Superbowl XLVII

superbowl2013

For Superbowl XLVII (47) we went to Jen and Chad’s house. They somewhat recently painted one of their kitchen walls with the chalkboard paint. I’m sure this was for Quinn, but it worked great for the squares game!

No one really cared very much who won the game, except Chad’s dad, who was cheering for Baltimore because he used to live there. Since the game was in New Orleans, Chad and Jen had a New Orleans-themed party. Danny cooked chicken and sausage gumbo and crawfish etouffee. Jen made andouille cheese dip and jalapeno poppers stuffed with crab. Brian and Jill brought king cake. Another friend brought hurricane punch. To contribute to the party and to be on theme, I made praline cookies. More on that later!

The best part of the Superbowl this year was Beyonce’s halftime show. I thought it was really great. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. After the half time there was a power outage. San Francisco was way down and tried to make a big comeback, but Baltimore won in the end.

Jeopardy: Chad Edition


Chad’s Birthday Mug


Chad, Cousin, Dallas, Trent


Chen-Je, Jen, Jason


Limey, Ted, Fitz, Paul, Carrie, Trent


Chad & Dallas


Chad & Rachelle

In grand family tradition of playing bar games for 40th birthday parties, we all gathered last weekend to celebrate Chad’s big birthday and played Jeopardy: Chad Edition. Remember, for Brian’s party there was the Pub Crawl Olympics and for Jill’s there was Survivor Wrigleyville.


Brian setting up the Jeopardy board.


Jill explaining the rules.


Jeopardy Team Representatives: Carrie, Limey, Ted

For Chad’s 40th birthday Jen rented out the beer garden at Fizz, but since it was raining, we were in a heated tent. We paid $35 for all the drinks we could drink for 4 hours and Jen arranged for some really delicious food to be served as well. At the appointed time, we all gathered to play Jeopardy. When we arrived Jen had given us each a number: 1, 2 or 3. This was to sort people into 3 teams. I was on Team 2: Team Burrito House. We chose Limey to be our team representative. When the answers were presented, Limey had to yell Burrito House to buzz in with the correct question. The other teams and reps were Ted for Team Guthries, Team 1, and Carrie (and later Danny) for Team Syracuse.


Chad


Getting intense!

These were the categories – For the Jeopardy round there was The Man and His Bans, Potent Potables, and Movies & Music. In Double Jeopardy there was Chad’s Sports Follies, Brushes With Fame, and He’s Had a Job or Two. The Final Jeopardy category was Location, Location, Location and the question was about how many places Chad has lived in Chicago. Jill and Brian constructed the Jeopardy board. Jill played Vannah White, flipping the answers open, while Brian did his best Alex Trebec, reading the answers off. Jen was the scorekeeper.


Chad had to charade out one of the Jeopardy answers.


Jeopardy crowd.


Final Jeopardy


Chen-Je with two winning girls, Caroline & Loden

The game got really heated with everyone screaming to ring in and shouting answers. Before Final Jeopardy my team, Team Burrito House, was in the lead by far! We could not mess this up! Well, leave it to Limey…. he wagered something like $4,000 more than we even had, which seems to be breaking the rules to me, and then we lost everything, and then some, when no one on our team know how many places Chad lived in. Wah wah wahhhh…


Cousin & Todd


Baltimore Bomb


Baltimore Bombs


Jill & Dallas

Chad’s high school friend Todd flew into town from Maryland and introduced us to a new shot called the Ravens Bomb. Well, when he’s tailgating at football games he calls it that, but we were opting to call it the Baltimore Bomb. In Baltimore they drop a grape vodka shot into a cup of Red Bull energy drink. At Fizz they only had Monster energy drink, so we used that. Check out the awesome custom shot glasses Fizz had. Perfect for bombs. As for the Baltimore Bomb? It tasted awesome. The grape vodka tasted just like grape soda. Todd did warn me that they will sneak up on you if you are not careful, but I only had two. They were flowing pretty readily, though. I think they did sneak up on some people. Or… it could have been the other bombs…


Chad’s Birthday Cheesecakes


Dessert: Carbombs or Cheesecake?

Of course a night out with all these guys is not complete without Irish Car Bombs. Right as Trent was ordering a round, Jen was in the other room gathering people for cake! Ed (remember The Baked Escape) made two white chocolate raspberry swirl cheesecakes (with a chocolate cookie crust) for the party. So delicious. I’ve had this one a few times. It never disappoints. Just as the cake was being cut the Irish Car Bombs arrived. So, choose your poison: Cheesecake or booze. Or both. Why not? Actually, I only had a tiny sliver of the cake and passed on the bombs.


Todd & Brian


Dancing around the birthday boy.

After this, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel very drunk, but there was a lot of dancing. And Ed sent me photos of things this week that I only vaguely remember happening. So yeh. Kind of proud that us old people can still have a good time!

Baltimore, Maryland


Baltimore, Maryland. September 26 – 28, 2003.
This was my first trip to Baltimore. Mark, Wendy, Tiffany, Chuck & I had planned on driving down to Baltimore Friday night and staying with Chuck’s friends, Cathy & Scott. Saturday and Sunday we were all going to camp on the beach at Assateague State Park and drive back to New York on Sunday. Unfortunately, Hurricane Isabel ruined our campsite… We decided to make the best of it and stay the entire weekend in Baltimore.. it was so much fun.


We arrived in Baltimore at about 11 p.m. on Friday night. Scott & Cathy live in a neighborhood called Fells Point, a historic and trendy part of Baltimore that is very “up & coming”. After unloading our weekend bags, we headed over to a bar called Cat’s Eye Pub for some drinks. Cathy, Tiffany and Carlos danced to the band that was playing there.


The band playing at the Cat’s Eye Pub was Brett Wilson & the Blue Devils. They played some pretty good blues music.


When the Cat’s Eye closed we went back to Scott & Cathy’s house. They live in a 3-story townhouse with a roof deck that has a beautiful view. Here’s Cathy sipping some sort of cocktail.


Here’s Scott. He was getting mad because I kept shining the AIFF beam on my camera into his eyes but not taking a photo. I’m such a brat.


Jonah is Cathy & Scott’s dog. He’s a Bichon.


Jonah is so fluffy and friendly


I don’t know who’s bright idea it was to do tequila shots… actually, I do. It was Chuck’s. Here toasting is me (my hand), Cathy, Scott, & Chuck.


Waking up the next morning I just layed there in the living room and was staring at the columns in Scott & Cathy’s house trying to avoid actually getting up. Their building is about 100 – 120 years old. These columns, as well as the hardwood floors and moldings are all original. The townhouse is only about 12 feet wide, but it’s very deep. There are 3 floors, 2 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen, den or entertainment room/loft and of course, the roof deck.

What I remember about that morning: “Hey, girl, lock the door behind me”, as Carlos left. Little did I know that by that evening I would be referrd to as “woman” and have a bunch of guys sing some Neil Diamond song to me.


After everyone got up we had brunch at Ze Mean Bean Cafe, an Eastern European cafe & wine bar.


Walking around Fells Point after brunch. This is just outside the Visitor’s Center, where we picked up a Water Taxi map for the day. Photo by Mark.


Me peeking through a fence. Photo by Mark.


The tunnel through this building lead to the harbor. Photo by Mark.


A weirdly named restaurant in Fells Point, Crabby Dick’s.


Daylight shines on the Cat’s Eye Pub, where we were out the night before. I didn’t realize that night that it was right on the harbor.


This looks like a police station but it’s really a set that they left up from when they filmed the TV show Homicide in Baltimore. Tiffany does her tough guy pose.


Homicide set.


Baltimore has a water taxi system where you take small boats around the harbor. It’s $6 to get your hand stamped and ride as many times as you want in one day. This is how we got around Baltimore on Saturday. Here is the captain of our first boat.


The Lightship Chesapeake is a National Historical Monument and is anchored at the Baltimore Maritime Museum.

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The USS Torsk is also National Historic Landmark that is berthed at the Baltimore Maritime Museum.


Perfect for The Mirror Project. We took this group shot in a glass window of the Rusty Scupper restaurant on the way to the American Visionary Arts Museum. In the back is Cathy, Rachelle, Scott, Chuck. In the front, Mark, Wendy, & Tiffany. Count the cameras!


This whimsical elephant was outside the entrance to the American Visionary Art Museum in Federal Hill. What is visionary art? This definition was taken from the museum’s online FAQ:

What is visionary art?
Like love, you know it when you see it. But here’s the longer definition, straight out of our Mission Statement: “Visionary art as defined for the purposes of the American Visionary Art Museum refers to art produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works arise from an innate personal vision that revels foremost in the creative act itself.” In short, visionary art begins by listening to the inner voices of the soul, and often may not even be thought of as ‘art’ by its creator.


This fluffly pink creature was also outside of the museum. Inside, there were only two exhibits open so our admission was reduced to $3 per person. My favorite artwork was in the section of pieces done by prisoners and mental patients.


Looking out one of the windows of the American Visionary Arts Museum at the Baltimore skyline.


Back at the house, we were sitting in the living room talking when Scott jumped up and ran out the door yelling, “Arabber, Arabber! Come outside! Bring your camera!” Nobody really knew what was going on. I jumped up, grabbed my camera and ran outside. What I saw was a woman walking up and down the streets yelling and knocking on doors and a man at a horse-drawn cart selling fruits and vegetables. They’re called the arabbers. They sell food items door to door with a horse and cart..and have been doing it for as long as anyone can remember. Read more about them at the website of the Arabber Preservation Society.


Scott bought some fruits and vegetables from the arabbers.


A view of the harbor from the roof deck.


A view of a neighbor’s deck from the roof deck.


View of sunset on downtown Baltimore from the roof deck.


In Fells Point we kept passing by this store with a weird display in the window.


For dinner we went to Obrycki’s for steamed crabs.


Cathy & Chuck are ready for the crabs! To prepare you, the staff puts paper on your table, give you bibs, mallets, and knives, and puts garbage cans around the table, every other person.


A guy comes out and dumps whole crabs onto your table. Your order and pay for them by the dozen. Six people in our group were eating crabs and we bought 2 dozen.


The crab dinner was a great experience, but it was a lot of work for a little pay off. I ate 4 whole crabs and still wasn’t really full. Then again, I’m not very good at it. From Obrycki’s site: Instructions for Eating Crab.


After dinner we met up with Carlos and his wife at Peter’s Inn.


The rest of the night was spent on Cathy & Scott’s roof deck. Chuck had a radio transmitter and for a short time he and Mark were having the dualing iPods, seeing who could play the better song. When Chuck played Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim, Tiffany could not control her urge to dance.

The next morning we ate a late breakfast/lunch and then headed back to New York.

I had a great time, thanks to everyone!