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Because she doesn’t look like this anymore! This is literally on the way out the door to the hospital.

I got a call on Friday from a friend offering me two free tickets to see the latest (and last) Harry Potter movie on IMAX 3D. Naturally, I’ve not read any of the books or seen the previous movies. But Adrienne has. All of them. I’m not sure how she’s slipped the movies by me. She was interested, so I took the tickets. Though a deal was made: I go to the movie, and we get to try another pizza place near the theatre. She was game.

So the movie: imagine Lord of the Rings crossed with Star Wars (the good ones – I haven’t seen the bad ones) – except with characters that seem to be confused about who they are and how they fit into the story arc. Push that into a silly, Sunday-night-Hallmark-TV-special kind of ending. And there you have it. I suppose it was IMAX and 3D. The 3D was mostly well done, not being too intrusive (other than the overuse of characters/things coming at you – a tired effect for 3D). Though it seems the technology doesn’t handle fast action too well. I actually thought the best use of 3D was in one of the previews for some animated penguin movie part two, where a wall fell down (towards you) but then “stuck out” as characters interacted with it. I think it worked because it very well bridged the gap from 2D and “normal” 3D to 3D as an effect/plot point.

But onto the pizza. First, go read this review of the place. Don’t continue reading until you do.

Done?

It’s pretty spot on. We walked down the alley and went in, to find there’s no seating. A pick up only sort of place. Ok. We order and make plans to walk 4 blocks to a nearby park (in 90-degree heat – thank Adrienne for being a trooper! – but did I mention I went to Harry Potter for her? :). Al, the owner/baker is obsessed during our time there with finding a magazine. Kind of talks to himself but also us in the cramped space: “I don’t know where I put it… it’s gotta be somewhere… it’s not on top of that pile?… well, it’ll turn up…” All the while he’s got a sponge rubber-banded to his forehead. No joke. It is 90 degrees outside and I’m sure his oven is more like 700 or higher! No AC, are you kidding? We get our warmed sausage bread. It’s good. I gotta learn to make a good stuffed bread. The pizza comes out, we pay. He asks if it’s our first time. I say yes. He asks how I learned about them, I mention the pizza site linked above, which he’s familiar with. At that moment he finds the magazine. And why has he been looking for it? He proudly wants to show how this Jersey magazine says his is the best pizza in the state. He makes sure we see and read it. And says once we taste the pizza, everything else will pale in comparison. He thanks us for coming, shakes my hand and we go on our way. A true Jersey experience!

Oh, and the pizza? Quite good as well. I think I was most impressed by the sauce. But it was a very good, unique pizza. A bit messy, the canned mushrooms, meh – get meat  or just cheese is my recommendation. I’ll be looking foward to the leftovers!

Turned on the ACs tonight. Scoping the long-term forecast, looks like they may be on for a while.

We decided to get out of Dodge for a short while this afternoon and night, and I suggested a visit to a pizza place in SW Jersey. On the way there we decided to stop by Princeton and check out the scene – which was pretty quiet, since it was late Saturday afternoon in the summer. We took a photo nonetheless.

This is near the chapel, apparently the third-largest university chapel anywhere. It was a rather short visit, but when people ask, now I can say I went to Princeton! On to pizza:

We only had to wait about 10 minutes for a table, and while we were waiting we enjoyed the many raised beds of basil growing right there. If you followed the link above, you probably noticed they try to do as much locally as possible.

Here’s the actual place – quite small, with an equal amount of seating outside as in! They also have a mix of a couple large communal tables and individual ones. We had a salad to start, and ordered a 4-cheese (white – no sauce) pie as well as one with spicy sausage and onions. Adrienne enjoyed both, and even ate her pizza bones!

Close up shot:

I don’t know that Adrienne loved their wicker chairs, though:

After the pizza we went on a walk around the town – Hopewell, NJ – and came across this quintessential looking garage structure:

The way home took us through some beautiful parts of New Jersey – yes, they really exist – before we wrapped up a nice afternoon/evening.

Same shirt, different pants.

Yup, we went to the parade. A quaint little affair right in downtown Bloomfield. Out in these ‘burbs where anti-town consolidation attitude runs high, every little town has their own parade. Certainly there are bad things (mostly inefficiencies) about no town wanting to share resources/consolidate, but I do appreciate how in the middle of the biggest metropolitan area in the US, it still kinda feels like we’re a tiny little town. It’s somehow reassuring that life can be normal. Anyway, here’s the crappy cell phone pic with my wife’s beautiful head! 🙂 We kept our distance, finding a nice spot in the shade on a nice spot to sit in front of the town library. I think that’s the high school marching band going by.

And from the recent sonogram:

A couple more from DC. First, Adrienne on the Mall:

And here is the Lincoln Memorial:

Adrienne says she likes this photo of me. I’m just checking my email… or maybe we were lost and I had to do some GPS’ing…

That’s a wrap for the DC photos. Last night I made my first pizza with potatoes on it. Quite good! It was a white (no red sauce) pie, but had: mozz, blue cheese crumbles, potatoe, cheese and parsley sausage, onion and a sprinkle of rosemary.

Also did a more traditional one with Sopresetta, green pepper,  and onion.

Don’t worry, we had a salad on the side as well! And Adrienne had a (pregnancy?) craving for cake, so she whipped one up:

Chocolate with coffee buttercream frosting. It was a nice enough to have the windows open but that made it quite brisk in the house, so I built a fire at night. The cats seemed to enjoy it:

And I finally got the basement painting done. Well, half of it, for those of you following the project. Admittedly, it doesn’t look all that different from the paint that was on it before:

But the goal is to not have it do this, which the current finish is:

Not too much planned for today, though we’ll probably spend some time watching the goings on at our neighbor’s house. They had a 1.5 story house. They’re adding a story to it. Friday the workers gutted the upstairs. And yesterday the four guys completely took the second story off the house. Kinda cool to see the process and how quick and easy the destruction is!

Whoppie Pie from ACKC:

Adrienne on Capitol Hill:

Modern art at the Hirshorn Museum. Some people don’t get the music I like. I don’t get the art that some people like. I guess it works out.

Adrienne in the sun on the Mall:

Julia Child’s kitchen, now on display at the National Museum of American History:

The Monument. So wishing that flagpole wasn’t there. Oh well.

Another day of exploring tomorrow. Likely will check out Georgetown and who knows what else. Happy Sunday!

Today I was doing some work outside the house (specifically looking into how to get rid of some pesky squirrels that have finagled their way into our siding) and noticed two trees severely leaning. These trees have been dead since we moved in, and it’s been in the back of my mind to get them down at some point. But while the trunk is on my side of the fence, the trees go through the fence and the whole of the trees are on my neighbor’s side. And they were leaning so much so they were depending on support of other trees and the neighbor’s house. It appeared one of the windy days this past week was enough to uproot both trees. I talked to the neighbor and asked if he minded if I took the trees down. He didn’t so I got to work with my bow saw. Heh heh. Without too much trouble I got both trees down (we’re talking six to eight-inch trunks here, 30-40 feet height. But here’s the weird thing: I figured the fence was cut around the tree. No, it appears as though the tree actually grew through and around the fence! Check it out:

Here’s the shot before I went and rented a chainsaw:

And after:

Now, you may wonder: where was Adrienne to help you during all this? She, of course, was out in Oakland, getting her picture taken with Santa Claus!

Well, she was in San Francisco for work, then flew up from Oakland to Portland (then home to Goldendale) for the weekend for a surprise visit. Then she’s back in San Francisco on Monday for more work, and flies home Tuesday. I think. I guess Microsoft was running some promotion for Live(.com) where you get your photo taken with the Jolly Old Man at the Oakland airport. And she had some time to kill. Kinda bad lighting, if you ask me. But it was free!

So needless to say I had to fend for myself for dinner, so pizza it was! I tried out the recipe from the latest Cook’s Illustrated, which was supposed to be akin to what we’d call a New York slice.

I thought it was decent, but Adrienne would think the crust too thick. Eh, to each their own. And since she wasn’t here…

Happy Weekend, one and all!