Monday, November 27, 2006

Country Roads

This weekend, DLang planned a weekend getaway for us at a Connecticut B&B. Getting away from NYC for the weekend is more complicated than getting away from most places, because it involves renting a car. In Brooklyn, most car rental places are closed on Sunday, so the car-rental adventure includes finding parking on Sunday night when one returns.

Friday morning, still slightly hungover from turkey and pie, we walked down to Enterprise Rent-A-Car on 3rd Ave. in Brooklyn. We stopped for coffee and egg sandwiches and arrived around noon to pick up the car. After completing the paperwork, the (very pleasant) clerk told us, "We don't have any cars right now, so you'll get the first one that comes in. Is that OK?"

I'm pretty even-keel, and my default response in this kind of situation would be, "Sure!" and I'd smile and make DLang sit out on the curb with me playing rock-paper-scissors or something until the car arrived. On Friday, however, Gillian's Cranky Stars were aligned, and I replied, "No." The girl looked a little surprised, but I continued: "That could take several hours, right?"

"Oh no, it shouldn't take that long," she replied. Right. I asked her about our other options, and she told me we could have a pickup truck. My husband looked quite startled when I told her we'd take it. He started to make arguments about gas and parking, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to wait around for a car to come in. She asked me if we'd prefer a small or large truck, and we unanimously answered, "Small."

Heh.

This is Kevin, who had to drive us in his own car (to which he referred as "The Tank") to the Enterprise location in Bay Ridge to pick up our pickup. He is standing beside the small pickup truck! I wonder what the large one looked like.

On the way to Connecticut, we played a little game called Spot The Cell Phone Tower Disguised As A Tree:


We spent Saturday in the town of Putnum, Connecticut, and since it is known as the "Antique Capital of the Northeast", we looked at some antiques (like "scrapbook", I am opposed to the use of "antique" as a verb). We ate a very delicious lunch (mmm... crabcakes) at 85 Main, and drank fancy coffee-based beverages at a little cafe up the street. Before dinner, we hung out at the b&b and played a couple of games of Scrabble (1-1) and a couple of games of Chez Geek (thanks Merman!) which I think I mostly lost.

Hilariously, on Saturday night we ate dinner at a "Southwestern-influenced" restaurant -- hilarious because we were pretty much as Northeast as we could get.

Before we left town on Sunday, I stopped to photograph a truckful of decoy Canada geese. Awesome.

Our truck came in handy on the way home, when we stopped at Ikea in New Haven for some retail therapy (and Swedish meatballs). I really love furniture assembly and when we got home I put together our new bathroom cabinet then banished DLang so that I could organize everything, which surprisingly makes me really happy (surprising because I'm not very organized at all).

Tomorrow morning our weekend adventure will continue when we attempt to pick up our monster truck from the parking garage (an excellent call by my husband, and well worth the $30 it's costing us for the NIGHT, and yes, I know, in places like Madison it costs like 25¢ to park for a week, that is, if the attendant feels like charging you at all). Furniture assembly and organization will continue all week, so check back early and often for updates.

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