Friday, August 7, 2009

Night in NYC.






Wednesday I had to attend a conference in South Orange, NJ so I couldn't resist the temptation to hop the train to New York's Penn Station and walk around the city for a while. I wanted to visit the New York Hard Rock Cafe again (last time I was there was a couple months before the September 11th terrorist attacks). Here are some pics that I took with my iPhone - not too bad if I say so myself!

Sunday, August 2, 2009

I gave him crabs for his birthday!




Hal's birthday is tomorrow so today we tried to celebrate a little. He wanted to go to Baltimore's Inner Harbor to tour an old Civil War era ship called the USS Constellation, so he did that while I drug Sarah over to the Hard Rock Cafe's merchandise shop. Finally joined the All Access Club which is pretty neat! Hal was able to leisurely tour the ship without a gazillion questions or comments from the little tot, and I frantically chased her around and talked her out of a Hard Rock teddy bear. After a while longer in the Inner Harbor, we headed back to Westminster. On the way back I suddenly was hit with the idea of taking Hal out for crabs. Here in Maryland, eating crabs is a big deal and I don't see how we've been here so long without having done this. So we pull into the Full Moon Pub and order a bowl of crab dip, a bowl of cream of crab soup, and then our nice waitress bops over and asks us if we'd like the $1.50 crabs. We both get blank looks on our face and explain that we're not from 'round here and if she was willing to show us how to eat them, we'd be happy to entertain the idea. She happily obliged and we waited for our crab extravaganza. Her name turned out to be Sarah Jean so she and our Sarah had a chat about their names while she patiently showed us how to hammer open the shells and pull out the crab meat. I have to say, it was very strange. I felt sorry for the little crabs. I felt a bit cannibalistic too. I mean, it was a whole crab, eyeballs and all. When you go for a steak, you don't have to break apart the cow, and when you go for chicken you don't have to break off its legs and scrape out its innards. So I did this for the experience of having done it, but I probably will not ever do it again. Sarah Jean explained about how the crabbing industry works, and also about the social crabbing culture up here. She was the best waitress I've had in a long, long time. She hovered nearby even though she was busy just so she could help us if it looked like we might eat something we weren't supposed to! Hal very much enjoyed his early birthday present. I'm glad because that man stresses me to no end each year as I try to come up with something unique that he doesn't already have.