Before I head off to Boston and Yale, I should blog about my excellent trip into the city last weekend. The whirlwind tour started off with a Shabbat dinner at Andy's. Three orthodox Jewish couples and me--so I stood out in more ways than one. Also, I didn't share the sentiment that Hamas winning the election was okay because now the Palestinians would just "kill each other." But, thankfully, we steered clear of most political issues. Bracha and I had a nice chat about the existentialism of Garden State. (One addendum: it didn't occur to me until about three days after watching the movie the obvious parallel between the protagonist's surname, Largeman, and the term ubermensch.)
Friday night I stayed over at Seth's place, where I scored a rare Scrabble victory over him. (The win was even more impressive because Seth got the Q, Z, and X.) We watched the old Hitchcock version of Mr and Mrs Smith, which is nothing like the new Pitt/Jolie remake. Back in 1941, I don't think women were allowed to be gun-wielding spies in movies (knife-wielding, maybe), so the plot was just about their marital troubles. The beginning and middle were funny, but the ending definitely dragged.
Saturday, I went dress shopping....with my high-school-aged cousins. They're from rural Maine, and it was a great coincidence that both their family and I were in NYC on the same weekend. The girls are off to a winter/Valentine's Day formal in a few weeks and want to show up with dresses from SoHo. Unfortunately, despite the countless small shops we visited, they left empty-handed. I hope they did better on Sunday. I spent that evening with Kevin: Seth and Samidh also showed up to make it a Beast reunion. Continuing the beat-Seth-at-games weekend theme, Samidh and I beat the other two 2e alums in a hotly contested game of Taboo.
To celebrate the Chinese New Year we tried some durian, which is an exotic Asian fruit. Durian smells....a lot. Just unwrapping the aluminum foil around the fruit (which is still intact) fills the room with its scent. And then once you actually crack it open....oy. It's no wonder that hotels in Asia have big signs that say "NO DURIAN." Samidh and Kevin enjoyed it, though Seth and I found the taste rather repulsive. Just check out the quote halfway through the wikipedia article to get a sense of what I mean.
Sunday, Naomi and I went skating in central park and (on her recommendation) to the show Jewtopia. Some of my friends *cough*Seth*cough* had told me the show was a disappointment, but they couldn't be further from the truth. We barely had time to catch our breath amid the continuous laughter from the opening scene to the end. The acting was impressive, especially the female lead who played about a dozen different characters throughout the show. The climax of the show was an unintended "wardrobe malfunction," by which one of the male leads gave himself a wedgie with his Purim costume. The actors on stage cracked up and the audience loudly applauded to give them time to compose themselves. Just too funny.
Had a quick dinner with Rachel from Dean, and then took Metro-North to visit Chicklet. She gave me an awesome belated Chanukah present featuring the Moose Menorah. To top off a great weekend, we watched "The Stackhouse Filibuster," one of the best West Wing episodes ever. (And the topic was timely given the status of the Alito nomination.) Got back in time Monday to meet with my prof about research. And my illegally-parked car wasn't even towed at Princeton Junction!
Yesterday, after listening to the uneventful SOTU and the "eyebrow-raising" Democratic response, I headed over to the GC for a politics/econ grad student party. Gosh, my cohort loves its alcohol. Anyway, it was a "dress up weird" party, and I had not a clue what that meant, so I arrived normally clad. At which point I was taken by the wrist and shown the "costume" table. Well, the only garments left were oddly-decorated tank tops, so I shed my sweater and threw on one of Ling's tops. I hope I didn't stretch it too badly--though the creator didn't endow me with the biggest chest so at least that part of the top remained unscathed throughout the evening. All in all, a very fun and relaxing five days--I hope the trend continues up north.
Leave a comment