Year 2, Day 157: The Pig Roast

It's a long story. Do you have time? Get a drink and sit down at the computer. My friend Gary has a farm in Vermont. Three years ago, he had first ever pig-roast. This is an event, if you haven't already guessed, where the host acquires a pig, and cooks it till it's crispy. People come from all around, and party like it's 1999 until the food (in this case the pig) is cooked and ready to eat. The first year Gary had it, he mentioned it like "hey I'm doing this crazy thing." Last year, Gary formally invited all the guys who play in the card game to come. None of us went. We really all thought he was putting us on that he even wanted us to come, and I personally thought he was bonkers, since I have hard time getting six guys to come to the place in MASSACHUSETTS to play cards for the NIGHT, even after they've AGREED to show up. Now, he thinks he can get those same guys three hours north with a stay overnight with a simple request and an email? Clearly, he was unprepared the level of non-action he got. In what I think was the cold shoulder and what he has claimed is the longest coincidental period of him not speaking to us in history, he showed his feelings were hurt. So even though he didn't tell us his feelings were hurt, we all decided to make a concerted effort to go to the next one. David immediately reserved a Bed and Breakfast. Gary suggested we all bring our kids, but the thought of our kids running down the green mountain of Vermont unsupervised and frolicking in the moose droppings was not winning any Mothers over. People who know me know I refer to the mountains only as "Tick-squito Land" and imagine that Dick and Perry live behind each long, windy, unnamed country road. David and I went alone.

It just so happened that the weekend, a lot of things conspired to KEEP us from going to the pig roast. For starters, my father's only trip to Boston was that weekend (when he returns from his time share on Block Island) and this is when David and I (and our families) would usually see him. On top of that, Emily's family decided THIS would be the optimal weekend to clean out their father's house, which they are selling in New Jersey. Then David's kids both came down with something. Like Horton Hatches the Egg, we were doggedly determined to get this pig roast. Now if I could tell you that the car broke down and....well, everything went well from the time we left, except the B&B gave us bad directions and we wasted 40 minutes going out of our way because they said on their confirmation email that no 'live person would be there after 8:00pm'. It was an excellent B&B (more on that later) but I'm still holding a grudge about their directions. It was about five lines. 'Take route 107 to 100' it said, without mentioning that that part of the journey would take 20 minutes. It was teeth-gnashing, really.

We got there around 5. There were living people there, and we got our keys. Everyone was very nice, evidence that we were not in New York or Boston. We asked if there was a better way to the pig roast, and in fact, there was. The new route, over the road THEY WERE ON took five minutes! When we got there, the pig was already cooked, which was a relief because we were very hungry. I had a hard time deciding what to eat and what not to eat. David and I took on another family from Brookline in Badminton, and split games. David and I then played each other in the "who's first to have a heart attack' badminton finals. I won both games, 21-14 and 21-18. The amazing thing is that we played badminton with a volleyball net (way too long and high) and on a field the size of a tennis court. So you're covering this amazing amount of ground, and unlike tennis, you don't have a bounce, so when the shuttlecock goes over your head, all you can do is laugh because it's a completely preposterous set up. I could only hope that I burned off both ears of sweet, sweet corn that I ate.

After four games of badminton, I treated myself to seconds. Then came the smores. Alice, Gary's wife and the co-host, came out with a bag full of hershey bars, stay-pufts, and graham crackers. Kids scattered like ants from a water balloon to find appropriate sticks, which they studied like rabbinical scholars to see if they were properly outfitted for the job of keeping a marshmallow in the fire till it was black. Just like the cotton candy at Ruby's party (for which kids lined up in the rain to have seconds and thirds) the children, to my observation, never again left the campfire site where the smores were, except those perhaps, whose parents insisted on staying close by to monitor their intake. I naturally eschewed them. Though I like all the individual ingredients, I never really understood the fervor which people approach smores. I guess it's a melty-chocolate-gooey-marshmallow-crunchy graham crust-texture kind of thing. Now if there had been pecan pie and ice cream, that would have been trouble.

Breakfast
1 Cup kashi Go Lean/heritage flakes
1 cup Strawberries/Blueberries
1 Cup Unsweetened Soy Milk
Green Tea

Snack
3 handfuls of Cashews/Almonds

Lunch
Spinach, Feta Omelet with Sliced Tomatoes
Side of Bacon

Dinner
Pork (what else)
2 ears of corn
cole slaw
beans

After-Dinner Drinks
2 glasses red wine
2 beers (UFO)
1/2 package of microwave popcorn
spicy peanuts picked out of the bar mix

After the moon started lighting the sky, it was time to go. We returned to the hotel bar, which was comprised of four five seats and took two of them. I decided that this would be a good time to drink, so David and I worked our way through the bar, keeping the staff busy and entertained while they cleaned up, wrote their reports, and waited for some endless talkers to ask for their check. I must say that you can't really sit at a bar for two hours without becoming ravenously hungry, which is funny because you're not really doing anything but sitting. I asked them if they had any plain nuts, but they said no. I think I actually asked them if I could bring my almonds in from the car. They politely declined, but offered me some microwave popcorn (I assume from their private collection, since it was non the menu). I dove into it head long. I also had my first beer (or two) in about a year and a half. It was called UFO, which stands for unfiltered offering. It's made from wheat instead of barley and it was FANTASTIC. Not sure whether it was 'end of a long day beer tastes great' or actually the beer that was fantastic, but I had a sip of David's and ordered one of my own. Then another. Of course by that time, I needed to be carried upstairs on a gurney, which happened not too much later. I was thinking "I've got to get to the gym tomorrow, but absolutely." When they lowered me down, I went to bed with sweet dreams of dancing plates of pulled pork in my head.