Last Saturday Ratty and I spent the day poking around stores and such in Gloucester and Essex, all ending at the famous Woodman's for lobsta rolls. If you aren't familiar with Woodmans, in which case you should familiarize yourself with it ASAP, they are this fab restaurant right on the marsh that invented the fried clam. It's a super casual establishment with paper everything and long picnic tables for dining. Woodmans is smack in the middle of 'downtown' Essex, down the street from a few of my favorite antique stores, so it was a natural decision to have lunch there.
We started the day walking around Gloucester, grabbing coffee at a little place called Sugar Magnolia's and split the very last banana nut muffin, which we immediately inhaled, and I don't even LIKE banana nut muffins. We walked around, popping into used book stores, photography studios and my personal favorite, home wares boutiques. I walked around a book shop, picking up no less than 10 books, carried them around with me and decided to put them all back at the last minute. Ratty mulled over an antique print of Rowe's Wharf from the 1920's, but decided against it. We were 0 for 2 in the purchasing department and decided to test our luck at the antique stores in Essex. I was on the hunt for an antique champagne glass to jump start my collection and Ratty was looking for either maps or prints of historic Boston. We started at the White Elephant and spent the majority of our time combing through the $1 book room. After collecting about 3 books each, Ratty quickly looks at me, says he doesn't feel good and walks out. I kill time wandering around the rest of the store, books in tow, knocking over an guitar in the process, waiting for him to get back from apparently passing out. About 15 minutes pass and I'm afraid I've lost him; I start looking for him upstairs, back in the book room, the back porch area but no luck. I get a text from him that just says 'I'm Alive' and a few minutes he walks back in saying that he went and sat on a bench down the street because he was nauseous. I'm now concerned and say that we should buy our $6 worth of books and go grab something to eat. He agreed.
Considering it was the Saturday of Memorial Weekend, it was relatively calm at Woodmans. I mean, there were still a ton of people and a small line, which is typical, but I expected a line out the door and around the corner, so I was very happy that wasn't the case. Ratty and I had plans to go out to dinner that night at Eastern Standard in Kenmore with 8 of his friends from college, so I didn't want to eat so much food I needed a nap, since I would be doing that in a mere 5 hours anyway. We both decide on lobster rolls with fries, and I opted for corn on the cob on the side. While I waited to order the food, Ratty walked over to the beverage line to grab some drinks. I wanted lemonade, but he wanted beer. Ya, when I'm sick to my stomach I always grab a beer to wash down my Tums. You know, the foam and all, very soothing. I snapped this picture right before I dove in head first into the massive plate of food.
After eating and regaining some energy, we stopped off at 2 more antique stores, pouring through the cabinets and bookcases looking for glasses and maps. There was an entire, long wall filled with colored glasses, plates and other things, so I spent a good long time looking for the perfect champagne glass. When Ratty gave up on his antique map hunt for the day, with no purchases, he came to help me reach things. This is how that went:
Me: What about that one next to the plates, the blue one?
Ratty: That's an aperitif glass.
Me: A what?
Ratty: An aperitif glass. For cordials.
Me: Uhhhhh okay. What about that one, the yellow one on the second shelf.
Ratty: That's a dessert bowl.
Me: Are you sure?
Ratty: Yes, it's too big.
Me: And that's a problem why?
Ratty: Because it's a bowl.
Me: Fine. K that red one, over there. The skinny one.
Ratty: Amy, that's a VASE.
Me: I give up.
We both walked away with 3 books, for $1 each. Ratty bought a Red Sox one, another about the Enron scandal and Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane, while I grabbed Thunderstruck by Erik Larson (I started it but needed to return it to the library before I could finish it), Great Waters and one aptly named What Should I Do With My Life?
We drove home and got ready to go to Eastern Standard to meet Ratty's college friends for dinner and drinks. Chad and Christine just had a baby girl, so this was one of their first outings after she was born, Bianca and Kevin are expecting a little girl, and Mike had just proposed to his girlfriend a night or two before, so LOTS of celebrating was needed. We had amazing drinks, a crazy dinner and stuck around the bar to watch the Celts play whatever that other team was that they just beat, advancing to the finals against LA. It was a long but very fun day and it was still just the middle of Memorial Day weekend. There were still 2 days and BBQs and fun to be had!
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