62. August 28th, Picture, 2010.

August 28th was a Saturday night, and I had plans to head to the North End and go to St. Anthony's Feast with Ratty.  The plan was to head over earlier in the afternoon, grab some drinks and head out to eat our faces off.  The North End is crazy popular, all the time, so parking always ends up being a challenge.  Like most neighborhoods in Boston, you need to have a Residents sticker to park in most spaces, but there are a few Visitor spots peppered throughout the streets.  I pretty much know where every single visitor spot is, and I have my little route that I take every time I'm trying to find parking.  This time around, I circled for legit over an hour.  I exhausted every single option and idea, but I just was getting frustrated because I could not find a spot.  This is normally about the time that I become irrational.  Why am I always coming to Ratty?  I waste more time trying to park, this is an hour of my life I'll never get back.  I should make HIM park my car.  I really think I'm the only one trying here.  Then I normally calm down and go back to my normal sane self.


I was just about to give up on parking and drive home (to possibly take a cab or T), when it dawned on me, there are two near by neighborhoods, Charlestown and Beacon Hill.  Since they are both within walking distance, I figured they were viable options, rather than throwing myself into traffic, which is what I actually felt like doing.  I ended up nabbing a spot right in Beacon Hill, on the first street I tried, and Ratty started walking towards me and we met half way.


We ended up getting sucked into multiple episodes of 'House' and multiple glasses of wine, so by the time we made our way to the feast I was starving; like eat my hand starving.  Our first stop was for rice balls, meat and veggies, rolled in rice and then deep fried and covered with sauce.  YUM!  The moment we grabbed our food, we bumped into my friend Cicie, who is featured in the pictures of Consuelo's wedding.  I am always bumping into C in random spots, like at the W Hotel bar before seeing Chelsea Handler, and now, St. Anthony's feast.  We chatted for a minute, took bets on how many high school classmates we'd see, and then each went on our ways to see the rest of the feast.

The feast weaves in and around the streets of the North End, which are pretty narrow to begin with. Once you add stands and booths, plus thousands of people all trying to move in different directions, some sort of organized chaos inevitably follows.  I get nervous in large groups like that, because I immediately begin to worry something might happen.  What if (and this is a legitimate thought I actually shared with Ratty that night.  I may regret it because he currently thinks I'm off my rocker.) a gunman decided to open fire, or shoot people from a roof top, mass panic would occur and people would get trampled.  I did not want to get trampled.  I don't like when people are touching me or breathing on me or standing too close to me, so this was probably not the best idea, in hindsight.

My one and only goal of the night was to get zeppoles.  They are the most amazing little things on the planet and whenever I get them I cannot stop shoveling them in my face. They are basically the best part of fried dough, covered in powdered sugar and cinnamon.

{How good do they look?!  I wish I had some right now.}

{Asked for 6, but got 7.  I JUST noticed this.  I was too busying inhaling them, apparently.}

{Ratty asked if I wanted him to win me a prize.  Obviously, I said yes.  Unfortch, he didn't win.  I always think carnival games are rigged.}

After walking through the entire feast and eating our faces off and not getting attacked by sharp shooters, we went back to his apartment to finish off the wine and watch a movie.  After MUCH deliberating and pleading on my part, we watched 'Must Love Dogs' mainly because Christopher Plummer is in it and I need to keep watching his movies if I'm going to complete number 15 on my list!  Ratty hated it and I realized that I don't really like it either.  Oh well, I promise to never make him watch that particular rom-com again.  I cannot speak for other, better, romantic comedies, like 'Love Actually', 'Serendipity', 'Center Stage', and 'Definitely, Maybe'.  Those will never been banned.