Halloween

Halloween!! It was yesterday. We carved pumpkins, we wore costumes (a lemur and a lemur. . . watcher. I threw it together at the last minute, don't judge), and Karen made a cake that was like a candy bar. Like my FAVORITE candy bar, a 100 Grand bar. Including making nougat from scratch. It was and is delicious. We are having more right now, in fact. Well, not when you read this, but as I write. Just to be clear.

Karen also sewed her costume, just fyi. That tail is not black and white fabric! She cut strips of white fabric and black fabric, and sewed them together. Because she does not do things the easy way. It was cute, and so was she, and it was a fun holiday. But you don't have to take my word for it; see below.

Foods we are making lately

I am writing the text for this, although it is hard to figure out why. To preserve Karen's modesty, I guess? Because obviously I did not cook any of these foods. I cannot even name all of these foods. Nevertheless, find below some impressive, complicated, and delicious foods karen recently made.

Clockwise: some thing with nuts I think; an apple pie; carrots and stuffed peppers (which, hey, I actually did make!), and some whoopie pies (made with a pan I bought her!). I guess I was more involved than I thought. I at least ate all of these things.

Austin

Hey, we went to Austin! If you are one half of our parents, you were probably there. And if you're the other half, you heard about it in excruciating detail over several phone calls. Still! Look at these things that we saw and/or did! I wore a silly hat! Karen has cooking toys, which makes a lot of sense! Also we walked on a rock! Cast your peepers over the vacationness, below.

Woods and Montreal

Oh, man! So, if you're reading this blog (which you are), you're probably well aware that we took a trip to stay in a cabin in the woods earlier this summer. As with most trips to the woods, it also included a stop at a brewery and a . . . Canada. So, first we stopped in Utica at the Sarnac brewery. Sarnac makes about a dozen of my favorite beers, so I was very excited for this. The brewery's been around since around 1900 - that second photo is of their mid-century mascots, Shultz and Dooley, a pair of talking beer steins. WHO ARE ADORABLE.

Also, we stayed in the woods, it was fun, we went to Montreal, and everyone spoke French (also we rode bikes and ate bagels). I am sure I told you about those things in person.

THEY KEEP LETTING US ON BOATS!

Despite the fact that Karen and I are both pencil-necked academics, we keep fooling the city of New York into giving us low-cost watercraft rides for which are puny bodies are relatively unprepared. To wit, we have recently started taking taking sailing lessons. Which is actually super fun! I would like to take a moment here to apologize to my mother, who all but begged me to go to sailing camp, every year, for most of my adoelcense. Sorry, mom, I should have done it! But I was scared I would look dumb in front of those cool sailing kids, so I didn't even try.

Anyway!




This was the view the other night after sailing. Our lessons are from 6 - 8 at night, so we always see a nice sunset.















This is a picture taken FROM our boat, of another boat. This boat you see here is slightly different than the boat we were on. Slightly better, Karen would say. More on that later.















Water and a boat. Honestly I have no idea what is going on here. Karen is sitting right next to me right now, but I don't feel like asking her. What is she going to say? I mean, it's water and a boat, am I right? I'm right.












OKAY BUT SO. Remember how I told you about Karen's crippling jealousy of this particular boat? WELL, as we were tying up after our lesson, the instructor whose boat it was helped our instructor tie up. He was barking out instructions to us, "pull the sail! Grab that!" as we were getting the boat ready to be put away. As we're almost done, he says, "How did you guys get here tonight? Did you drive?"

"Oh no," we say, "we have to take the bus home."

"Well, want a ride on my boat to Sheepshead Bay?" DID WE EVER! We ended up taking another hour sail with this guy, who was an amazing old sailor-type person, along with about 4 other students. His boat was so fast! I learned so much! We actually went somewhere! I held the tiller for a while, which was lots of fun. Anyway, this photo here is from Karen's seat, in the front, looking over the bow. That's the jib on the right. See, the lessons are working! "Tiller," "bow," "jib"!! I'm a regular. . . uh . . . sailing person? Sail dude? Whatever you call it, I'm one of those.






This is Karen, looking very lovely at sunset, at the helm of our regular lesson boat.

This is me, looking a bit haggard, but overall very dashing, also in our practice boat.

Birthday Treats

If you gave birth to me, or are married to the person who did, you might know that it was recently my birthday! If you're neither of those things, well, I just told you, so you're caught up. Karen made me doughnuts first thing in the morning! It was great. She literally woke up at like 6 AM to start making them. I said to her, "Oh, man, you're just like the 'time to make the doughnuts' guy." She stared at me blankly. I guess I watch more TV than she does.
















BUT THEN, WOW! She actually threw me a surprise party! Like, with all my friends! And a homemade cookie cake! And Dorritos and bowling! I was REALLY HAPPY. Then I felt a little weird, like all of my favorite things haven't changed since I was 8. But then I stopped thinking about that and had some more cookie cake, which was AMAZING.

This was my first surprise party. I thought they were only for sitcoms, but apparently they are in real life, too! In other news, Karen and I are going to move to the Long Island, get a wacky neighbor, start practicing psychiatry out of our den, and get a teenager to live above our garage. Oh, the fun we'll have!

The theme of this post is that I watch too much TV.

4th of July Weekend

Fourth of July! It's been amazingly hot here in New York, but that hasn't stopped Karen and I from going on a crazy outdoor adventure to celebrate the 3000th birthday of the Eternal Empire. America. The heat did, however, somewhat influence what that adventure was.




We set out to bike to Redhook, which is really far away, to both buy latin food from the moderately famous food vendors there, and visit the giant public pool.

We took this picture crossing a canal on the way down.







It's those food vendors I was talking about! We got down there during the hour the pool was closed, so the lines were suuuuuper long.











Our Mexi feast. One of these is supposedly a quesadilla and one is a huaranche. Can YOU spot the difference? We sure could not!












me with corn! It was tasty.










This is normally where we would put pictures of the pool, but you're not allowed to bring cameras in. Sad! But trust me, it was beautiful! And HUGE. "Maximum capacity 1100" read a sign above the entrance. So, yes. Big!



We went to a rooftop party that night to see the fireworks, which are now between New Jersey and Manhattan instead of between Manhattan and Brooklyn. At first, we were mad about this, but, I mean, Look at that! It turned out to be really cool. And they lasted for like half an hour!










more, in a different color











Oh, and after the actual fireworks were over, the rooftop a few buildings over (where there was also a party) started letting off these little paper hot air balloons, similar to these which they release in Thailand during this. It was really cool to watch, and they let loose many, many of them. Everyone at our party would cheer really loudly when they released one, every time. Which got old after a while, but was pretty cool, overall. So, all in all, hooray for America. If there's one thing I've learned in school, it's that Empires are forever. May the sun never set on this land, and may it in fact always be rising. Or something.

Kayaking in Jamaica Bay

If there's one thing this blog has taught you, it's that we have decided we love kayaking. As such, we recently went and did it (for free) in Jamaica Bay, down at the south/southeastern edge of Brooklyn. Our excursion-mates were a pair of retired couples (it was the middle of the day on a Thursday). Our tourguide was a very nice park ranger. We saw some Horseshoe crabs laying their eggs. It was fun!








I TOLD YOU SHE IS OBSESSED WITH BIRDS!







So, here's something funny about the below picture. While we were out on the water, Karen started to tell me about how she wanted her own life vest. "It would just fit so much better!" She said. "Whenever we borrow them, they always fit weird, and we look sooooo dorky." I said that sounded reasonable (Chris did not actual say this was a reasonable idea in the slightest~Karen's edit), but that I could think of about 600 things we should buy before we should start buying our own life vests (like for example, a car, our own house, and a kayak). It was only when I got home and looked at these pictures that I realized that everything she'd been saying about how the life vests fit poorly and made us look dorky was based on looking at what a giant dork I looked like in mine. Which she admitted! Just thought I'd share.

Doubles!!!

Despite living in very close proximity to some of the city's best doubles for six years, I had never had them until recently. Because of Karen's urging. She likes to remind me of this.

Let me back up. Doubles are Caribbean food, specifically from Trinidad and Tobago. They're soft bread, similar to naan, filled with a chic pea curry (there are 2 pieces of bread, hence the "double." Or at least we think that's the reason). It's more than a bit like Indian food, which isn't really an accident - after the British outlawed slavery throughout the Empire in the 1830s, the Caribbean began importing indentured servants from around the Empire. Trinidad got most of theirs from India; today, it's estimated that up to 40% of the population can trace its ancestry to Indian migrants.

So, their food is a lot like Indian food. And it's SUPER DELICIOUS and SUPER CHEAP. This whole feast above (2 doubles, a roti, and an Aloo pie) set us back about $8 or $9.

Royal Pains

Karen and I, as everyone knows (because we won't shut up about it), do a bit of side work as MOVIE STARS. Or, you could say, "extras" in "some weird TV shows." Either way, we both had the good fortune to get cast on the same shoot a few weeks ago for this USA show "Royal Pains." It's about a "serious" doctor who through some kind of unlikely circumstances becomes a private physician for a bunch of obscenely wealthy people in the Hamptons who he hates, but are rich, so, you know, he puts up with it.

Anyway! For our scene, they bussed us about 2 hours out of the city to Long Island. We were shooting in the slightly misleadingly-named Oheka Castle, which is really more of a country club than a "castle," per se. It was, however, not a bad place to hang out for a few hours with your significant other, and get paid to boot.

This was the view from the "castle's" lawn. Not too shabby!
















Sort of a moody shot of the castle itself.

















This is a surreptitiously-snapped photo I took during the actual filming. It was supposed to be a bachelor party, but was really more of just a regular party. It looked really cool, though!











Last but FAR from least, here is The Lady herself, in a photo you may recognize from FaceBook, looking positively radiant.