Only 3 Months Behind

You know that feeling when you discover you haven't posted anything from December, January or February? 

Came home from Dad's retirement celebration to find New York Christmas in full swing.

Started putting the Night + Market cookbook to work, toasting rice to make rice powder for my first chicken larb.

An early screening of Paddington 2 got me psyched up and talking about it non-stop ever since. Hope you've seen it by now!

There's a new taco shop above my subway stop that replaced an old favorite taco shop. The place is way, way too expensive or fancy for the neighborhood (but still does great business). I've made peace with it thanks to its $2 tacos al pastor happy hour deal.

Was very honored to attend JB and Maggie's French Christmas party.

Pre-Christmas lunch at Joe Jr.'s with Patricia

Episode VIII: took me two viewings to get it, third viewing I just sat back and thought "Maaan, this is gooood." Hope you watched it enough times to like it, too!

Last Jedi pre-gaming at the Donut Pub with this gingerdoughman.

Before we can celebrate Christmas, we have to say goodbye to Leanna. Everyone leaves! It's just a part of living in New York. Don't forget that I kicked a rat, so I'm leaving too.

Home to Chicago! Mom let us sneak into the attic at church. But also, we probably didn't need Mom's permission. And also, it probably wasn't Mom's permission to give. Anyway. We were up here.

While everyone was at the Rockefeller Chapel Christmas thing I was working on this porg.

Grandma's Christmas card 

Here's a new tradition: Christmas Eve Nachos!

Post Christmas, a lunch at Jarabe. I pose with a turtle from Collin and my torta.

Down to freezing cold sunny shiny Chicago one morning, make my first (and last) visit to Dad's new office.

Then I drove down to 63rd street for a quiet little burrito lunch at El Gallo de Oro, the restaurant that taught me to care about restaurants. El Gallo has barely changed in 20+ years and the food tastes exactly the same, burrito feels just the same in hand, same heat, same weight. ¡Viva el Gallo de Oro!

Back to New York, back to Joe Jr's!

We got a little bit of snow.

(Insert somewhere around here Grandma's funeral)

But RIP Dutch, also

Lucas was in town for the two-night Kismet pop up. Patricia and I went on crispy eggy rice night. It was awful dark in there.

The Times Square Grey's Papaya is a lot cheaper than all the other papaya-related hot doggeries. Grabbed these two beauties on my way to Last Jedi viewing #3.

Brooklyn at night

The new Linger Longer committee at church has been doing a smashing job. Look at this spread of pies!

Sarah blew through town (but mostly Jersey) celebrating her birthday and celebrating women.

Let's let sleeping puppers lie

The West Village by night, plus a tiny bit of East Harlem.

Celebrated Valentine's with the Lyman's and this beauty

Bryan had a birthday party where he asked people to do readings. I presented some of the research I've been doing on Finnegans Wake and Bryan read the selection I spoke about with his good Irish accent, because Bryan's very good at accents. He killed! It killed! Finnegans Wake killed!

Slipped out of Bryan's party a smidge early to participate in the cultural event of Black Panther opening weekend with the Spencer family and Alexis. Have you seen the article about Ryan and Courtney in the Times yet? I feel like it's the second time I've appeared in the Times in the past 12 months (but not by name this time). Maybe it's trifling of me to insert myself into their moment like that? But also, this is a blog about me, why wouldn't I?

The next day Andrea and Lincoln were in town and we went to the Queens Museum with Victoria. Except Lincoln didn't come. So you could say that Andrea, Victoria and I went to the Queens Museum. I was curious to catch the last day of the Never Built New York exhibit and I was not the only one. First photos: Ride out to Queens. Second Photos: Museum. 

They filled the Panorama with models of the buildings that were never built.

Always at my best when I'm mansplaining.

Oh and guess what? Chaunte was there, too

Later that night I went to a pig party

But a couple days later I went to a REAL pig party at the Breslin, in honor of Tara's birth.

Looking back, perhaps still a little overwhelmed by the offal course, I think my favorite thing that night was the green salad.

Oh but a big slice of chocolate cake really helps take the edge off brain toasts.

And to finish, a walk in a wet and heavy snow that was gone by the next morning.

The Great Send-Off

2018 off to an unexpected start with the kind of unexpected, kind of premature passing of Grandma Barnes. This post is an accounting of the weekend, not a tribute to Grandma. I had the tremendous privilege of speaking at her funeral and, should I ever type up what I said, that's the tribute. This is just the account.

It's hard for it to be a sad weekend when we begin with a Friday night family party catered by Cafe Rio, along with family photos and a sorting through of Grandma's jewelry (I eventually inherit myself a cat pin).

"Mishap Kills One-Armed Race Winner"

After the party at Teresa's a small group of us went to visit Grandma at the funeral home. It helped take the edge off of seeing her at the viewing the next morning. The viewing and funeral and burial were such jam-packed family reunion affairs, the viewing in particular. The room was so crowded with so many people seeing each other for the first time in a long time that I felt a little bad for Grandma over in the corner by her self.

Lots of photos and albums we hadn't seen for a while out on display. (Note certain grandson on display in prominent #1 Grandson location).

My uncle, the orphan.

The funeral was very sweet and good and I wish I had made more eye contact with the congregants while I spoke. I can't remember what I was looking at, it wasn't my notes, because I nearly didn't use them. And it definitely wasn't the clock, because I'd hate to know how far over my allotted 7 minutes I went. 

After the funeral: Many photos of many different groupings of relations and lunch from the Bombay House. Grandma was a big Bombay House fan and the Bombay House was a big fan of her's. But let us not pretend that it was her absolute favorite restaurant. That was probably Cancun Cafe.

Is Mom...throwing up a gang sign?

After lunch: a drive up to Downey, a lengthy visit to the Flags West truck stop, and a burial in Cambridge.

I mean, dang, have you ever seen a more beautiful casket?

Resurrection views.

The After Party: a little visit to the farm (Uncle Greg got stuck in the mud, Becky pet a dog, a few of us talked with a Chemtrails truther) plus time at the farmhouse (no pics, too much party) and dinner at Freddies.

It's not every picture where the parents have their eyes closed but everyone else looks pretty good. It's like they were making a wish for an otherwise perfect picture.

Chicago to New York, New York to Chicago

In November Mom and Dad came out to New York because he had a meeting and that's a good excuse to come to New York. We started out with a late lunch at Emily in the West Village and a visit to Washington Square Park.

Then we took advantage of an unexpected opportunity and caught a quick train down to Princeton to see a BYU basketball game. I'd never been to Princeton but found it to be pretty cool, even if it was dark when we were there and, you know, you see less when it is dark.

The next day we went to the Michelangelo exhibit at the Met in the morning and that night we ate tacos and saw the Play That Goes Wrong. Boy, did that play go wrong!

The next day Mom and I had lunch at Uncle Boon's Sister and then did a little Soho walking. We found Uncle Boon's Sister to be quite good, a fine relative to the excellent Uncle Boon's.

That night we were back in Soho for dinner at Le Coucou, a truly beautiful restaurant. And then Dad and I went up to the Met to see Madame Butterfly. It was a striking production.

The next day was a Saturday, Mom and I did a lot of downtown stuff like seeing the Luis Vuitton exhibit (really), eating at Fuku, and riding the Seaglass carosel. 

Then we rode over to Brooklyn for a visit to the Green-Wood Cemetery, always worth a good explore every few years.

That night we had dinner in Estela. It was superb, just wonderful, I can't believe I had put off going there for so long. It was also too dim for any decent photos. Then, and I still can't believe it happened, we went and saw Cats. I'd never seen it before! We wound up with second row seats and I'm still trying to make heads or tails of what I saw.

The next day was Sunday and we started the day off with lunch at Cosme. It was an absolute home run, hard to believe I almost cancelled the reservation. After church we had dinner at the Dutch and then a nice long West Village walk. Again, too dark for photos. But it was all good. Mom and Dad went back to Chicago the next morning after a good little breakfast at Daily Provisions.

On Thanksgiving Eve Patricia and I went to see the balloons being inflated. The next day we'd have Thanksgiving at Jordan's in Queens.

Here's pictures from a neighborhood walk I took the day or two after Thanksgiving.

Then a few days later I snuck out to Chicago

And grabbed lunch at Johnny's

Before making a surprise appearance that night (along with fellow surprises Kristen and Walker) at Dad's retirement party

The next night we had dinner at Fonda Frontera, a new Rick Bayless restaurant in Wicker Park right by an absolutely beautiful Taco Bell. Fonda Frontera was an absolute home run, I had no idea it would hit so strong with the family.

After dinner we talked Emily into taking us on a tour of the new Mormon church in downtown Chicago. It's a very impressive structure, really puts every Mormon building in Manhattan to shame. 

This is a patio or a balcony or whatever you might call it. Very nice outdoor space.

The next morning we went with Kristen and Walker on a tour of Oak Park area parks. Then we had a little lunch at Mickey's, another classic local spot that I'm not sure how long I hadn't been to.

We went and did some important Western Suburb archeology and then, a few hours later, it was back to New York with me.