam-making and doing dishes and type-type-typing at work and home! And for only 3.99? I'll take it.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Broke AND BORED sometimes maybe.
So, sometimes that whole, "Hey, let's take advantage of all the awesome free stuff to do in NYC," thing doesn't work out. Like, epic catastrophe doesn't work out. I know, because it's happened to me. Last Friday, after a crappy weather forecast forced me to cancel outdoorsy plans with a friend, the skies miraculously cleared at the last moment and E convinced me it was a good idea to go to the free New York Philharmonic concert in Prospect Park. I begrudgingly agreed, even though:
In the end, he convinced me to go by talking up the fireworks display set for the end of the evening. However, beginning when I sat outside of his office building for 40 minutes, sweat literally dripping down my legs, hungry and tired, I was cranky. And it didn't stop when he got out of work, or when we were on an air conditioned subway train, or when I finally had a bottle of cool, delicious water in hand. While we wandered aimlessly through the massive massiveness of Prospect Park in search of the Long Meadow, I whined. I whined about the heat, I whined about the fact that we saw about 500 fireworks displays earlier this month, I whined about being tired, and hungry, and about my feet hurting. I refused to take off my cardigan on principle, so I could have something else to whine about, because I was being passive aggressive. I whined about the crowds and the heat (IT WAS HOT, GOSH) and the impending long ass commute back to Queens. I was a real terror, and it was not my proudest moment.
But then we found the Long Meadow (after E sent like 6 people off in the wrong direction as if he had a CLUE where we were), and we got seats, and we ate the PB&J and hung out. And it was still hot, and we didn't have a blanket so the grass was scratchy, and I wasn't able to flag down one of those guys who sells glow-toys at fireworks displays, but it was kind of nice. The Philharmonic started out with a couple of fun pieces, including some West Side Story stuff, and we started to relax and have fun. There were cute kids everywhere, and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves, so why not? Then it was intermission, and more kids bought more glow toys (but I still didn't), and the sun went down so the temperature dropped, like, 3 degrees.
But then. THEN. The Philharmonic came back and played an utterly interminable, very, very slow-and-quiet piece. It was SO. LONG. And we could BARELY. HEAR. IT. I get it. The people in front are the people who are donors and ~serious music-y people~ and whatnot. BUT YOU'RE IN A PARK. There are a few thousand people sitting on the grass to hear you play. Melting in the heat. Listening to other people's conversations. Tolerating other people's children and their glow toys. They are obviously dedicated. PLAY SOMETHING THEY CAN HEAR. Every time the music stopped (which we mostly marked by the polite applause of people closer to the stage, but not close enough to know you're not supposed to clap between movements or w/e), we watched hopefully for the conductor to turn around. He never did. It was excruciating. At some point it devolved into a giant glow-toy swordfight.
And then it finally ended, and the fireworks started, and... they were kind of crappy. And over in like 3 minutes. So that was that. And E had to use the restroom for about an hour, and I was getting there myself, so as soon as the "grand finale" (I use the term loosely) had ended, we hightailed it out of there (the perks of not having blankets or luggage or children) to beat the crowds to a restroom. We walked past the port-a-potties in the park and to the nearest food-selling facility, a bakery about a block away. We bought a god-awful red velvet cupcake so E could use the bathroom, only to find out that the bathroom was out of service. After wandering a bit, we realized that there was nothing else around, and found ourselves heading back to the park. For the port-a-potties.
I hate port-a-potties. HATE. There are few things as revolting to me as a portable pisser. So, on a night when it was still in the 80s hours after the sun went down, when thousands of people had probably relieved their full-to-bursting bladders there, I knew these things were going to be rank. AND OH MY GOD THEY WERE. To think about it now causes one to nearly vomit in one's mouth. Utterly miserable.
Having survived that experience, we dashed to the subway and began the long journey back to Queens. You would never think that Queens and Brooklyn abutt each other on the lovely Long Island based on the ease of public transit between them. It's sort of astounding. But so it goes. We made it home, immediately showered to try to rinse the port-a-potty grime off of us, and I mentally swore never to get suckered into something like that again.
...Until I was. But that's for another time.
- We decided to split a PB&J that had been bouncing around in E's work bag all day to avoid having to buy dinner
- IT WAS GODAWFUL HOT AND MUGGY AND OMG.
- Our work schedules didn't line up and my office building has a strict GET-THE-FUCK-OUT policy on Friday afternoons, so I had to go sit on a bench on a traffic island outside of E's office for 40 minutes. It was hot.
- Neither of us had ever set foot in Prospect Park! I know, this is crazy, but honestly, we're rarely in Brooklyn.
- Because of our work schedules, we were destined to make it to the park around 7:15, a mere 45 minutes before this free concert in the city's most populous borough was set to start.
In the end, he convinced me to go by talking up the fireworks display set for the end of the evening. However, beginning when I sat outside of his office building for 40 minutes, sweat literally dripping down my legs, hungry and tired, I was cranky. And it didn't stop when he got out of work, or when we were on an air conditioned subway train, or when I finally had a bottle of cool, delicious water in hand. While we wandered aimlessly through the massive massiveness of Prospect Park in search of the Long Meadow, I whined. I whined about the heat, I whined about the fact that we saw about 500 fireworks displays earlier this month, I whined about being tired, and hungry, and about my feet hurting. I refused to take off my cardigan on principle, so I could have something else to whine about, because I was being passive aggressive. I whined about the crowds and the heat (IT WAS HOT, GOSH) and the impending long ass commute back to Queens. I was a real terror, and it was not my proudest moment.
But then we found the Long Meadow (after E sent like 6 people off in the wrong direction as if he had a CLUE where we were), and we got seats, and we ate the PB&J and hung out. And it was still hot, and we didn't have a blanket so the grass was scratchy, and I wasn't able to flag down one of those guys who sells glow-toys at fireworks displays, but it was kind of nice. The Philharmonic started out with a couple of fun pieces, including some West Side Story stuff, and we started to relax and have fun. There were cute kids everywhere, and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves, so why not? Then it was intermission, and more kids bought more glow toys (but I still didn't), and the sun went down so the temperature dropped, like, 3 degrees.
But then. THEN. The Philharmonic came back and played an utterly interminable, very, very slow-and-quiet piece. It was SO. LONG. And we could BARELY. HEAR. IT. I get it. The people in front are the people who are donors and ~serious music-y people~ and whatnot. BUT YOU'RE IN A PARK. There are a few thousand people sitting on the grass to hear you play. Melting in the heat. Listening to other people's conversations. Tolerating other people's children and their glow toys. They are obviously dedicated. PLAY SOMETHING THEY CAN HEAR. Every time the music stopped (which we mostly marked by the polite applause of people closer to the stage, but not close enough to know you're not supposed to clap between movements or w/e), we watched hopefully for the conductor to turn around. He never did. It was excruciating. At some point it devolved into a giant glow-toy swordfight.
And then it finally ended, and the fireworks started, and... they were kind of crappy. And over in like 3 minutes. So that was that. And E had to use the restroom for about an hour, and I was getting there myself, so as soon as the "grand finale" (I use the term loosely) had ended, we hightailed it out of there (the perks of not having blankets or luggage or children) to beat the crowds to a restroom. We walked past the port-a-potties in the park and to the nearest food-selling facility, a bakery about a block away. We bought a god-awful red velvet cupcake so E could use the bathroom, only to find out that the bathroom was out of service. After wandering a bit, we realized that there was nothing else around, and found ourselves heading back to the park. For the port-a-potties.
I hate port-a-potties. HATE. There are few things as revolting to me as a portable pisser. So, on a night when it was still in the 80s hours after the sun went down, when thousands of people had probably relieved their full-to-bursting bladders there, I knew these things were going to be rank. AND OH MY GOD THEY WERE. To think about it now causes one to nearly vomit in one's mouth. Utterly miserable.
Having survived that experience, we dashed to the subway and began the long journey back to Queens. You would never think that Queens and Brooklyn abutt each other on the lovely Long Island based on the ease of public transit between them. It's sort of astounding. But so it goes. We made it home, immediately showered to try to rinse the port-a-potty grime off of us, and I mentally swore never to get suckered into something like that again.
...Until I was. But that's for another time.
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