not only did we have some seriously divergent weather patterns this weekend, but i managed to get two weekends for the price of one by spending thursday, friday and most of saturday at camp guillaume and kicking it bk style sunday and monday.
thursday evening got off to a rousing start as rudolph and i left the office to walk to PABT and Penn Station, respectively. of course, this sort of required going through the Radio City Music Hall area, where googols of sad-sack teenagers were waiting to go inside and cheer about bands that suck and the imagination-lacking videos they use to burn into viewers' subconscious. more to the point, i said to randolph how my 16-year-old self would have probably shit bricks to get into something like that and now here i am walking past it at a jaded 28 thinking everyone involved with the VMAs is beyond pathetic. i don't even know who was nominated so that could be a total lie. either way, they were blocking up the sidewalk and that was annoying. and MTV blows.
what was awesome was when we finally emerged from the vma holding pen, we were in Times Fucking Square. i was pretty sure i was moving through the circles of hell; i was waiting for phlegyas to show up and offer me a ride. rudolph took off for jersey and i went into penn to find guillaume for the 6:57 train to port jervis, via secaucus junction. meeting people at train stations is fun and simple. especially when njtransit has two "ticketing areas" with "waiting areas" right the fuck next to them and you are on the phone with guillaume, patience waning, screaming, "i'm in the ticketing area and i don't see you, you must be in a different ticketing area". finally i decided it would be easier to just meet on the platform, which eventually worked out.
guillaume bought this cute little cabin in bethel, new york. bethel is in the catskills, which is a mountain range and which, like many other mountain ranges, tends to be quite a bit cooler than the surrounding lands. i was not informed of the fact that the heating oil man was not meant to show up until friday morning before we left. meaning that we were heatless for thursday night. obviously this isn't normally a problem in august, but since mother nature decided to smack us upside the head this weekend, it was a pretty serious issue. not only that, but the cracked out people who sold guillaume the house had kindly left the matresses there, but they'd never taken the plastic off. so i slept on a mattress in a plastic bag with one sheet over me. maybe it was the poor quality of the previous night's sleep or my unending generosity, but friday morning i was up and at 'em on the way to home depot for a grill and then on to wal mart for some flannel sheets and comforters and other homey items on which i spent entirely too much money.
some of you may be aware that the catskills were once known as the "borscht belt", a lot of hasids still hang out at decrepit camps in the area and there was no shortage of them when i went on my excursion. still, it's weird to see loads of them roaming around home depot, and odder still, wal mart. it was hard enough for me to simply be in a wal mart, but a wal mart full of hasid families was almost too much. because i like any sport involving a lawn and not much skill, i wandered into the "sporting goods" (read: guns and camo-everything) aisle. i saw a dude buy a gun. i heard another dude (none of these people were curly-cues, by the way) arguing with the gun man about the mandatory waiting period. i walked up to the gun counter and asked if they sold horseshoe games. they were out for the season.
i got back to the house and the heat, propane and cable had been hooked up so i hopped online and did a little work and then got to work grilling the steaks i'd imported from fairway. i bought some lovely hickory chunks which did not abide my impatience and eventually got covered in charcoal. it was a delightful dinner, after which we got insanely baked and watched harold & kumar go to white castle. the next morning i whipped up some chocolate chip scones and strawberries and cream. not healthy in any way, but fantastically delicious.
spent most of saturday travelling through the drizzle of upstate new york and new jersey to the drizzle of brooklyn. luckily, the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy had arrived via netflix. sunday xx and i went to atlantic center. why the hell does it always look like there's about to be a national emergency at target? entire aisles are devoid of product every time i go there.
we hopped up to the maj's who threw a bbq in honor of summer ending and her brother's visit to ny. this event ended in us all being so fucked up that we started throwing any flammable item within reach into the grill. monday was all about productive. i finally finished editing a friend's manuscript in the park and then xx and i met the maj and brother deegan (and briefly lucy) at lovely union hall, where we played some fantastic bocce.
and now here i am, at work. boo.
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