Don’t you think? You get four days — and then a few weeks later you get a much bigger holiday (particularly if you are a college student).
We had a full house, with my nuclear (nuke-lee-er) family, my two cousins and my aunt, my Iraqi friend/classmate Sarmad, and two of my aunts friends from California and Massachusetts. Our dinner ended up being a slight deviation from a traditional dinner (we had originally planned to do a turducken, but that was nixed when I found out from Sarmad that duck is taboo to eat in Iraqi culture — and then I got an email from a TV reporter from Hartford who was looking for a local who was making turducken and found my name on Chowhound and I had to sadly tell her that we had changed plans), with a turkey, Persian rice that my Dad made, butternut acorn squash soup, and five pies, which included two pecans (one rum and one without), pumpkin, apple and key lime mango (which was fantastic, I’ll have to steal the recipe from my cousin Martin).
Post dinner was spent with a short walk around the nabe, and then some of us cozied up to some old episodes of Ali G, which was fun.
On Friday, Roni (my aunt Heidi’s friend from California) left and went to go visit family in Amherst, MA, and Deborah, Heidi, my parents, Sarmad and I went down to southern CT to visit Essex and Saybrook. Essex is a small CT River town with old big New England houses and the like. In Saybrook, which is south of Essex, at the CT river delta into Long Island Sound, we tried briefly to find the grave of my great-great-great-great-grandfather (or something like that), who emigrated from England in the 18th century. To no avail.
We returned, and the kids (Alex [brother], Nena [cousin], Martin, Sarmad and I) went to Providence, RI to see a comedy show of Mitch Hedberg and some crazy folksy humorist guitar player who I’d never heard of called Steve Lynch, who was very funny and reminded me of Tenacious D (Jack Black’s two-man band) who sang songs with titles like: “Damn, That’s An Ugly-Ass Baby” and other such hilarious gems. I’ve seen Mitch in Berkeley before, and I think he was having an off-night. Lynch though, who I’d never heard of prior to coming, was really good. Nena and Alex ended up staying the night at one of Nena’s friend’s house, and the three of us got some greasy Chinese before heading back to Hartford. We just got back about a half hour ago. Good times, indeed.
Saturday, Sarmad and I went to Boston and got come kebab at a place in Cambridge aptly called “Middle East” with Sina. We walked around downtown and headed back to Hartford. Sunday was a lazy Sunday, which we needed, and mostly consisted of sitting by the fire, cooking, and playing chess. Sarmad and I did go to the Mark Twain House in Hartford, where we got a private tour (we were the only ones on the group). That dude was loaded. A three story house, and an early telecom system where you could summon servants and such.
Two more weeks of school. Bleh. NYT and Wired pieces are moving along nicely. I’ll be glad when I can get back on vacation (read: more time to freelance/hang out with family/friends) again.
Sarmad and I also planned a few days after our classes finish to head down to DC, just before he begins his tour across America, which I helped him plan: NY – Buffalo – Niagara – Buffalo – Toledo – Detroit – Chicago (all that by train) and then a plane to Oakland to come hang out with me in CA for about 10 days. So y’all get to meet him, if you’re around. I’ll be down in LA for a few days in there at some point.
Why is the Apple Store so inefficient?
