The Moose Incident

Dufflebag was with his Dad this weekend, so Jess and I spent a quiet weekend taking care of errands, fixing up the house, and watching netflix films on the computer. I can now no longer say I've never seen Dirty Dancing.

*

While driving to Leominster, Jess suddenly yelled out, "Holy shit, a moose!"

"What? Do you mind if I turned around. I want to see it."

"No, no. Turn around."

I sped up and turned left onto a sidestreet and then circled back to where she had raised the alarm.

"There it is!" she yelled. "A moose!"

And sure enough, there it was, off in the woods. A cardboard moose.

She burst out laughing.

"Now, Jess . . . " I said.

*

Jess and I went to Parker's Maple Barn for the first time, and I had the best breakfast of my life. Nothing out of the ordinary, but everything done right, with real maple syrup and fresh baked bread. The barn itself, combined with the only slightly chilly New England weather, added to the experience.

I had blueberry buckwhat pancakes and Jess went for a tomato and spinach omelete. I ended up trying some of her omelette and it was excellent as well.

The whole time I kept talking about how good the food was and how I wanted to tell everyone about the place.

We went to the gift shop afterwards where I bought some jalapeno jelly to make mixed drinks with. I had heard of it being used in martinis, and I wanted to give it a try. A mango, pepper jelly and vodka drink was too syrupy -- the only other juice I had on hand was tomato, so I tried again with better results. Fresh ground horseradish would have made it perfect.

*

We got somewhat lost while driving around Leominster, and wound up at the Bull Run restaurant in Shirley. It's an odd place -- it's in the middle of nowhere but they get famous musicians to come play. Not superfamous, but people famous enough to be surprising. Stan Ridgeway, Leon Redbone, and Janis Ian are all on upcoming bills.

I had a plate of hot wings -- not particularly good -- and some ice cold country ale -- particularly good -- while Jess ate an overly buttery Mushrooms Forest.

It was raining out. We were parked by a covered bridge. I thanked my good fortune.