Weekend Update
Feb. 21st, 2005 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kathygnomeWell, I'm nicely at home since it's a holiday. It's snowing a lot, but I really don't care. It's hitting all my nesting instincts and making me feel really pleasant to be in a nice warm house. i guess that reaction says a lot about the weekend since I was losing it from cabin fever not very long ago.
Let's see, we drove out friday night, checked into the motel which wasn't too sleazy, but had a desk clerk straight out of central casting's "white trash girl with too much makeup." Not at all what you expect from the Pioneer Valley. Even in Greenfield, where we stayed since we drive all over anyway and it's cheaper than Amherst or Noho. After checking in we ran to Panda East and had a wonderful dinner of hunan pork and ginger chicken and string beans. And the first good hot and sour soup I've had in, oh, the 12 years since we moved away from the Pioneer Valley.
And Janna looked at me and said exactly the same thing I was thinking "I haven't been around this many people under 60 since we moved to cape." It was really wonderful.
After that we drove around a bit. Not much to see. It was, after all, dark. The next morning we grabbed coffee and croissant at the Black Sheep, which is a nice little coffeehouse sort of place in Amherst. The Sumatra was delicious. And we tried to stifle laughter at the group next to us. Three activists discussing what it meant to be a leader in the radical movement against the capitalist culture. Highlights included the anglos trying to use some Spanish for its radical chic (I thought that disappeared with the Sandanistas) and that the third member was a very well dressed girl that Janna and I dubbed "Meadow Soprano."
After that we popped out to do some shopping. We probably spent a few hours in Target. Yes... shopping on cape is that limited tha we go to Target on our vacation. Clothes were a big zilch. Anytime Old Navy comes out as conservative when comparing the color spectrum, you are in trouble! I grabbed a bunch of nice cheap earrings on flats to fill out my collections and a pretty new wallet. I love the wallet that contains everything idea and have this huge checkbook one, but the practice in my purse has been a disaster. So this one is little and red and does everything I need it to. I also found a bra. >faints< Thank you Daphne for your suggestion of going with a way too small size and using band extenders.
After this we popped over to Thornes. That turned out to be way fun. We found a girly girl store with probably the biggest selection of natural skin care I've ever seen. Grabbed a sampler of Burt's Bees products. We already use a ton of BB skin stuff and conveniently this was like everything costmetic-ish that we don't currently use. At another store, or was it the same one, they had Ugly dolls. Now I love my Tray. Even more because somewhere in the middle of marketing, they decided their genders weren't matched so all the Tray descriptions went from being a boy to a girl. And this place had ugly key chains. So I absolutely had to have one of those. Still not sure where I'll use it. Right now it's hanging off my purse strap. I guess Tray's popular because they only had two of her left.
We bopped around a few other stores, but that was definitely the highlight. A few of the boutiques were really depressing. If I lived in Noho, I could just go to them every day and it would keep me on the straight and narrow for dieting! Yes, we have all three sizes, 2, 4, and 6! *laughs* Faces made me feel older than dirt. Then it did that when I was a frosh.
We grabbed a few drinks, wandered around in Thornes and then a bit outside, which we figured was a really bad idea due to the cold. Then we drove around doing some siteseeing until it was time for our tub. We had an outside hot tub reserved. We've done this before and it's great. But when you first try to strip, outside, in 20' weather you never think the thing can actually be warm enough. It was funny. Fifteen minutes later we were lounging on the deck trying to cool off. It was so wonderfully relaxing. We had an hour and almost made it to the end. We got out about a minute before the buzzer. Wow that deck was cold!
After that we hit Bub's. Well actually we interspersed checking out what had happened to parts of U-Mass and Amherst while waiting for the Bub's line to wind down a bit. I can't believe all the construction at U-Mass. I assume most of that is the post-Dukakis era. Despite his reputation as some frenzied liberal, Dukakis had a particular personal loathing of public higher education in general and U-Mass in particular. "We don't need first class public universities in a state that has Harvard and MIT." So really while we were at U-Mass, not much was going on other than budget cuts.
Finally food. God Bub's is wonderful. I think even better than it was back when we lived in the happy valley. I ate and ate and ate and ate. And then I ate a bit. After that we went back to the motel and just plain collapsed.
Sunday we spent the morning sipping coffee while driving around in the woods. We'd seen this Tibetan restaurant the day before in noho and couldn't resist trying something new so we had lunch there. Interesting cuisine. We had this tea with butter and salt mixture that was, well, not so much to the western taste. But interesting. And we got these steamed dumplings which were ungodly good. And some kind of beef with noodle thing that was served with steamed bread that was amazing. The tastes were sort of Chinese, but not quite. Neat place.
While we were there I looked around at the other lesbians in the place. And I love Noho, because you can say that... oh yeah, the other lesbian couples at the restaurant. And I had the most interesting observation. "Holy shit, I'm a femme." Seriously, I swear, I had the most girly outfit in the entirety of Northampton and more makeup than the rest of the town. And that includes Janna. It was just a pair of green jeansters and a turtleneck from old navy. But geezus, with some lipstick, base, and jewelry did I stand out. And I'm starting to "get" the whole femme pride thing because approval wasn't exactly raining down on us. Now I've never thought of myself as femmy at all. And it's hard to see myself that way when I'm wearing hikers. But geez, in comparison. Wow.
Then we wandered around noho since it was a bit warmer and did a little bit more shopping. I got some beautiful red dangly earrings at Ten Thousand Villages. Then we got on the road for home.
Last night was what someone called "the gayest night on tv ever." But we missed the Simpsons. I don't think i'ts been the same since Homer jumped the shark on his motorcycle... Who the gay person was was the world's worst kept secret. I don't even regret missing it which says a lot about whether or not the Simpson's should hang it up. Speaking of Femme Pride, the L-Word OTOH we were very excited about. OMG someone hired some serious stylists! And ... yeah... Wow, you can tell from the outfits that the show's doing well. It was a very first episode thing. Taking care of some business in a not particularly subtle way. Dana is having some major major fun at Alice's expense. Jenny is still a nutcase. And Kit and Ivan are still absolutely stealing the show. Please Goddess more Ivan and Kit. (And that is really not because of the gender thing Ivan has going on.) Loved Kit's comments to her sister about her paradigm. Very on target. But in a show where there's already a ton of chemistry, those two have more going on than the entire rest of the cast.
All in all it was a wonderful weekend. Very very relaxing. I feel like I've been away for weeks. Of course, this is also the first vacation I've taken in about three years that didn't involve seeing a surgeon or lots of anxiety about my gender.
Let's see, we drove out friday night, checked into the motel which wasn't too sleazy, but had a desk clerk straight out of central casting's "white trash girl with too much makeup." Not at all what you expect from the Pioneer Valley. Even in Greenfield, where we stayed since we drive all over anyway and it's cheaper than Amherst or Noho. After checking in we ran to Panda East and had a wonderful dinner of hunan pork and ginger chicken and string beans. And the first good hot and sour soup I've had in, oh, the 12 years since we moved away from the Pioneer Valley.
And Janna looked at me and said exactly the same thing I was thinking "I haven't been around this many people under 60 since we moved to cape." It was really wonderful.
After that we drove around a bit. Not much to see. It was, after all, dark. The next morning we grabbed coffee and croissant at the Black Sheep, which is a nice little coffeehouse sort of place in Amherst. The Sumatra was delicious. And we tried to stifle laughter at the group next to us. Three activists discussing what it meant to be a leader in the radical movement against the capitalist culture. Highlights included the anglos trying to use some Spanish for its radical chic (I thought that disappeared with the Sandanistas) and that the third member was a very well dressed girl that Janna and I dubbed "Meadow Soprano."
After that we popped out to do some shopping. We probably spent a few hours in Target. Yes... shopping on cape is that limited tha we go to Target on our vacation. Clothes were a big zilch. Anytime Old Navy comes out as conservative when comparing the color spectrum, you are in trouble! I grabbed a bunch of nice cheap earrings on flats to fill out my collections and a pretty new wallet. I love the wallet that contains everything idea and have this huge checkbook one, but the practice in my purse has been a disaster. So this one is little and red and does everything I need it to. I also found a bra. >faints< Thank you Daphne for your suggestion of going with a way too small size and using band extenders.
After this we popped over to Thornes. That turned out to be way fun. We found a girly girl store with probably the biggest selection of natural skin care I've ever seen. Grabbed a sampler of Burt's Bees products. We already use a ton of BB skin stuff and conveniently this was like everything costmetic-ish that we don't currently use. At another store, or was it the same one, they had Ugly dolls. Now I love my Tray. Even more because somewhere in the middle of marketing, they decided their genders weren't matched so all the Tray descriptions went from being a boy to a girl. And this place had ugly key chains. So I absolutely had to have one of those. Still not sure where I'll use it. Right now it's hanging off my purse strap. I guess Tray's popular because they only had two of her left.
We bopped around a few other stores, but that was definitely the highlight. A few of the boutiques were really depressing. If I lived in Noho, I could just go to them every day and it would keep me on the straight and narrow for dieting! Yes, we have all three sizes, 2, 4, and 6! *laughs* Faces made me feel older than dirt. Then it did that when I was a frosh.
We grabbed a few drinks, wandered around in Thornes and then a bit outside, which we figured was a really bad idea due to the cold. Then we drove around doing some siteseeing until it was time for our tub. We had an outside hot tub reserved. We've done this before and it's great. But when you first try to strip, outside, in 20' weather you never think the thing can actually be warm enough. It was funny. Fifteen minutes later we were lounging on the deck trying to cool off. It was so wonderfully relaxing. We had an hour and almost made it to the end. We got out about a minute before the buzzer. Wow that deck was cold!
After that we hit Bub's. Well actually we interspersed checking out what had happened to parts of U-Mass and Amherst while waiting for the Bub's line to wind down a bit. I can't believe all the construction at U-Mass. I assume most of that is the post-Dukakis era. Despite his reputation as some frenzied liberal, Dukakis had a particular personal loathing of public higher education in general and U-Mass in particular. "We don't need first class public universities in a state that has Harvard and MIT." So really while we were at U-Mass, not much was going on other than budget cuts.
Finally food. God Bub's is wonderful. I think even better than it was back when we lived in the happy valley. I ate and ate and ate and ate. And then I ate a bit. After that we went back to the motel and just plain collapsed.
Sunday we spent the morning sipping coffee while driving around in the woods. We'd seen this Tibetan restaurant the day before in noho and couldn't resist trying something new so we had lunch there. Interesting cuisine. We had this tea with butter and salt mixture that was, well, not so much to the western taste. But interesting. And we got these steamed dumplings which were ungodly good. And some kind of beef with noodle thing that was served with steamed bread that was amazing. The tastes were sort of Chinese, but not quite. Neat place.
While we were there I looked around at the other lesbians in the place. And I love Noho, because you can say that... oh yeah, the other lesbian couples at the restaurant. And I had the most interesting observation. "Holy shit, I'm a femme." Seriously, I swear, I had the most girly outfit in the entirety of Northampton and more makeup than the rest of the town. And that includes Janna. It was just a pair of green jeansters and a turtleneck from old navy. But geezus, with some lipstick, base, and jewelry did I stand out. And I'm starting to "get" the whole femme pride thing because approval wasn't exactly raining down on us. Now I've never thought of myself as femmy at all. And it's hard to see myself that way when I'm wearing hikers. But geez, in comparison. Wow.
Then we wandered around noho since it was a bit warmer and did a little bit more shopping. I got some beautiful red dangly earrings at Ten Thousand Villages. Then we got on the road for home.
Last night was what someone called "the gayest night on tv ever." But we missed the Simpsons. I don't think i'ts been the same since Homer jumped the shark on his motorcycle... Who the gay person was was the world's worst kept secret. I don't even regret missing it which says a lot about whether or not the Simpson's should hang it up. Speaking of Femme Pride, the L-Word OTOH we were very excited about. OMG someone hired some serious stylists! And ... yeah... Wow, you can tell from the outfits that the show's doing well. It was a very first episode thing. Taking care of some business in a not particularly subtle way. Dana is having some major major fun at Alice's expense. Jenny is still a nutcase. And Kit and Ivan are still absolutely stealing the show. Please Goddess more Ivan and Kit. (And that is really not because of the gender thing Ivan has going on.) Loved Kit's comments to her sister about her paradigm. Very on target. But in a show where there's already a ton of chemistry, those two have more going on than the entire rest of the cast.
All in all it was a wonderful weekend. Very very relaxing. I feel like I've been away for weeks. Of course, this is also the first vacation I've taken in about three years that didn't involve seeing a surgeon or lots of anxiety about my gender.
