Greylock

Greylock. The very name inspires awe and wonderment. Towering above Massachusetts at a height of 3,491 feet, Mount Greylock, the highest point in the Bay State has beckoned the intrepidest of the intrepid to attempt scaling its lofty heights for eons. Many have tried. Most have succeeded.

We left the oxygen-rich safety of Boston early on the morning of Saturday, May 23nd. We bid farewell to Phoebe, the cat. Knowing that we might never return, we left an extra dish of food out. We drove west on the Mass turnpike, using those precious three hours to produce the extra red blood cells we would need for the travails ahead. We took the Corolla as far as it could take us, loaded our meager provisions into backpacks, and began the arduous 1.5 mile trek to base camp.

It was nice, they had toilets, water, and free firewood. We pitched camp.

We then took another equally arduous hike to Stony Ledge, elev. 2560 ft., from which we got our first glimpse of the imposing figure of Greylock. Intimidating to the extreme, we searched our souls for the strength we'd need to drag our fragile bodies up its sheer, jagged face.

Then we went to a pretty waterfall.

The trek back down was quiet and introspective, the trials tomorrow would bring looming heavily on our minds. But tomorrow would come soon enough. We pushed thoughts of our fragile mortality aside, for tonight we would have s'mores made with Peeps. Yummy.

Dawn broke early after a surprisingly restful night of sleep. Zero hour. Time to test our mettle against Greylock's cold, dizzying heights. The ascent began smoothly enough. Suddenly, at about 3,300 feet, our Sherpa was stricken with high altitude cerebral edema and went mad, babbling incoherently about Transformers and having to get back to his scout troupe. Or was it cerebral eczema? It's impossible to say since my oxygen deprived brain could only recall the most rudimentary of medical terminology such as "Charley horse" and "Wiener." In any event, having no oxygen canisters with which to save his life, we did the only humane thing and ran him through with his pocket knife. After pinning a note of explanation to his neckerchief, we somberly pushed on to the summit where we ate Nature Valley Sweet and Salty granola bars with almonds, Laughing Cow pasteurized cheese spread, and Triscuits (original recipe). It's what our brave, fallen Sherpa, Steven K., would have wanted. Atop the summit, past the parking lot and near the interpretive center, we saw another cruel site. A stone obelisk, presumably hewn from the virgin rock by the gods themselves would need to be scaled if we truly wanted to say we'd been to the highest point in the state.

Drawing on reserves of strength I didn't know I had, I climbed the stairs to the top of the tower. Alas, mist obscured views of the Green Mountains of New Hampshire, Albany, NY, and the entire Tibetan plateau. Exhausted, humbled, but triumphant, we descended from the death zone and bid farewell to Mount Gaycock, as it's known in the language of Steven K's. people. We returned to Boston damp but elated. Then we had pizza. You know who loved Pizza? Steven K.

Steven K.

1998-2009

Friend, Sherpa, Pizza Lover

Liz here. Thank you Rick for the rich description of our travels to the Berkshires. Yes, we indeed traveled to Mount Greylock State Park in the Berkshires for a couple days of hiking and camping. My number one goal of the whole trip was not to summit Mount Greylock, but to slowly roast my Easter Peeps (that's right, my mom still sends me an Easter basket) over some red hot coals. I had heard that the outer layer of granulated suger crisps up really nice. An important side note about s'mores, I learned many years ago from Rick's mom to use canned chocolate frosting instead of a Hershey's bar, one of the best pieces of cooking/baking advice I've ever gotten. Needless to say, the peep s'mores (which I deemed s'meeps) were delish!

Phoebe was over joyed upon our return home. We had left her a small pile of catnip on a plate in the kitchen. When we got home the plate was at the other end of the kitchen and the catnip was strewn everywhere, seems that someone got a little crazy while her parents were out of town.

Bands

We went to the Shins last night at The Orpheum (Boston has one too). It was sorta OK. I hate it when bands play live and change every song to the point where it's barely recognizable as the version on the album. The Counting Crows were the worst example of this I've ever heard. But on the flipside, I like to know I'm hearing a live performance. You could have gotten last night's Orpheum Shins experience by sitting in a hot, musty smelling room, closing your eyes, and putting the Shins section of your ipod on random on an average to slightly above average sound system. You would also need an girl/woman with a huge pony tail to squeeze into the row in front of you where she didn't have an assigned seat and swing her head back and forth as she simultaneously danced and talked to her friend, making your field of vision oscillate between stage and ponytail in an annoying hair strobe effect. Oh wait, I said your eyes would have to be be shut so actually you wouldn't need that girl. Nobody needs that girl. Hearing the whole crowd Ooooooh ooh Ooooooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh Oooooh along with the opening to New Slang was pretty cool.

Speaking of bands, I saw Stryper on TV for some reason the other day. I was thinking how Stryper is a perfect name for the first (only?) Christian hair metal band. I can picture their first band meeting...

First order of business, we need a name for the first ever Christian hair metal band. Something forceful. Something that invokes action while remaining totally innocuous and inoffensive.

How about Striper spelled with a "y"?

Perfect! It'll make people think of candy stripers, and volunteering to help the sick is totally in line with the band's message. And the "y" gives the whole thing a meaningless edginess. Side benefit: it gives us a built in theme for our spandex jumpsuits. Meeting adjourned. Brad, get to work on those jumpsuits. Kenny, break out the fruit punch and lemon bars. Gentlemen, we are gonna be so famous.

To learn more about Stryper, including the real story of how the band got its name, go to Wikipedia.

Dogzilla

I passed another milestone of true Bostonianality yesterday. I ate "the best" "hot dog" in "the world" from Speed's Hot Dogs. I say "the best" because it wasn't, "hot dog" because it was more like three hot dogs, and "the world" because it was purchased from a kiosk in a wholesale food service industrial park and furthermore, "the world" may just be, like, all in our heads man. First, the positives. The dog was massive. We're talking jumbo dome dog size if not larger. Here is a picture of said dog.



It's hard to tell the scale of that thing without a frame of reference so I've included a picture of common object by which to compare its TMJ-inducing girth and Ronjeremsonian length.


Second, it was perfectly cooked. Speed (not his real name) simmers them in a solution of apple cider and brown sugar all morning, then grills them until they caramelize and split when you order them. In addition to crisping up the skin, the splitting allows your mouth to divide and conquer since very few human beings could get their mouth around the whole thing, none of whom work in the wholesale food industry.

Now, on to the minuses. First, no kraut, which is strike one and two in my wienerverse. I originally ordered it with only mustard and onions but was talked into getting it "loaded" by the coworker who took me there. Loaded, I discovered, basically meant loaded with sugar. The extra toppings included a sweet BBQ sauce, sweet relish, and a chili whose sweetness could not be independently determined due to it's intermingling with said BBQ sauce. The toppings, combined with the sweet, caramelized exterior produced by its sugar/cider bath, produced a cloying (gmail word of the day a few weeks ago) sugar bomb. Even the onions were described as "The sweetest anywhere." If you want to get the Speed's experience without coming to Boston, take three regular sized hot dogs, cram them all into a nicely grilled french roll, and then dump a half a cup of honey and half a cup of molasses over the whole hot mess. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a big fan of mixing my sweets and my savories, I hate kettle corn, sweet and sour sauce, and sloppy joes. But this was just excessive. After a few bites I went back up to the counter to grab the bottle of Frank's hot sauce in order to get some other areas of my tongue involved in the party. Speed stopped me and told me that "Dirty Dick's" hot sauce was much better. I took his advice, dumped on a healthy amount, and took a bite. Somehow the sweetness factor was #$%@* increased! Then I looked at the bottle and saw that it was a Caribbean inspired, fruit-based hot sauce with brown sugar and bananas as primary ingredients. Speed, you diabetic SOB, I'm sorry but I think your true calling was in the pastry business. Will I go back? Yes. Will I order a dog with anything but onions, mustard, and Frank's? No. Will I bring my own kraut? Possibly.

Our cat would never lower herself to trifle with base meat products such as hot dogs, instead using her hypnotic eye lasers to compel weak minded humans into feeding her fresh Maine lobster.



Oh, and happy 32nd birthday to Liz. And happy zeroeth birthday (two days ago) to Nathan Tsatsos. I will practice my avuncular pull-my-finger joke delivery so it's ready to go when he is.