I am back from a long weekend in a horrendous thematic house in the Catskills, and I don't mean it in a bad way. The place is huge and full of stuff. Stuff everywhere. Stuff in every corner. Stuff on every surface. Stuff. Stuff. Stuff. And ugly stuff at that. Lots of cheapy creepy old things all over. Half the appliances in the kitchens (plural) were less than completely functional. But somehow the place has got charm and we had a great time pointing out hideous details for the rest to be grossed out. The area also is great in a horror movie kind of way. Most houses are on the dingy side, most shops in the tiny drive-through towns are closed and look abandoned. The one exception is the Catskills Harvest Market. Run by a cutie, a Czech with a Frech mother and a half-Parisian education, the shop is fantastic. Clean and full of everything the discerning chef would need. I am obviously referring to a Manhattanite chef. All the things we can't live without, the Asian sauces, the gluten-free pasta, the vegan cheese, the ironic signs. There's even a couple of tables with free wi-fi to enjoy their coffee and home-made pastries and cakes. I highly recommend it.
As for life in the house, the true story of seven not-so strangers picked to live in a house, lounge around together and have their lives blogged, what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real ... well, I am not sure I could tell. There could have been a bloody massacre and I would have never noticed. I slept through most of the weekend and when I sleep, I really sleep. And sleeping, reading, artsy-fartsying were my goals. We stayed indoors a lot (the weather was perfect for cake and chocolate eating), we explored the surrounding a bit, we had a grand time. The house is set on a vast (for city folks) piece of land, with a big pond and all sorts of interesting things, among them several small plastic horses. We took turns cooking (some of us are piscifoisgrarians with a vegan streak, some only eat meat freshly ripped off of carcasses with eggs and fried bacon) and loading the dishwasher. There were some games, though I only played once. I got to sit on my infatable zafu a couple of times, so I can say I came back enlightened. Mostly, there was food. Obscene amounts of foods. I ate the kind of things I never do: cakes, potato chips, buttered toasts, cookies ... they are all sitting happily on my thighs now.
Here are some pix taken by Pamen (check out all the posts since April 22 and you will see the rest).
