Poolside

This summer has been hot, hot, HOT. I'm very grateful to live in an apartment with central air, but nobody likes being cooped up inside when the sun is (mercilessly) shining. You feel guilty, like you SHOULD be braving the heat to be doing something summer-y and fun, because god only knows winter is just around the corner. I hate winter.

So I'm very glad that Mel & AJ have brought back the famous kiddie pool:

Mel & AJ have an abiding love for smoking stodgies in the pool, which is apparently a tradition of theirs most evenings when they come home from work. The couple that smokes together... drops their ash into the pool. (AJ!)

When the shadows begin to lengthen, we light citronella torches to ward off the stinging beasties:

Although the pool is still as warm as bath water, we get out in the evenings and toast with mint juleps, made with fresh mint from the garden:
We cool off, refresh and drink bourbon to try and ease the sweltering heat and maybe, possibly try to forget that this is the last summer Mel and AJ will be here. It isn't an easy thing to think about, so we work hard to cram all of the love and fun we can into this hot and sticky season.

Ooops...

...I accidentally slammed the dogs tail in the door which started bleeding a lot so then Deb took him to the vet and he had to get 4 staples put in but he won't stop licking them so he has to wear this stupid cone which he absolutely hates but this picture is just so silly and cute I can't resist laughing at it every time.

Yeah, I'm a terrible dog mommy. But as a wise parent of a human child told me, "Everyone drops the baby at some point". Jeez. Can't wait for my own human children, because if I feel this guilty about a DOG I can't even imagine what my brain will be like with actual offspring.

What else is new? Hmmm. This week is a little crazy because I'm workshopping a new play being written by the lovely and very talented Madi Distefano called MEANWHILE...

It's a two-person quick change comedy that spoofs film noir. It's hilarious. If you're in Philly this week, come and check out our reading this Sunday, 7/25 at 6pm in the upstairs of Plays & Players. Or go and see the actual production of it this spring when BRAT puts it onstage.

Other than that, I've been writing a lot, both for The Cozy Herbivore and as a guest poster on the Green Aisle Grocery blog. Check out my latest entry (a berry crumble/berry cobbler debate) here.

I'm proud to report that Hyde is recovering nicely from his... err... incident. And I, in turn, am now super-paranoid about letting all of him get out the door before I close it.

All's well that ends well, I suppose...

So Heeeeyyyyyy....

How's things with you? How is your summer going?

Mine's going just swimmingly, thanksforasking. (You see what I did there? SWIMMINGLY? In the SUMMER?! Okay, I'll stop.)

My show closed (finally glorygloryhallelujah and if you ever want a long and drama-filled theater story, buy me a drink, ask me about it and I'll give you quite an earful...) and now I'm doing... nothing, officially. Of course, "nothing, officially" really means lots and lots, unofficially. Which is fun.

Right now I'm interning at Green Aisle Grocery, which is the cutest little boutique grocery store EVER. Seriously, if you live in Philly you must come and check it out. The owners, Adam & Andrew are super nice and they're even letting me write a guest column on Green Aisle's blog! Check out my Summer Cocktail post here.

I've also been really hard at work on my food blog, The Cozy Herbivore. It's currently rocking an awesome site re-design (thanks to Mona!) and some great summer recipes. I'm really focusing on local and seasonal ingredients this summer and I'm also working hard on my food photography. I'm really proud of the way this blog is growing, shaking and yes, cooking. With gas. So you should all check it out and become a facebook fan and follow me on Twitter. Because if you don't, I'll think you're lame. There, I said it.

Annnnnd I've been having other adventures too-- tomorrow I'm going to the BEACH which I'm superduper excited about because I didn't get to the beach ONE TIME last summer and that was a total drag. Not this summer, I determined. So I'm sure I'll have lots of beach-y happy fun photos for you after tomorrow, but until then you're just going to have to content yourselves with a few photos from My Summer Thus Far.

The week after my show closed my mother convinced me (by buying me a bus ticket) to come up for a short visit because there was to be a May Family Gathering. Now unlike the Tompkins, who get together most weekends and have lovely picnics all summer long, the Mays rarely gather together. Mostly because a lot of the Mays live far away, but also because if you get too many Mays together for too long, it's like a scene from Highlander-- THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE. Of course we love each other very much blah, blah, blah.... and we do indeed love to do what the Mays do best: eat and drink.

So when my Uncle Chris called and said he was going to be in town and would we like to come and eat at a fancy restaurant in Syracuse can you guess what we said?

Oh hell yes!

(l-r Aunt Therese, my new Uncle Jim, the Grandfather, Mom, random waiter who talked like a robot, brother Joe-man, Aunt Maureen, Uncle thanks-for-the-food-and-booze Chris, Dad)

My visit home was short (but very sweet) and I'm really happy I got to spend some time with the family. I even snuck in a quick lunch with Weas, who has taken up running. For fun. Don't get me wrong, she looks FANTASTIC, but who is this person and what have you done with Weas? I concluded my trip by making a vegetarian meal for the family which of course you just know I had to blog about.

I had to return home to Philly in a hurry because that weekend was our epic Fourth of July party. Deb and I fretted incessantly about this party-- would anyone show up? Because it was a potluck, would we have enough food? Would my veggie burgers hold up on the grill? WOULD THERE BE ENOUGH BOOZE TO GO AROUND?

We needn't have worried. Folks showed up in droves, and everyone brought something to eat. And to drink. And just when we started to worry that there was TOO MUCH food & drink that we would never finish ever and we don't have enough refrigerator space and we hate to waste food and all of this booze needs to be drunk by SOMEONE the horde descended and, like the proverbial locusts, devoured everything. It was amazing. Our friends are amazing.

Even the people we sorta-kinda know are amazing:

Okay, so Lauren & Dan on the left side of the picture are old friends, but new friends-of-friends came too!

Amanda brought this bottle of Canadian whiskey and proceeded to harass everyone into taking swigs. From the bottle. She went home at 11pm that night.

(l-r: Rachel, Amanda "the pusher" McKenna, Carrie)

Deb & Scotty pumped UP the jam:

What would a 4th of July be without fire in the hands of inebriated people?
Jered shows off his fire style while Sarah cheers him on? Tries to eat his face? I can't really tell.

And of course it wouldn't be a party at our place if Lindsay & Deb didn't get drunk and take off their pants/do stupid stuff like piggy-back rides:

It was a really fucking fun night.

And SPEAKING OF Deb, my lovely lady just hit a major milestone: last Sunday was her 30th birthday!

She decided to invite our besties for dinner at the Jamaican Jerk Hut (shut up, haters) followed by a night of serious drankin' at Bob & Barbara's, home of the $3 Philly Special. (For those of you unfortunate out-of-towners that's a can of PBR and a shot of Jim Beam. Shutup. You know you want it.)

It was an AWESOME night.

Eating at the Jerk Hut:

Cherie Tay FTW!

Yeah, it was hot, so we all looked so glisten-y:

(l-r: Mel, Debs, Rachel, Leo)

The food is SO GOOD:

(Cherie and Bryan, keepin' it klassy)

A rather blurry picture of my girl eating her Brown Chicken:

This is me all: Where's my wallet oh who are you, stealing my camera and then taking this picture?
I also learned an important lesson that night about wearing a vintage maxi dress when it's pouring rain... namely that the hem gets mad wet and that moisture travels up your skirt so you feel damp all night long...

Deb is all: I got the money for the check and I'm looking real cool and then Mel decides to grab my boob:

Our friends have such great taste in shoes, even if I do make fun of Alison's inner dyke for coming out with these boots (although they are super hot and secretly I want them):

Moving on to Bob & Barbara's, where the photos got a little blurry towards the end of the night...
...I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with all of those empty beer cans behind us. Nothing at all.

Our friends are so foxy, even when they are making fishy faces:

(l-r Mel, Alison with her hot lesbian boots, Carrie I-just-sucked-a-lemon-slice-or-maybe-just-did-a-shot-of-bourbon-face)

So my last few weeks have been unofficially wonderful. And I look forward to lots of unofficial fun in the weeks to come as well.