Small Servings of Parsley: July 2008

eat out

so.... josh and i don't really cook anymore. all our kitchen stuff is in storage, which we took as a sign. a sign to pay for food like our life depended on it.

so besides lunches out and the impromptu trips to chili's (i know, i know), i have had ALL sorts of excuses to meet up with friends for meals. daniel is in town? - B&G! need to kill some time before dinner? - drinks at Stellas! tarah's going to peru? - shabu zen! just met with our mortgage guy in coolidge? - mac and cheese at publick house! nicole and i haven't seen each other for a week and a half? - orinoco! jess moved to boston like two months ago? - Union! We are passing Hynes on the way to dinner? - Sweet Cupcakes! our credit card bill is through. the. roof. granted, the we have had the perfect storm of summer expenses this month AND we are about to write a six figure check on monday, so a $40 dinner here and there is a drop in the bucket. but seriously, this must stop...

Daniel's Lobster Salad - they took a whole lobster and shelled it - dill, fennel and some magic. it was very very good.

my lobster roll! this was my third lobster roll within the span of a week. good lobster roll - better fries.

exhibit 1 of why i need photography lessons. can you say "background picture of an evite"? ugh.

and this would be exhibit 2. poor daniel's street cred at stella's was washed away as i posed my gimlet on the bar and took pictures with the help of an elderly tourist

SHABU! my new love.

more shabu!

sweet on mass ave now has red velvets! in a week or so, this will not be on my way home. my cholesterol level is relieved.

elite

so i am on the train today, in a quasi bad mood because i have an in-grown toenail that is bothering me but i can't seem to make it right and i have an appointment with michelle on SUNDAY which is forever away and the fact that i know that is there keeps me up at night because i can FEEL it. i didn't get much sleep last night.

anyway, so quasi bad mood, running late, etc etc. i get on the train and make my way down to the door i need and grab a pole. now, there have been a fair share of tourists on the train lately. maybe it is because i leave a little after the rush hour crowd, or more and more families are coming to look at colleges, or simply because it is summer in a great summer city, i don't know. what i do know is that they scare me. i am scared i will become one of them one day. fanny pack, 7 kids between three adults, sour preteens, wiggly toddlers, excited 8 year olds. they count stops on the train, worried they are going to miss theirs, they unfold maps and try to place where they want to go and where they are now, they scold their kids, yell across train cars and whine when there are no seats open. i was watching as one of the adults got a call, listened for a bit and handed it off to the "dad" of the group. it seems they had the opportunity for red sox tickets that night. the women were urging him to go; "it's something we always talked about," one of the women said. either two tickets for him and the sourpuss or 6 tickets for him and the 5 kids. "don't worry about us, it's a chance of a lifetime" the other women kept repeating. "a chance of a lifetime. a chance of a life time. it's a chance of a lifetime." her accents was new jersey via lawrence.

high wasted jean shorts, visors, clutched maps. maybe they were going to see a game against the angels that night. maybe get stuffed lobster toys at fanuiel and fried dough in the park. maybe take pictures with ben frankin and walk the freedom trail. maybe canolis from mike's and a whale watch. maybe they saved up for this trip for months, taking precious days off from work and organizing for days. maybe this is exactly what they wanted.

this used to be us. four moms, four dads, 8 kids on the LIRR, alert and ready to embark, deciphering subway maps and timetables. rockerfeller plaza for the rockettes, TKTS for a show, the last train home, moms nodding off, dads holding up the sleeping children. looking back, we must have stood out to those everyday commuters. immigrant families who brought oranges and indian chexmix on the subway. different languages being bandied about. obsessive stop checking and panic with a garbled announcement blasted through the train speakers.

if this was me, then why the disdain? why do i think i am above all this? will that be me with the diaper bag, the extra pullups and the four types of snacks walking around disneyworld? maybe. does it scare the crap out of me. definitely.

*$

so now that i pass starbucks everyday (pretty much as soon as i leave the house), a daily tradition of a tall, skinny, hazelnut latte has become somewhat of an addiction. oh well.

i have also noticed that the logo is different - and dirty!

when looking for this image, i found a site that dicusses this very topic. why bring back the dirty mermaid starbucks? fins all spread and nipples showing? i am appalled.

why. so. serious.

so josh and i saw the new batman move last night. here are a few thoughts. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IN AND WANT TO - DO NOT KEEP READING. spoilers ahead.

ok - so first. i was kind of shocked about the whole rachel thing. i wanted batman to hear the end of that phone call, because that would have made saving harvey so much more painful, but alas, they went they other way. it sucks, because, besides alfred, i felt like she was one of the few links to bruce's past. ah well. i though maggie did a better job than the wooden katie.

i wanted ONE more movie until gordon became commissioner. i felt like it all happened too fast.

the violence. the PG-13 rating almost made it MORE violent. there was little blood, little gore, but they way things were shot left much to the imagination. you can tell that things were edited out post production. we never see the pencil in the ear, but we know it is there. we never hear the chinese guy screaming while he burns to death, but we know he is there. we never see the joker cut any faces, but we know it happens. i would close my eyes in anticipation, but the gaps in the action my brain closed for me was def R-rated. shudder.

oh laurie - you were SO good in the first one. what happened? i miss michael keaton.

anything i say about heath ledger has already been said. will he get an oscar? maybe. the academy owes him one for brokeback, this may be their chance to make it up to him. i was not sure what the hype was all about until the last third of the movie. if his death was accidental, fine. if not, then one could almost interpret his performance here as a cry for help. then again, he may just be that good an actor.

i hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE the lidless eye. whatever. aaron is still on my list. yum. i also thought this was going to be a "two-face kills the joker"/"seven" type thing, so two-face would just be introduced in this movie. i was saddened by the fact that that was it. i also didn't like that cillian was in it for like 30 seconds. it seemed pointless.

i loved that they didn't kill the joker but hate that he will never be a part of the franchise again. such a loss.

oh - did anyone else notice that tommy lee jones was on the ID card on harvey's father's body? nice touch - even though the movie was a disgrace...

thoughts?

PASTA!

Since I took no pictures last night at the pasta party, I will direct you to a post that pretty much sums it up. Thanks babe!

Cape Cod!

So I had a wonderful time on the Cape, in the sun, eating lobsters (plural), in the sun, on the cape, in the sun. Did I mention I got some sun. Well, I did. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the few days on the Cape, the rest are in the "my pictures" link to the right.