What to Do on a Rainy Day

Boiling stage: red currants, black currants and raspberries...

Oh, yes.

Well.... There are a lot of things to do when it rains.



I woke to thunderclaps and lighting strikes with one just over the road, and sheets of rain.


But I'll confine myself to starting off with several pounds of fruit from Monday's farmers' market; red currants, black currants, little raspberries and too many sour cherries.Yesterday I picked them from their myriad little bloody stalks and covered them in sugar. This afternoon after work I boiled them, with additions of lemon juice and subtractions of sugar per Bo's mother's instruction (hi Bo!). And it set! At least the red currant one did. I did the sour cherries separately because there was no way I was going to pit 3 lbs of miniature cherries without getting feudal on someone's ass. So to speak. So I decided to make them into jelly, meaning, fruit gets chucked at the end. Coming home tonight I see that the sour cherry jelly ain't set. So I have to reboil tomorrow with extra lemon. Grrr. It'll be fine. But the red currant jam is perfect and it will be breakfast. I'm very excited. Baguette, butter and jam. And coffee. It's a reason to wake up. Bugger. I've run out of butter.


So tonight at Bo's suggestion I went with him and his tall, beautiful Danish Mama and two friends to the Spiegeltent near the Brooklyn Bridge at Pier 17 at the South Pier (it's like New York does Disney/Florida -weird; but the tent is different...) to see Absinthe. I was expecting vaginas to be playing the harmonica (a version Natalie saw -that's the story I wouldn't tell, Bo), and it was actually quite tame, but lovely. Old school, almost innocent burlesque, with some obvious references, some of which were very funny (sock puppets getting out of hand)...very good and beautiful/sensual muscles and muscle control - male, and female - engaged in roller skating (amazing), rope dancing and ...well, stuff. Very much worth going to, and washed down with a bottle of Veuve. The MC was good, with a great and unexpectedly moving Judy Garland impression at the end. Dinner later at rowdy-as-hell Schillers, the garlic shrimp as yummy as ever.

I love New York.