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Life Updates
Aug. 20th, 2014 05:48 pmThings are admittedly quieter since we’ve gotten all the remaining bits of the house settled. We’ve got a routine mostly set up. ARR was sick last week but got over it quickly. Stress levels are mostly on the decline (well, to the extent our stress levels decline, anyway). This past long weekend was exciting.
- Wedding! Mithrigil and Puella_nerdii’s wedding was Saturday, and it went smashingly. I think I performed my bridesman duties well, having come super-prepared and not needing most of it. (Though I did end up being the witness for the marriage license and the ketubah, being the non-relative attendant who was in the right place at the right time.) They are going to have some absolutely gorgeous pictures, and I think Jethrien caught some of their songs to each other on her cell phone.
- Jethrien and I had scheduled Monday and Tuesday as staycation time—basically, we’d stay home and ARR would go to daycare, so we could enjoy our house and relax and such. I was doubly glad of this plan when my back hurt after the wedding, and then crossed over into annoyed when it turned out I had caught the flu-thing ARR had last week and my vacation became sick days. At least I didn’t have much planned besides playing video games and watching movies, which being sick doesn’t really interfere with.
- Fairylane was willing to brave my germs while she was briefly in town on Monday, so we got to have dinner with her and actually catch up, pre-her wedding in a few weeks.
- We had lunch at The Hamilton Inn here in Jersey City, which was decent but not amazing. They didn’t have the lobster bisque that appears on their online menu, which was disappointing; but the rest of the fair was a decent Americana. I suspect we’ll be trying a bunch of other neighborhood places before we even consider going back, but it was perfectly nice.
- We also tried Union Republic, though we’d had their food at various fairs already. The ramen burger is tasty but hard to eat, more of a gimmick than anything else. The actual ramen (both with and without broth) is very good and very filling. Given their vegetarian options, the only thing keeping me from wanting to have lunch with people there regularly is that it’s a bit of a hike from my office.
- We finally managed to attend the pig butchering class at The Brooklyn Kitchen that we’d failed to reschedule two years ago. I learned some useful things about cooking pork (In general I should be salting it more, and buying better pork so I can cook it rarer), and some fun factoids about pork and pigs in general (Did you know the a “pork butt” is actually the animal’s front shoulder, and the ham is actually the pig’s butt? Or that the baby back ribs and short ribs are two ends of the same ribs, cut apart? Or that you can slow-roast a whole pig’s head and have a dinner party that involves grabbing off hunks?). It was a fun class, and they load you down with pork-based snacks (ham, prosciutto, jerky, sausages, chops, hanger steak, bread with lardo “butter”, and lard chocolate chip cookies) while it’s going on. If ARR doesn’t get over his dairy allergy, we may look into getting their lardo as a substitute for butter for him. It’s got much better flavor than shortening.
- (In completely random news of this weekend: My tumblr got a ton of notes, despite my not having posted anything in weeks, because the official CTY tumblr found my t-shirt blanket post and reblogged it.)
- Wedding! Mithrigil and Puella_nerdii’s wedding was Saturday, and it went smashingly. I think I performed my bridesman duties well, having come super-prepared and not needing most of it. (Though I did end up being the witness for the marriage license and the ketubah, being the non-relative attendant who was in the right place at the right time.) They are going to have some absolutely gorgeous pictures, and I think Jethrien caught some of their songs to each other on her cell phone.
- Jethrien and I had scheduled Monday and Tuesday as staycation time—basically, we’d stay home and ARR would go to daycare, so we could enjoy our house and relax and such. I was doubly glad of this plan when my back hurt after the wedding, and then crossed over into annoyed when it turned out I had caught the flu-thing ARR had last week and my vacation became sick days. At least I didn’t have much planned besides playing video games and watching movies, which being sick doesn’t really interfere with.
- Fairylane was willing to brave my germs while she was briefly in town on Monday, so we got to have dinner with her and actually catch up, pre-her wedding in a few weeks.
- We had lunch at The Hamilton Inn here in Jersey City, which was decent but not amazing. They didn’t have the lobster bisque that appears on their online menu, which was disappointing; but the rest of the fair was a decent Americana. I suspect we’ll be trying a bunch of other neighborhood places before we even consider going back, but it was perfectly nice.
- We also tried Union Republic, though we’d had their food at various fairs already. The ramen burger is tasty but hard to eat, more of a gimmick than anything else. The actual ramen (both with and without broth) is very good and very filling. Given their vegetarian options, the only thing keeping me from wanting to have lunch with people there regularly is that it’s a bit of a hike from my office.
- We finally managed to attend the pig butchering class at The Brooklyn Kitchen that we’d failed to reschedule two years ago. I learned some useful things about cooking pork (In general I should be salting it more, and buying better pork so I can cook it rarer), and some fun factoids about pork and pigs in general (Did you know the a “pork butt” is actually the animal’s front shoulder, and the ham is actually the pig’s butt? Or that the baby back ribs and short ribs are two ends of the same ribs, cut apart? Or that you can slow-roast a whole pig’s head and have a dinner party that involves grabbing off hunks?). It was a fun class, and they load you down with pork-based snacks (ham, prosciutto, jerky, sausages, chops, hanger steak, bread with lardo “butter”, and lard chocolate chip cookies) while it’s going on. If ARR doesn’t get over his dairy allergy, we may look into getting their lardo as a substitute for butter for him. It’s got much better flavor than shortening.
- (In completely random news of this weekend: My tumblr got a ton of notes, despite my not having posted anything in weeks, because the official CTY tumblr found my t-shirt blanket post and reblogged it.)
