I Win.

[butterflydreaming]

I was completely across the country, but the sky and weather in Hartford, Connecticut wanted me to believe that I had not left the Pacific Northwest. The multi-petal cherry trees bloomed in CT as they were blooming in Seattle; the petal confetti graced the sidewalks and stirred in cool breezes. When I go south to California, the color of the sky's blue fades to a laid-back, bleached denim. Over the weekend I walked under skies the same hue as home. Had I not travelled for hours to get there, I could have believed that I was in an unfamiliar city somewhere near Portland. The convincing detail was the proliferation of violets. The little flowers grow wildly among the dandelions and look just as healthy.

This was my first trip further east than Utah, and my first in-the-same-geography meeting with abebes_heir. I've met online friends before, and as with meeting adventurat and dctemo13 back in whenever-that-was, it didn't feel like a first meeting. (In all three cases, I had pictures.) Spending the weekend in each other's company was easy in a way that would normally make me very suspicious. Actually, everything since our intitial online meeting has been oddly easy. I'm choosing to believe that the Divine thinks that our being on opposite sides of the U.S. is enough obstacle. I think the cross bar and padlocks are still on the manor door*, but friends have the side-door key and are often sitting around in the kitchen. Some essential questions have been posed, but that's really a topic for a different post.

Waterbury, an hour from Hartford and abebes_heir's hometown, looked more the way I imagined a New England city. The Brass City is "built on seven hills", which means that the neat, Colonial houses nest between oak and other deciduous trees on a rolling landscape.Big city snob that I am, I didn't expect it to have two independant record stores. I picked up a couple of discs at Phoenix Record Shop. (Recent reports indicate that I passed the friend-test, too.) I found it interesting when talking to Damon that the Seattle indie store that he had heard of was Sonic Boom. Phoenix is so named because the store burned down and they rebuilt it.

I ate well over the weekend, from the "greasy" roadside diner (at 4am) to the fine dinner at Chale Ipanema, a Brazilian and Portuguese cuisine restaurant. We raced to get there before the kitchen closed (Sunday) and made it just in time for empanadas (served with an amazing ripe mango & green chiles combination), fruits-of-the-ocean seafood array for me, and tender beef medalions in a peppercorn sauce for my companion. Though that was plenty of food, we *had* to get the warm chocolate truffle cake for dessert. This was a 5" diameter beauty of a lava cake, adorned with a passionfruit sauce. Normally this is served with vanilla ice cream, but I upgraded it to the house-made coconut ice cream. I kept thinking how much you all would love this dessert. We only meant to have a few bites, but we couldn't stop until we had eaten it all.

Another place in Harford that I wished we had a clone of in Seattle was Tisane Tea & Coffee. I brought the tea menu home. There are more than 50 options that you can drink at the shop or buy to take home, in a variety of black, green, chai, tisanes, white, blended, scented, red, and mate. We shared a pot of magreb mint "chai", an herbal mix of mint and flowers and whatnot. This was brewed up in a glass pot (french press diffuser style). Our glass mugs were heated with a hot water rinse and served on saucers with a napkin & spoon.

Not only do they have an impressive array of tea, but Tisane is a funky but comfortable space with a good ambiance. They also served espresso and have a full bar and served appetizer-like food. Throw in hot chocolate and you would have the place I often complain that Seattle needs!

I took a good number of pictures. I'll post some of the ones from Bushnell park (with the carousel) and Elizabeth park (with the roses). Click any of the pictures in this post to get to my Flickr account. And you have to see what they have outside the Timex museum.

It will be J's turn soon to head this way and visit our Emerald City.

Oh, and to my chagrin, on Sunday he beat me at tic-tac-toe. Nevertheless, I win.

Comments

[rolypolypony.livejournal.com]

HARTFORD HAS A TEA SHOP????? Sure, it couldn't have one when I lived just outside of Hartford growin up, could it? Grrr!

I practically grew up on the Bushnell's carousel, and went each year to see the roses at Elizabeth Park :)

[butterflydrming.livejournal.com]

The carousel was beautiful! And in restored condition, unlike the Griffith Park carousel, near where I grew up.