Jersey, Baby!
Oct. 26th, 2009 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
windinthemaplesWe had a surprisingly great weekend in New Jersey. One of our friends, a naval aviator named Trey, had surprised us all when he showed signs of settling down and sent us invitations to his Jersey shore wedding at Point Pleasant Beach. Daniel and I were both feeling iffy about things--not too wild about going to New Jersey and unhappy to find Graeme barred from the festivities. Things turned out, like New Jersey, to be much better than advertised. :D
Friday morning, we flew into Newark and immediately most of the things I'd heard about New Jersey proved true. (And this is really saying something given the city that *I* live in. ;) ) The baggage claim was full of signs warning travelers of thieves and shysters. The bathroom stalls had warning signs, too, which I jokingly translated to Daniel as "Watch your ass!". Across the water from the New York City skyline, Newark looks like an industrialized wasteland pouring all its resources, paying outrageous tribute, across high power lines to the City and into which NYC exports all its pollution and filth. It was the single most depressing drive we've ever made. At some point, when we were no longer traveling parallel to New York City, the scenary made a drastic change from industrial wasteland to autumn wonderland. Maybe New Jersey isn't the armpit that I'd been led to believe. Maybe, just maybe, there is still something natural and spectacular to it. We felt relief and a glimmer of hope.
Gray skies, power plants, high power lines, and factories spewing heavy dark towers of smoke into the sky everywhere we looked. Our introduction to New Jersey met all our previous expectations.
Thirty minutes later, things are looking dramatically improved.
Graeme fell asleep for his nap, so we had the afternoon to drive around and entertain ourselves. I'd had enough foresight to research some vegan-friendly restaurants in the area. Between that list of addresses and our Garmin, we were pretty well set. :) We drove along the shore for miles, agog at the atmospheric mix of faded boardwalk attractions (shuttered for the season), angrily shifting seas, dark skies and wild winds. It was creepy as all-get-out and strangely compelling, too. How different would the scene have been in the warm activity of summer? Here it seemed haunted and sinister--old energy built up over years and years of history. Creeeeeepy. :) The northeast is so much different than my own ocean home in South Florida. They feel not a bit alike, though it is the same ocean.
Here's the not-welcoming image of Asbury Park's boardwalk.
Hello, Secret Circle set anyone?
I braved the bear-winds and bone-chill to visit the beach in some random town. It smelled different, a different kind of brine, and the sands were littered with broken shells the size of my hand and endless bits of windblown, waterlogged trash. It was really quite terrifying.
See the boat? I fully expected to watch it capsize with each wave that sucked it down and sent the mast wildly swinging.
I gingerly picked up a few hardy, giant shells from the sands and raced back to the steps, the boardwalk, the path through the dunes to the car. It felt like something on the wind was chasing me back and really, can I say this any more, it was spookyville beach.
Spooky-fucking-ville. :D
Windblown, bone-chilled and sea-salted we drove to a nearby vegan-friendly cafe in Asbury Park--the Twisted Tree Cafe. It was a small, cozy little coffee shop with big windows, prayer flags fluttering from the ceiling, and a collection of soft places to sit and board games to play. We over-ordered to compensate for our hunger and ended up trying, between the three of us, the following:
* (Not Pictured by Sock-Rocking in Quality--1 fresh-baked vegan pumpkin walnut muffin and 1 fresh-baked vegan banana blueberry muffin)
* Two Twisted Ciders (apple and pear juice, caramel syrup, soy milk and spices)
* A Hummus and Sprouts Sandwich with Salad
* A Tofu Meatball Wrap
* Three-bean chilli
* Tuscan bean soup
Everything was awesome and warm and hospitable. The twisted ciders, though, with their sugary sugar sugary overkill and not-subtle shot of caramel syrup were too sweet and rich to drink much of. Like, dessert in a warm mug.
A couple doors down from the cafe, we spotted the Paranormal Books and Curiosities shop and its adjacent Paranormal Museum. It was the most comprehensive paranormal bookstore I could have imagined. Its wooden shop attendant, acting much like someone at Disney World's Haunted Mansion ride, and the super-spooky soundtrack piped into the store made it a bit of a playfully chilly shopping experience. I'm not the target audience, unfortunately, so I went home without the Jersey Devil postcards, the "I am paranormal" sweatshirt, the "Asburied Park, NJ" bumpersticker and even the high-tech ghost hunting equipment. I know more than one person who should go visit their museum's limited time exhibit on the Jersey Devil or to browse the thousands of books they have on hauntings. It was a crazy niche store and that made it really fun to see. :)
We checked into our hotel room in Lakewood, NJ and waited about an hour for the babysitter I hired from SitterCity.com to show up. She was the mother of her own two year-old boy and available to test-sit for a few hours with Graeme on Friday night before the longer 2-10pm sitting job for the day of the wedding. We all liked her on sight, Graeme included, so it felt pretty easy to leave them together to explore the hotel, order room service, watch videos on my laptop, and make marker drawings together with the supplies I'd packed into my suitcase. Neither Daniel nor I were hungry after our late lunch but we decided to live it up a little and visit that second vegan restaurant I'd found out about.
Kaya's Kitchen in Belmar, New Jersey dished up the single best vegan meal of my life. Their menu was daunting, so Daniel and I got a couple things to share. We had a comfy booth, a super-cute and friendly dreadlocked wait and kitchen staff, and the joy of live music and hand-holding while we waited for our food. We got:
* homemade lemonades and wildberry iced teas (divine!)
* a basket of assorted breads and herb-laden olive oil for dipping (soo good!)
* the harvest salad (a yummy mix of greens, avocado, hearty carrots, dried cranberries, and beautifully sweet honeycrisp apple slices)
* Thai Peanut Tofu on spinach fettucine (OMG, yum!)
* Coconut Curry on jasmine rice (The best, most addictive, can't stop eating dish of my whole life!)
* Peppermint Patty Cake (Double chocolate layers, mint creme layer, covered in a chocolate shell of delicious death.)
* Creamsicle Cupcake (So sugary my teeth buzzed but oh, so tasty. :D)
I want to go back to New Jersey again and again and again if nothing else so I can eat at Kaya's again. It was that good. Crazy good.
Yellow curry sauce, pineapple and soy nugget chunks, broccoli and chickpeas. This was heaven!
After dinner, we rolled ourselves over to a Barnes and Noble for an hour of baby-free browsing. I'd gotten a $25 gift card for my birthday which allowed me to buy a copy of 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life by Cami Walker. It is a wonderful, emotional book so far--really loving it.
Anyways, we got back to the hotel about 9pm and Graeme was all riled up and clearly thrilled with the idea that Raquel would be coming back to sit for him the next day. He leaped into her arms for a goodbye hug and everything, putting our fears to rest about hiring a complete stranger for him. He's old enough to tell us how he feels about his sitter, obviously. :)
Saturday morning, we slept in, reheated leftover curry for breakfast, and read some of our new books. Daniel took Graeme down to the hotel pool while I started primping for the wedding. By 2pm, Raquel arrived with a bag of toys for Graeme and Daniel and I left for the church.
It was a strange wedding in some ways. Trey and Kathleen are some of the most diehard party animals we know--clubbing every night, drinking until sunrise sorts--so to show up to an elegant church for a wedding mass seemed very unusual. It was like seeing a side of them we'd never known existed. Kathleen got teary-eyed as she walked down the aisle but the emotion of that moment seemed dispelled when the couple was immediately shuffled to a pair of seats to listen to lengthy readings from the Bible, some hymns, and a homily comparing marriage to the role of the Church in people's lives. Daniel cries at every wedding he attends, so it says something that during the brief, wooden vows and the after-vow hug that he remained dry-eyed. The format didn't resound with either of us--it didn't seem real somehow. It was very straight-laced and joyless, all of us praying and standing and sitting and praying some more. It made us even happier with our own wedding and how well it suited us and supported our goals for the day. So yeah, it was so quiet in the church my stomach growling could probably be heard in the choir loft. ;)
Of course, everyone cheered outside when the happy couple walked down the stairs through the sword arch.
The reception at the nearby Yacht Club was where things felt celebratory. It was a lavish event. We spent about an hour and a half at a cocktail hour with a full bar and dozens and dozens and dozens of appetizers available. They rang a little chime at 6:30pm and we all processed up a flight of stairs to the dining room where the five course meal was served between rounds of dancing on the dance floor.
Frank Sinatra was cued up first. Daniel and I went out to show off our Fox Trot skills (we haz them!) and smiled and laughed and flirted like we'd been the ones just married. There were club hits and old classics and it was unlike most every wedding I've been to in that everyone danced between every course. Grandmas jumped to Black Eyed Peas and the flower fairy waltzed. A ring of Navy pilots kept things going with silly breakdancing and grandstanding when things threatened to quiet down. It was really, really fun.
We got back to the hotel around 10:00pm in a downpour, racing through the parking lot in my heels and laughing heartily. Graeme was in the room, happily playing with Raquel's son. We packed, went to bed early, and headed back home early, early in the morning on Sunday.
(Where we spent the day at the park near our house, at the flea market by the airport, and at our newest Whole Foods which is billed as the largest ever built.) Hello, locally made vegan pumpkin donut holes. Hello, vegan takeout cool case. I love you! :D
Great weekend. :)
Back home in time to enjoy a perfect autumn day!
Friday morning, we flew into Newark and immediately most of the things I'd heard about New Jersey proved true. (And this is really saying something given the city that *I* live in. ;) ) The baggage claim was full of signs warning travelers of thieves and shysters. The bathroom stalls had warning signs, too, which I jokingly translated to Daniel as "Watch your ass!". Across the water from the New York City skyline, Newark looks like an industrialized wasteland pouring all its resources, paying outrageous tribute, across high power lines to the City and into which NYC exports all its pollution and filth. It was the single most depressing drive we've ever made. At some point, when we were no longer traveling parallel to New York City, the scenary made a drastic change from industrial wasteland to autumn wonderland. Maybe New Jersey isn't the armpit that I'd been led to believe. Maybe, just maybe, there is still something natural and spectacular to it. We felt relief and a glimmer of hope.
Gray skies, power plants, high power lines, and factories spewing heavy dark towers of smoke into the sky everywhere we looked. Our introduction to New Jersey met all our previous expectations.
Thirty minutes later, things are looking dramatically improved.
Graeme fell asleep for his nap, so we had the afternoon to drive around and entertain ourselves. I'd had enough foresight to research some vegan-friendly restaurants in the area. Between that list of addresses and our Garmin, we were pretty well set. :) We drove along the shore for miles, agog at the atmospheric mix of faded boardwalk attractions (shuttered for the season), angrily shifting seas, dark skies and wild winds. It was creepy as all-get-out and strangely compelling, too. How different would the scene have been in the warm activity of summer? Here it seemed haunted and sinister--old energy built up over years and years of history. Creeeeeepy. :) The northeast is so much different than my own ocean home in South Florida. They feel not a bit alike, though it is the same ocean.
Here's the not-welcoming image of Asbury Park's boardwalk.
Hello, Secret Circle set anyone?
I braved the bear-winds and bone-chill to visit the beach in some random town. It smelled different, a different kind of brine, and the sands were littered with broken shells the size of my hand and endless bits of windblown, waterlogged trash. It was really quite terrifying.
See the boat? I fully expected to watch it capsize with each wave that sucked it down and sent the mast wildly swinging.
I gingerly picked up a few hardy, giant shells from the sands and raced back to the steps, the boardwalk, the path through the dunes to the car. It felt like something on the wind was chasing me back and really, can I say this any more, it was spookyville beach.
Spooky-fucking-ville. :D
Windblown, bone-chilled and sea-salted we drove to a nearby vegan-friendly cafe in Asbury Park--the Twisted Tree Cafe. It was a small, cozy little coffee shop with big windows, prayer flags fluttering from the ceiling, and a collection of soft places to sit and board games to play. We over-ordered to compensate for our hunger and ended up trying, between the three of us, the following:
* (Not Pictured by Sock-Rocking in Quality--1 fresh-baked vegan pumpkin walnut muffin and 1 fresh-baked vegan banana blueberry muffin)
* Two Twisted Ciders (apple and pear juice, caramel syrup, soy milk and spices)
* A Hummus and Sprouts Sandwich with Salad
* A Tofu Meatball Wrap
* Three-bean chilli
* Tuscan bean soup
Everything was awesome and warm and hospitable. The twisted ciders, though, with their sugary sugar sugary overkill and not-subtle shot of caramel syrup were too sweet and rich to drink much of. Like, dessert in a warm mug.
A couple doors down from the cafe, we spotted the Paranormal Books and Curiosities shop and its adjacent Paranormal Museum. It was the most comprehensive paranormal bookstore I could have imagined. Its wooden shop attendant, acting much like someone at Disney World's Haunted Mansion ride, and the super-spooky soundtrack piped into the store made it a bit of a playfully chilly shopping experience. I'm not the target audience, unfortunately, so I went home without the Jersey Devil postcards, the "I am paranormal" sweatshirt, the "Asburied Park, NJ" bumpersticker and even the high-tech ghost hunting equipment. I know more than one person who should go visit their museum's limited time exhibit on the Jersey Devil or to browse the thousands of books they have on hauntings. It was a crazy niche store and that made it really fun to see. :)
We checked into our hotel room in Lakewood, NJ and waited about an hour for the babysitter I hired from SitterCity.com to show up. She was the mother of her own two year-old boy and available to test-sit for a few hours with Graeme on Friday night before the longer 2-10pm sitting job for the day of the wedding. We all liked her on sight, Graeme included, so it felt pretty easy to leave them together to explore the hotel, order room service, watch videos on my laptop, and make marker drawings together with the supplies I'd packed into my suitcase. Neither Daniel nor I were hungry after our late lunch but we decided to live it up a little and visit that second vegan restaurant I'd found out about.
Kaya's Kitchen in Belmar, New Jersey dished up the single best vegan meal of my life. Their menu was daunting, so Daniel and I got a couple things to share. We had a comfy booth, a super-cute and friendly dreadlocked wait and kitchen staff, and the joy of live music and hand-holding while we waited for our food. We got:
* homemade lemonades and wildberry iced teas (divine!)
* a basket of assorted breads and herb-laden olive oil for dipping (soo good!)
* the harvest salad (a yummy mix of greens, avocado, hearty carrots, dried cranberries, and beautifully sweet honeycrisp apple slices)
* Thai Peanut Tofu on spinach fettucine (OMG, yum!)
* Coconut Curry on jasmine rice (The best, most addictive, can't stop eating dish of my whole life!)
* Peppermint Patty Cake (Double chocolate layers, mint creme layer, covered in a chocolate shell of delicious death.)
* Creamsicle Cupcake (So sugary my teeth buzzed but oh, so tasty. :D)
I want to go back to New Jersey again and again and again if nothing else so I can eat at Kaya's again. It was that good. Crazy good.
Yellow curry sauce, pineapple and soy nugget chunks, broccoli and chickpeas. This was heaven!
After dinner, we rolled ourselves over to a Barnes and Noble for an hour of baby-free browsing. I'd gotten a $25 gift card for my birthday which allowed me to buy a copy of 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life by Cami Walker. It is a wonderful, emotional book so far--really loving it.
Anyways, we got back to the hotel about 9pm and Graeme was all riled up and clearly thrilled with the idea that Raquel would be coming back to sit for him the next day. He leaped into her arms for a goodbye hug and everything, putting our fears to rest about hiring a complete stranger for him. He's old enough to tell us how he feels about his sitter, obviously. :)
Saturday morning, we slept in, reheated leftover curry for breakfast, and read some of our new books. Daniel took Graeme down to the hotel pool while I started primping for the wedding. By 2pm, Raquel arrived with a bag of toys for Graeme and Daniel and I left for the church.
It was a strange wedding in some ways. Trey and Kathleen are some of the most diehard party animals we know--clubbing every night, drinking until sunrise sorts--so to show up to an elegant church for a wedding mass seemed very unusual. It was like seeing a side of them we'd never known existed. Kathleen got teary-eyed as she walked down the aisle but the emotion of that moment seemed dispelled when the couple was immediately shuffled to a pair of seats to listen to lengthy readings from the Bible, some hymns, and a homily comparing marriage to the role of the Church in people's lives. Daniel cries at every wedding he attends, so it says something that during the brief, wooden vows and the after-vow hug that he remained dry-eyed. The format didn't resound with either of us--it didn't seem real somehow. It was very straight-laced and joyless, all of us praying and standing and sitting and praying some more. It made us even happier with our own wedding and how well it suited us and supported our goals for the day. So yeah, it was so quiet in the church my stomach growling could probably be heard in the choir loft. ;)
Of course, everyone cheered outside when the happy couple walked down the stairs through the sword arch.
The reception at the nearby Yacht Club was where things felt celebratory. It was a lavish event. We spent about an hour and a half at a cocktail hour with a full bar and dozens and dozens and dozens of appetizers available. They rang a little chime at 6:30pm and we all processed up a flight of stairs to the dining room where the five course meal was served between rounds of dancing on the dance floor.
Frank Sinatra was cued up first. Daniel and I went out to show off our Fox Trot skills (we haz them!) and smiled and laughed and flirted like we'd been the ones just married. There were club hits and old classics and it was unlike most every wedding I've been to in that everyone danced between every course. Grandmas jumped to Black Eyed Peas and the flower fairy waltzed. A ring of Navy pilots kept things going with silly breakdancing and grandstanding when things threatened to quiet down. It was really, really fun.
We got back to the hotel around 10:00pm in a downpour, racing through the parking lot in my heels and laughing heartily. Graeme was in the room, happily playing with Raquel's son. We packed, went to bed early, and headed back home early, early in the morning on Sunday.
(Where we spent the day at the park near our house, at the flea market by the airport, and at our newest Whole Foods which is billed as the largest ever built.) Hello, locally made vegan pumpkin donut holes. Hello, vegan takeout cool case. I love you! :D
Great weekend. :)
Back home in time to enjoy a perfect autumn day!
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Date: 2009-10-26 07:01 pm (UTC)