Adventures With Andy: The Synopsis

So on Thursday, Alex had to work, but Jamie and Andy and I went to the American Museum of Natural History! None of us had ever been before. It has some great exhibits, including a gem collection; it made me want expensive jewelry! But then the fossils made me want to be a dinosaur, so I wouldn't take that too seriously.

Anyway, the point is, gems are pretty, and also dinosaurs are really cool, and also mammoths were effing enormous, and also there used to exist hyenas bigger than tigers, and also human evolution was kind of a mish-mash of failed branches but also progress, and also, gift shop! The end.

In between the gems and the dinosaurs, we left the museum for lunch. Hot-dog stand! I had a delicious "Philly cheese-steak" sandwich. Then we craved ice cream (how unusual), so we walked out to Broadway to a gelato shop, where we shared a scoop of bitter, delicious dark chocolate and a scoop of fragrant cinnamon with white chocolate chips. Yum! Also, we stopped at Lush, which is a skin-care type store, which Edlyn showed me in Boston a couple years ago, and which I knew Jamie would love. Now she kind of wants to work there.

Also, Alex gave his two weeks' notice! Yay.

That was Thursday!

On Friday, the four of us went to Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn, which is the best pizza ever. I had been there once before, with Alex and Tom, and had my mind blown; before that, it had been recommended to me by some people (I don't remember who) who went on Satellite with me and had gone there because they had read about it somewhere, I think. Anyway, it is this little pizza place surrounded by a bunch of Hasids, and the pizza has been made by the same guy for like 30 years, and he is the only one who is allowed to make it; even though he has taught his kids how to make pizza, he thinks they are crappy at it and does not permit them to do so in the shop. We all split the Di Fara Special Pie, which I guess is just the kind of pizza he likes making the best, and which has sausage and bell peppers and fresh basil cut on top at the end, and is unbelievably delicious.

Anyway, we played GHOST for an hour while waiting for the pizza, and Alex won because I misspelled "jodhpur," then wolfed down the pizza in about 7 minutes, stepped briefly into a Hasidic chocolate shop selling Shabbes candles filled with honey (huh?), got on the B train going the wrong direction, got on an N train going the right direction, transferred back to the B train going the right direction, and went up to Spring Street, where we ate at Rice to Riches, a kind of snobby and intimidating and ridiculous but also pretty darn tasty rice pudding shop, for dessert. We shared four different flavors (chocolate, cinnamon, cheesecake, and vanilla), while standing, because the bar at this place has no chairs, because it is snobby and ridiculous. But I enjoyed myself nonetheless.

Then we went with Jamie to pick up her script for Eleemosynary, and then went back to the apartment, where I made banana walnut chocolate chip bread, and also whole wheat bread for Alex to make sandwiches out of for his lunches, because store-bought bread is filled with corn, and played Mao for a couple hours. I love that game.

That was Friday!

On Saturday, Jamie left for Singapore and Alex had to work (wow, one of those things is a lot more exciting than the other), so Andy and I went to the Met! Yay, the Met! I like it there. We wandered around, spent at least an hour in the musical instruments exhibit, passed more quickly through the Modern Art, went up the five flights of stairs to the enormous bamboo sculpture on the roof, went back down the five flights of stairs, browsed the gift shop, and then headed out after what was maybe three hours in total.

Once we left the Met, we walked down along the park to Rock Center to visit Alex at work for a few minutes, and then headed back to Hotel California, where we were antisocial until Alex got home.

That was Saturday!

On Sunday, I finished Mockingjay in the morning. Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap! Suzanne Collins, who are you and why are you so intense?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! That book was so much more intense than the first two, and that is saying a lot. What a book.

And then Alex and Andy and I went to have a picnic in Central Park! We stopped at a grocery and got pita chips and hummus and goat cheese and ruggelach (which in the end I forgot were in the bag and threw out, but that's ok, because what was I thinking? Ruggelach are not delicious), and then after getting off the 2 at 96th because of construction and wandering through the North Woods and around the Harlem Meer to the north end of the park, stopped at a deli (the Central Park Deli and Grocery at 2 Malcolm X Blvd., to be exact) and got delicious sandwiches, and ate them just inside the north wall of the park, on the grass in the shade of a tree.

It was so good.

Then we walked the entire length of the park, and at Andy's request I told him all about why the Conservancy is the devil, blah blah, Jackie Onasses Reservoir, some breaks to sit down on a bench and rest my throbbing feet, Belvedere Castle, statues, 59th St. On to Dylan's, a candy shop Kat told Andy he simply must investigate, over at 60th and 3rd. Overpriced but very colorful. Seeing the fudge on the bottom floor made me want to made fudge ice cream, but the fudge was expensive and too sweet, and I was too tired to go looking for other fudge shops. Tom met us at Dylan's; we all took the 7 back to Hotel CA; the boys played video games for several hours; I did not. I ate leftover cappuchino chip ice cream and maple pecan ice cream and fooled around on my computer in my bedroom. It was nice. Then I supervised Alex making peanut butter ice cream batter. Yay! Good night.

Today, Alex opened at work; he should be home soon, actually. Andy and I decided to make fudge instead of going looking for it. It worked reasonably well, except that the candy thermometer Tom got me to replace the one he broke only goes up to 220 degrees, and even fudge, which is one of the softest candies, has to get up to 235 degrees. So we tried to figure out when it had reached the soft ball stage, rather than going by temperature, and we thought it was about time even though it still wasn't really forming a ball, and Andy didn't want to risk having the sugar recrystallize by letting it get too hot, so we took it off the heat. Let it cool to 110 degrees like supposed to, added butter and vanilla, stirred for 25 minutes until it became clear that it was not going to get dull and lighter and stiff, the way it is supposed too, probably because we did not cook it to hot enough. But we poured it into a buttered 8x8 pan and stuck it in the fridge, and we will see if it solidifies at all! But anyway, it is delicious, and I think it will swirl well into the peanut butter ice cream batter as it freezes.

Later today, Philip Menchaca and the other camp people should get here on the bus (I mention Philip in particular, because he will be staying with us for two nights), and maybe I, and maybe Andy and Alex too, although I haven't asked them yet, will go out with them, which would be fun.

The end!