Winter Is Coming

Winter is coming to New York

when you work at home all day you gotta amuse yourself somehow.  Here is my front of the house squirrel friend.  Is he the same as my back of the house squirrel friend that I got a sweet photo of the other day?

Lil' Jason's first day at school he's so playful and gay!

planned a surprise birthday party for Jen and we got her good!  She didn't see it coming at all.  She even mentioned several times during the week that she was sad that none of her friends even invited her for birthday drinks.  Poor Jen.  Why do the best surprises have to bring people down to the lowest point possible before bringing them up to the highest point?  but we got that mother f@#$@#!!! She was super surprised.

D'Amico coffee on Court street opened up again

Andrew Carnegie for Smithsonian’s collector’s edition “100 Most Influential Americans of All Time” issue on newsstands today.  They had illustrators do a full page opening illustrations each of the 10 categories like: Outlaws (Boss Tweed illustrated by the amazing Edward Kinsella) and Empire builders (Andrew Carnegie).  Carnegie is famous in part for his steel empire, hence the steel girders background.  The salmon colored one is an alternate color version.

Mel and Gerald had a 100 day celebration for their Chinese kid Avan in flushing at a Chinese banquet hall.  Complete with auspicious dyed red eggs

went shopping for asian goods afterwards at some big Chinese supermarket and Jen was getting p!ssed about being shoved around but I said you're basically in China now so this is normal.  Then I started getting p!ssed about people line cutting.  It really is like China in new york

Super Natsuki Tamura playing a bunch of stuff including a didgeridoo and looking like a proper Japanese musician that came to New York to be crazy

I made some kind of Asian soup.  Konbu, anchovies, shittake mushrooms, korean hot pepper flakes, leeks, miso, etc...

Maglia Rosa, a new coffee place opened at the end of the block a few doors down from us!  but it's expensive!  This looks like what the prices would be if it were in Italy.  The owner is this nice guy from Milan.   Its also a bike shop too.  I'll probably take my bike there to get a tune up and go there for coffee sometimes.  Can't wait to work there on my laptop too.  They aren't advertising that its open so there isn't any increased people watching from my window yet :(

the place looks great and has this sweet looking espresso machine

I forgot to take a photo of this tiny kids sized Bianchi road bike and the store front with their cool graphic design identity

Winter is coming and I don't like it

still waiting to frame this 1956 pin up gal by Jean Gabriel Domergue

Southern Maine

Jen's Bday Southern Maine trip

Love Lane and Henry Street looks like London but it's Brooklyn Heights.

Bob donates his hair to Lock of Love, according to him about every 2 years.  He takes super good care of it and it takes him like 45 minutes to wash it.  Asian hair is worth a lot but some lucky kid is gonna get bob's hair.  "Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 21 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis." http://www.locksoflove.org/

Daniel Fishel's pizza party during illustration week

We we rented a Ford Fiesta (a pretty crappy car) and drove to Kennebunkport, Maine.  This place, The Maine Diner is next to it in Wells.  This is the seafood chowder.  Look at it go!

The Triple D, named because the Food Network show Diners Dives and Drive-ins came here.  The Triple D is seafood chowder, cod cake, and lobster pie.  chowder was good, cod cake was decent but the lobster pie was dissapointing.  It was loster cooked in that ceramic thing with oily breadcrumbs baked on top basically.  Better seafood was had later in the trip.

we stayed at The Lodge on the Cove.  Maine is all about coves, they're everywhere adding cuteness all over Maine.

across the cove

wine opener

it looks like the sun is always setting in Maine.

The Jenny in the willows

Kennebunkport is most famous for being the playland of the Bush family, as in the presidents George Sr. and W.  This is their compound.

The Fisherman's Grill in Portland, Maine.  The best seafood we had.  Scallops, clam chowder, lobster roll.  It's out of the way but worth it.  Sooner is better than later because I heard them talking about selling out of stuff way before their closing time.

8 oz of lobster piled high but it seemed like more.  the best lobster we had.

the Portland Head Light is supposedly the most photographed lighthouse in the world.  It's on Cape Elizabeth

old lighthouse

The Annie C. Maguire shipwrecked on Christmas eve of 1886 here despite the visibility being fine.

over at the Two Lights park looking for the 2 other lighthouses which ended up being down the road.

lighthouse 2

lighthouse 1 was decommissioned in 1924

Maps bar was a great Portland find.  Maps all over and great records playing.  Otis redding and Gladys Knight records are two I can remember them playing.  Run by a husband and wife

When they aren't playing records they have this awesome jukebox.  Patsy Cline, T Rex

Elvis Costello, Thin Lizzy and lots of songs by artists I know but have never heard.

lots of maps means lots of conversation.  Maps is a great bar

and I found this on their bookshelf.  I didn't know it existed.  The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, as in from the 90s David Lynch TV show, Twin Peaks.  Love that show

we went to dinner at Fore Street famous for its huge open kitchen dining area.  The food was great.  Their menu changes everyday.  We had a whole sea bass and some seafood sampler and it was all spectac.  It seemed like the place where start-ups went to have little company dinners.

their vegetable pantry.

Portland's docks

Bob's Clam Shack in Kittery an hour south of Kennebunkport.  It was also featured on the show Diners, Dives and Drive-ins so now it's super busy and probably has gone down in quality.  It seems to be many commenters opinions when you look up restaurants that were featured on the food shows.  These clams were good.  Lillian's style are dipped in an egg wash and fried and Bob's style are traditionally fried.  Both have their merits and both were delish.  Jen has a problem with the clam to fry ratio but I think that's just her problem.

ok see you later Maine.  6 hour drive back to NY.  We were happy to eat and nuzzle in to watch the Walking Dead (which I hate but keep watching).