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Friday night, Fizzy and I went to a party with her college friend Karen. The party, celebrating Karen’s friend Garth’s birthday, was in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights district, and but a scant few blocks from the notoriously dangerous Bedford-Stuyvesant district. Fortunately, out there, a mere block or two can mean the difference between being in Brooklyn or Crooklyn, and we stayed safe. While at the party, I met the notorious Grendel:

We had a blast, Grendel and I. We took turns reciting Beowulf to one another in the original Middle English. As you may have noticed, Grendel is in fact a sock puppet. Here is another photograph of him, this time with his creator and puppeteer Seth in the frame:

That isn’t a terribly flattering shot of Seth, as he has been caught in mid-Grendel-growl. He’s far more dashing in person; Seth that is. Grendel is pretty much what you see. I only just met Seth (he’s Garth’s roommate), but he seems like an interesting fellow. At the very least he gets credit for properly pronouncing my tricky-to-say surname. It turns out he has heard of my older brother, a well-known poet, and that’s how he knew the name. That happens to me from time to time, and it is always a bit strange, but I roll with it.

Tonight (tho ’tis now Sunday morning, at least in New York) we met up with Karen again, as well as another of Sue’s college friends, Richard, and some other people (including a friend of Karen’s, who recognized me as DJ Greg! from the Berkeley party days) and attended a free concert at Columbia University. Columbia is celebrating its 250th anniversary; the school is older then the United States of America!

Speaking of Columbia, the other day, while sauntering up Broadway, near Tom’s Diner, whom do I run into but my friend Raj a.k.a. DJ Entropy. It seems that after finishing his EECS degree at Berkeley, he realized engineering wasn’t for him, and he is now at Columbia earning a Ph.D in Economics. How random to encounter him on a New York sidewalk! Not only that, but it turns out that he lives across the street from Richard (whom he does not know) who lives across the street from Karen, who doesn’t even go to Columbia. Out of all of Manhattan, three people I know randomly chose dwellings within two doors of each other… but I have seriously digressed. The free concert was really great. Wyclef Jean performed. Here he is now:

He put on a fantastic show. If he is to be believed, he came straight from being treated at a hospital to Columbia to peform. Erykah Badu was scheduled to perform too, but could not make it due to an unspecified illness.” Wyclef called her out while freestyling, asking if he was in the hospital that day and was still able to make it, “what the fuck sickness does Erykah Badu have?” His set lasted more than two hours, and he kept forcing the promoters and security to let him continue, as he was only supposed to play about an hour. His show was as fun and eclectic, running the gamut from the expected rap, reggae, and R & B, to a cappella gospel, and even ’50s era boogie woogie rock & roll.

After the show, five of us went to the Meat Packing District to eat dinner. Isn’t that a great name for a part of town? We had great French food at Pastis, including a bowl of raw steak, and then waited in a far-too-long line at Magnolia’s Bakery for what are reported to be the best cupcakes in the world. Here is a crappy picture of the joint:

You can’t tell how long, or how slow-moving, the line is from that picture, but trust me it was both. The cupcakes? In all honesty, I found them no better or worse then any other cupcake I’ve ever eaten. To be fair, it is the frosting that is supposed to make them especially wonderful, and I’m not a fan of frosting, so don’t take my word as gospel. There was certainly a large crowd clamoring for them, especially considering it was nearly midnight, so clearly a great many people adore them.

We ate said cupcakes at a park across the street. New York is great for having tons of small parks with benches and tables. This one also had literally hundreds of small mice frolicking about. They were awfully cute, like Stuart Littles everywhere.

This final picture is of a really neat chair I saw while walking away from Magnolia’s. Isn’t great how the zebra’s tail and mane were lined up and incorporated in the chair? Boy do I want that. It would look perfect in my living room, which is already full of leopard and tiger print.

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I’ll try to post a blog that provides greater details concerning our time in New York, but suffice to say that Sue and I are enjoying ourselves here. We’ve been walking all over the island of Manhattan, catching up with friends, and generally having fun. This morning we walked up the block from our hotel in search of a diner for lunch; lo and behold, what did we see? This:

Tom’s Restaurant was famously used for the exterior shots of the diner Seinfeld and his gang frequented, but it was previously famous as the diner Suzanne Vega sang about in the early ’90s hit “Tom’s Diner.” It became famous, twice! The food there is unremarkable, which is about par for the course for any diner, really.

Last night we walked about Times Square. This one-time hotbed for sin and debauchery has become pretty doggone wholesome. One can even watch a sporting event on the massive video screen. I daresay those are the Rams engaged in a heated match against, ummm, the Pirates? I don’t really know; one team was for sure called the Rams.

I love the look of the Times Square Police Department’s sign.

That’s all I have for you at this time. I’ll return in a few days to share more pictures and stories of our trip to New York. In the meantime, help me fill in the blank above and choose an opponent for the Los Angeles, excuse me, St. Louis Rams. Today’s Question: What is your favorite football team?

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While Peasprout is away on his vacation, we here at the Peasprout Dept. of Blogging will be checking in with him periodically and reporting back to you concerning his activities.

He has currently been sighted sitting at an outdoor table in front of the New York Public Library, sipping coffee with a beautiful woman. It looks as though he is using his laptop, but it’s hard to tell. We have just received confirmation that the woman is in fact Fizzy. We’ll send an agent to speak to them, and have the details of the conversation ready to be posted soon.

—

It turns out they were discussing where to eat dinner tonight.

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Talk about serendipity– when I sat down to write today, I decided to cover the next cocktail on the list I posted awhile back. I consulted said list, and saw that I promised a recipe for a Manhattan would follow that for a martini. Tomorrow I will be in Manhattan, today I am writing about the eponymous libation. How about that?

Predating even the venerable martini, the Manhattan was probably first concocted in 1881 or 1882 at the Manhattan Club in New York City. It is traditionally made with rye whiskey, though many bars pour it with a whiskey chosen seemingly random, so be sure to specify rye if you order one, lest you be served something less than optimal.

I reminded you in my previous cocktail post that a martini is better stirred than shaken; while a martini is less appealing shaken, a shaken Manhattan is almost undrinkable. The drink itself will be cloudy, and an unappetizing foam will congeal atop the drink, so please stir.

Manhattan Cocktail

2 ounces rye whiskey, preferably Rittenhouse 100-proof
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir ingredients over ice for about one minute, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a marschino cherry. Twist an orange peel over the drink to spritz the surface of the cocktail with the oils, then rub the peel around the rim of the glass, and discard the peel.

(If you cannot find Rittenhouse 100-proof rye, Old Overholt makes a fine substitute.)

A word about the maraschino cherry: the chewy, sweet cherries, reminiscent of formaldehyde, that you are normally served in drinks at bars are not suitable for a proper drink. You can make your own maraschino cherries from scratch easily enough, and I’ll provide a recipe in another post, but if you haven’t the time, I’d suggest garnishing the drink with the ordinarily-discarded orange twist rather than spoiling it with a fake cherry.

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I just finalized reservations for a trip to New York City. Fizzy and I are going to be there from the 12th through the 20th of October. I don’t think any of my readers are New Yorkers, but if you are (or if you will be there then) please feel free to fire suggestions at us for where to go and what to do. Or find us and hang out with us. Just don’t rob our home while we are away; perhaps it is a bad idea to share such information in a public forum?

For the most part, we’re going there as a vacation, but not entirely as one. We’re considering moving to New York City some time next year. Sure, I have my business here, but I think I could do the same thing there, while still running this one; open a second office, as it were. Meanwhile, Fizzy can find a super-wonderful job and support us both. Right??

Fizzy doesn’t know New York, so this is her chance to see if she wants to become a New Yorker. Me? I am very familiar with New York, though only as a visitor. This will be a chance to see if I want to live there. I have always returned from previous trips with the sense that, while New York is a great city to visit, it would be a terrible place to live. This will be my first time going there with a proper mindset of “could I live here,” however, so maybe I’ll come back with a different attitude.

I’m not getting any younger after all, and I think I may need a new challenge; a change of pace, if you will. I mean to say, life here is certainly good, but perhaps I take it easy too often. I’m more then comfortable, some would say too comfortable, and maybe I need to struggle and claw my way to the top all over again. I may well regret thinking such things when I’m enduring a sweltering New York summer, or slogging through a January blizzard, and I will no doubt miss the 6-day “weekends” I now enjoy, not to mention the year-round perfect weather, great food, culture…hmmm…I’d best shush or I’ll talk myself out of it the move I even get there.

I think Evelyn Waugh summed up my feelings about New York City when he wrote, “in that city there is [a] neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy.” This is the Big Apple’s big chance to change my mind and win me over. I’ll report back upon my return and let you know if this young man is headed East.

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Another summer, another vacation is over
It’s September now with the sun and the smell of the clover
Down by the gate we sit and we watch all our friends go by
And pretend we don’t hear the bell that rings through the summer sky

I’m not in the mood for paragraphs and such, so instead you are getting a bullet point recap of my trip. I may not even pay attention to punctuation or verb tense, so steel yourself as I let my grammar slop over.

Drove to Los Angeles, El Segundo to be precise, with Mom.
On the way we stopped for dinner with my Aunt & Uncle in Thousand Oaks, a town I like to call T.O.
Missed Fizzy.
Drinks and a beautiful night on Newport Beach with my friend Janet.
Mom’s High School Reunion.
Caught up with various friends.
Drinks with Pessi and Sweetpea at Good Luck Bar, Pessi’s new hangout, and met Doorboy, her new crush.
Lunch and games with Mom’s high school friends Dorothy and Marci, way down in Oceanside.
Took an aimless but fun drive through Hawthorne, Lawndale, Inglewood and Torrance.
More missing of the Fizzy
Lunch at Southern California’s best deli, Giuliani’s in Gardena.
The long drive North.
Dropped Mom off at her house in Sebastopol.
Home at last. Fizzy!
It was all that and a bag of chips. Hawthorne is nicer then it was when we moved away (not that it could have grown any worse), and overall a good time was had by all. But sleep? Hardly. Maybe 16 hours total over a four night span. I caught up on some of that last night, but am about to go hibernate.

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I’m not shaping up to be much of a blogger, am I? Nearly a month has passed between entries. My excuse is simple: my life is rather average. Rather than write daily entries chronicling the mundane I try to wait until I have a grand or amusing anecdote to relate. My life being what it is, the wait may sometimes be significant.

Since my last post, I have traveled. My eldest brother was appointed to run a federal committee, so I went to Washington, DC to attend the swearing in ceremony. Alberto Gonzalez swore him in; I’ve never heard of him, but rumors abound that he’s poised to be someone someday. He seems a nice enough fellow.

The trip was rather uneventful. I spent time with my brother and his family, and took an overnight trip to New York to catch up with some friends there. While in New York I ate Tibetan food and attended a party. That was pretty fun, actually. The only real downer was that Sue couldn’t get time off work to come on the trip with me, which meant we had to spend Valentine’s Day apart, but I made it up to her upon returning.

I hope that was worth the month-long wait.