Saturday, June 14, 2008
Dean: "That's the messiest I've ever seen your hands!"
Posted at 3:20:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Laura: "Not true, but that's a great quote."
Harry's Cafe (Block Island) lobster roll report:
New England-style bun, buttered and toasted. Excellent bun. The bun is key! Very juicy lobster salad with chunks of celery and red onion as well as a big lettuce liner. Lots of crunch. Good textural contrast. I thought I wouldn't like the red onion but it wasn't bad and the lobster taste was nice and prominent. Good lobster. A surprising big thumbs up for Harry's! (And that lobster salad closeup is curiously beautiful, too.)
[Note: Harry's was having a lobster roll special today, so I didn't have to get the lobster sandwich after all! Lucky me! And even though I thought we'd never make it there before they closed at 3:00, Dean won the bet and we did! Oh, and I had no idea that Harry's is the sister cafe to a Harry's in Vermont!]
Friday, June 13, 2008
We flew to Nancy's for dinner, and it was insanely slow (literally about an hour before I even got a morsel of food) because the waiter messed up, but we barely even minded because we like Nancy's so much. They practically treat us like celebrities (Don: "I brag about you guys all the time!"), and I still have no idea why. Toward the end of the meal, after he'd apologised several times, the waiter explained that he'd figured out what had happened: it was Friday the 13th and we were sitting at table 13. I'm not sure I buy it, since Friday the 13th is my lucky day, but I suppose the waiter could have been jinxed even if 13 is lucky for me.
Posted at 11:12:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
When we first arrived and Don asked if we had reservations (as if he suspected we did), I said, yes, I'd called in before we left the hangar. Me: "I was the one who sounded like a little kid." Don: "You always sound like a little kid.... You are a little kid!" Ha!! He says the kinds of things to me that someone in my family would say. (He'd saved us a great table, the last one in the window overlooking the runway.)
He came over to our table to chat a couple of times later.
Don: "Lemme see those nails!"
Laura: *displays hands with fingernails painted blue*
Don: "Wow. What's the occasion?"
Laura, shrugging: "Being weird."
Then he asked me if I'm a Dexter fan and noted that if they were all different colors "That would be oooohhh," with a dramatic shudder. I love Don!
[Edit: The next day on Block Island, the barista at Bweel's said to me very sincerely, "Awesome nail color!" I never imagined I'd get so much attention out of being whimsical...]
Thursday, June 12, 2008
I don't really have anything to post about, but it's so so so nice out now, yesterday and today. 80s, with a breeze. Nice. Nice. Golden-y glowy fresh fruity frosty warm.
Posted at 6:50:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Things I'm loving right now:
watermelon in general (the taste/smell/color)
pink grapefruit/cantaloupe colors (sisters to watermelon, but more orange)
wearing my cantaloupe-striped seersuckery skirt
Goodies from Hawaii soap, lilikoi passion flav (the smell, feel, and color) (and it's that same color, only darker orange!)
strawberries
ocean blue
blue fingernails!
new Metromint Chocolatemint water
that tired relaxy feeling from working out
Trident gum, good ol' blue flavor
underwater mode on my camera!
I notice there's a lot of overlap.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
I don't think I've ever seen such huge lightning strikes--or, if I have, I don't remember. Big multi-branched bolts like a tree, filling the entire sky out my window. So white and thick and powerful. (But I can't even hear any thunder!) I'm watching and watching from my chaise, with the lights off.
Posted at 11:27:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I went to The Blue Lobster for lunch, in their new non-skeevy location two inches away on the Berlin Turnpike! Excellent little seafood market/restaurant, with lots of goofy lobster-themed signs on the walls and both indoor and outdoor seating. I ate indoors since it was 104 degrees outside. I also got the lobster sandwich rather than the lobster roll, because the lobster roll was the hot Connecticut style, whereas the lobster sandwich was cold lobster salad. I will try the roll sometime, though, just to be a completest.
Posted at 1:48:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
The lobster sandwich came on a hamburger bun (more about this in a second), with lots of crunchy iceberg lettuce on the bottom, a slice of tomato (couldn't really taste it), and big chunks of celery and lots of mayo (too heavyhanded) in the lobster salad. Yummy lobster! The bun was one of those sweet, pillowy Martin's brand buns like Nancy uses, so it was very tasty but called too much attention to itself and overwhelmed the lobster. I suspect that they'll use Martin's buns for the lobster roll too (if so, it won't be a New England style bun); we'll see. Overall it was a delicious little sandwich but no masterpiece. You really need a crispy bun to give a lobster roll balance; otherwise there's too much squish!
Oh, and I never comment on prices, but Blue Lobster's were very cheap! Even though it wasn't my fav sandwich, I like Blue Lobster anyway. It's cute, New Englandy, and is my local lobster roll joint!
Photo from my time-killer hangar photo session last night: here's the corner where I sit while Dean putzes after a flight. From left to right: 1) super-long orange extension cord, 2) extra-warm heater pointed directly at my legs (barely effectual in the winter, but I guess it does help a little), 3) my cool ultra-comfortable chair and sheepskin rug (both from Ikea), 4) matching table with my Treo and radio/scanner on it (it's actually sold as a bench, but it's clearly superior as a table!), 5) my flight bag partially blocking view of cool table's lines, 6) runway map thingy on wall. This is where a girlie calendar should go, but we don't have one.
Posted at 1:32:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Also, here's a video I took this evening when we had to visit Brainard yet again, to taxi Tango from the other end of the airport and put him back in his hangar after he'd passed his tests. It's not that exciting, but it shows what our hangar looks like from the outside and how Tango looks while taxiing, and I'm proud that I held the camera so steady most of the time.
Oh yes, and it was 102° on the Berlin Turnpike this afternoon, according to my car's thermometer. Tomorrow's forecast? "Tomorrow is forecast to be Warmer than today."
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Posted at 11:35:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
That's my favorite bike trail. 7th gear all the way! I just pedal harder or stand up when it's a hill. Watermelon juice and mint chip ice cream in the best waffle cone.
WOW x infinity, they're playing "Positively 4th Street" while I'm waiting alone in the empty hangar while Dean brings Tango to Atlantic and ties him down (he's getting some kind of test tomorrow). They're closed since it's 11:30 PM. My radio/scanner is my PAL! I ran around in my bare feet and took photos of the hangar and headshots to kill time. Underwater mode for the headshots (looked good for some reason!). The hangar floor is so smooth and cool, and my sheepskin rug so thick and soft.
[Cat Report: Distance 21.76 miles; Average speed 9.0 mph; Max speed 24.6 mph; Total time 2:23'38.]
Posted at 10:36:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I love summer night flights. Dark sky, bright lights below, distant lightning illuminating the clouds. Tonight there was a storm over Long Island and it kept flashing bright orange. Perfect songs on my new in-progress summer playlist too. We we took off from Nantucket at sunset and I kept taking 1,000 photos of the sky and darkening island below. The clouds were glowing gold and orange and the sky itself was the most glorious turquoise. I LOVED that blue color.
Even Keel Lobster Roll Report (and portrait):
Posted at 4:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
- New England style bun.
- But I got an end piece, so I only had one exposed side!
- Bun grilled on TOP, not sides. (What the heck!) Sides "raw" and un-buttered.
- Lobster salad very moist and succulent with small broken-up pieces of lobster (no intact claws or anything like that) and lots of seasonings mixed in. [Here's a closeup.]
- Had small green leaf herb (maybe cut up parsley?), black specks of pepper, and tender light yellowish-green things (celery leaf?).
- No celery chunks or lettuce liner.
- Perfect amount of mayo--not conspicuous at all, but did its cohesion job well.
- Lobster tasted very mild--no strong lobstery flavor. Almost could have been shrimp or crab salad, but very tasty. It was good, but the mishandled bun was unfortunate, and the fancy recipe didn't give you that pure lobster roll experience.
Many thanks to Dean for taking dictation on his Palma for me!!
P.S. I love LOVE Even Keel's Greek salad. It seems like it would be boring, but it's so good.
