This week was another amazing food find. We were on the road searching for a birthday present (which proved stupidly hard to find) when we decided to stop at a new place for a late breakfast. This place said it served breakfast until 3pm. That’s my kinda eatery.
A day earlier my companion was teasing me because I said I rarely crave sweets but my usual choices for breakfasts suggested otherwise. I protested these were not cravings but whims. And despite the fact this place had a slew of more reasonable options I couldn’t help to go glassy-eyed with wonder when our waitress started rattling off their breakfast specials from the day. I couldn’t keep any of them straight but they sounded like the most whimsically deranged breakfast themed dessert cart one could dream up. Oreos were mentioned as were chocolate chips, a variety of sticky sweet syrups, and even cinnobuns. My resolve was tested and it suffered a resounding failure as I ordered the stuffed Cinnabon French toast. My companion on the other hand chose a more savory option, the Hamilton Kitchen Sink which came out looking like a garbage plate (and I say that with love, not judgement.) It was a pancake, bacon, sausage, eggs, a biscuit, and a truck load of home fries smothered in white gravy. We’re both very chosey with homefries but I’m happy to note I tried one with gravy and it was goddamn delicious to the both of us.
Meanwhile my plate was a war crime to diabetes but ahhhhhh, it was so good! The cinnobuns were made into French toast, stuffed with cream cheese and jam and topped with a truly indecent amount of whipped cream. I didn’t even have to put any syrup on it.
Our waitress joked it could be made better with chocolate chips. If I had only had a tiny white flag to wave back at her. I ate most my meal, was stuffed to the gills and couldn’t take on the last few bites but wow. Do I regret my heart challenging option? Nah, no other place has made me want to yell ‘you only live once’ like this place! I have learned nothing.
What better way to follow up a visit to the pirate museum than to find ourselves a rocking grilled cheese joint?
It was a gorgeous summer day but there was an alarming lack of tourists around. I suppose a sign of the times. Even so I parked in a super easy parallel parking spot in front of the JFK museum having no idea the next half a mile had oodles of parking spots. Oh well, can’t complain too much about getting a little exercise, especially when the stoner-friendly sandwiches we were after were probably about a billion calories each. On this day I did not care.
When we finally arrived we found a vendor and an outdoor cafe space. A woman was already at the window waiting for her order when we ambled up to look at the menu. She turned around to tell us, “Everything is great here! You’re going to love it!” High praise, we both laughed and thanked her for the unsolicited review.
I wanted fries with my sandwhich so we decided to split a poutine and each get a different weird sandwhich. Pretty sure my companion got the Country Boy and myself the Veggie Daddy. The cashier on this day was having a day, for sure. He was straight from a wedding in Florida and clearly very tired. He couldn’t remember the order and asked my companion to repeat Veggie Daddy until it was uncomfortable but luckily we were both laughing at this because it was hot, we were being a pain in the ass taking forever to decide, and we could empathize with a little brain fog. Our reward for being a sport about this was being able to sample their home made hibiscus ice tea and lavendar lemonade. Both were really good but the tea was amazing so the pitch worked!
We sat at one of the tables and waited, our server clearly as entertained by us as we were of him, yelling, “I’m going to take care of you!” And he did. Even drew smiley faces in our dipping sauce. It was fucking adorable.
And the sandwiches… oh my god. Totally worth the fact they probably went straight to the arteries! The dipping sauce was another fun touch. They were SO MESSY and sooo good. I got it all over my shirt and sighed. Can’t bring me anywhere.
I was so full by this point. Even so my server came back out to offer a refill on my ice tea as we were cleaning up. I was tempted but then I’d have to carry an open cup to the car. Instead I thanked my server and smiled. He said, “You guys are great!” Before returning.
I know I haven’t been giving my beloved blog much attention lately but it’s only because my chronic fatigue has been working me over like a steam roller this summer so I haven’t been able to make it out of the house very often. So too has my usual travel companion who is currently being pushed to the brink by his capitalist overlords. As such we both desperately needed a more unusual outing, an extra little escape from the bleakness of reality. I pitched the Wydah Pirate Museum because you can’t beat pirates!
The Wydah Pirate Museum is an entire museum based on one very lucky discovery of a sunken pirate ship off the coast of Cape Cod. I’ve always wanted to see an old wooden shipwreck but am also phobic of the ocean so barring that this seemed a nice compromise.
We ended up during peak traffic hours on a gorgeous summer day so by the time we got there I was in no mood to be fighting with the GPS who didn’t feel it was nessassary to tell me which side of the road I was supposed to find this establishment. It is set back from the road with an underwhelming forefront so I drove right past it and ended up turning into a big seemingly abandoned parking lot which turned out to be almost directly across the road. And then I had to dodge two lanes of unrelenting traffic to get across said road which nearly ended in catastrophe when I saw a break in the traffic and slammed the gas to the floor only to have my wussy little Prius bottom out and only kick in a full second or two later. No one died, not even the Prius. Thank God.
As I drove in I was one of several cars there. Outside there was a big banner above the door to what looked like a big metal warehouse. This was almost as sketchy looking as all those salt water fish stores.
Fortunately the inside was completely different. Two teenagers joyfully tended the entrance desk and told us this was a no photo establishment and self guided tours started in an adjoining room where a short video played on a loop. Under the screen was a big gold bell in a tank which was apparently the first thing they found on this wreck.
Travellings into the museum itself we found LOTS of plaques and information, the usual scattering of creepy wax dummies, and a few cases of random things found. We learned this particular ship had a 40% black crew as well as numerous indigenous members and a random twelve year old runaway whose boot and shinbone were found and were currently on display. This was all news to me. I knew black pirates were a thing but I had no idea there were so many and why would an indigenous person want to be a pirate?? I had no answers on that one although the picture was much clearer for the black crew members who through escape and mutiny had chosen the pirate life over slavery. There was also a small display honoring the women pirates who dressed as men to take on this life which to me sounds like some transmen found belonging in a diverse democracy at sea. I’m telling you pirates sound better at governing than our own land based government.
I also got to see some twisted and broken pirate pistols and learned why pirate guns always seemed so cartoonishly large – its because they’re not hand guns, they’re literally sawed off shotguns. Remind me not to get on the bad side of a pirate.
There was even a little station where you could touch some of the coins dredged up during this escavation. They were well polished and worn by being pawed at by thousands of fingers and yet it was still pretty cool to touch someone’s spare change from hundreds of years ago. Also on display were real gold deblooms and pieces of six. They looked so much more primitive than I’d imagined.
But the most unique display was a whole room of various fish tanks filled with large chunks of the wreck that had been encased in mineral deposits and needed to be slowly melted away with the magic of water erosion. There were X-rays revealing what was in these strange rocks. I had always thought corals may take over these sunken vessels, it never occurred to me they’d be slowly enveloped by rock over time, like fossils! Of pirate guns.
Finally there was a slew of displays on what ultimately happened to the pirates who were caught. Spoliers: nothing good. Sort of brought my mood down a bit to be honest. I was rooting for these probably ADHD-addled sea rogues.
We took a moment to play at the knot tying station before scanning the gift shop for morbid loot. There were indeed books a plenty but I left them on this day feeling the $18 entrance fee was already quite enough to spend.
Off we went. I took a selfie outside with one of the wooden pirates so I’d have something to post here, having obeyed the rules of the inside museum.
This place was dangerous – a huge store FULL of used vinyls, CDs, DVDs, and whatnot that I couldn’t just window shop. I could have spent several days digging through all these treasures and spending every cent I have.
I was overjoyed to find they even had a whole section for French music with Edith Piaf and Jaques Brel… Obviously the two disc set for Edith Piaf came home with me.
I did a very quick sweep of the vinyls because I knew I could end up with a stack of them. Instead I grabbed a George Carlin and then got lost in a back corner where there was a distressingly large pile of completely unsorted $1 CDs. I’ve been looking for new music to play in the car and it has a CD player so I ended up with an absolutely psychotic little pile of Swing, Delta Blues, French, Indie Rock, and Surprise. Sadly didn’t find any Dark Caberet or random local bands no one’s ever heard of but I guess there’s always next time! I’d totally come back here… with a couple of cartoon styled money bags.
Ah yes, another book store! This one had a book called Night Animals Need Sleep Too in the window and I was endeared. Inside the whole back section was full of these funny little children’s books. The front of the store had young adult novels and a few more mature picks. This place was clearly where you go to buy a shiny new book to read on the beach.
The Brass Monkey is not the type of place I usually write about in this blog but I was lured into it after seeing a cool octopus bowl in the window. Indeed this place was FULL of cute little octopus things, beach chic, owls, and chickens. It was an odd, colorful, and sweet assortment.
Also they had hats, lots of hats! I wish I looked good in hats… but alas I don’t think I do. So off I went to check out their humerous hand fans, their delightful assortment of couch pillows, and the lobster trap decorated with dozens of guady Christmas ornaments.
Again this was a lovely place for tourists to wander if you have the money for a middle class vacation like people used to have in the 90s.
After enjoying The Paper House and Cynthia Curtis Pottery we decided to head towards town and see if there were any walkable streets. We were not disappointed and there’s few things that make us happier than a surprise independent book store! You never know what you’re going to find in these places.
This one had a whole Beat section, some obscure local books, a number of weird antique books, a French copy of Babar, the usual LGBTQ+ section, and entertaining category signs and quotations. David Bowie was sprawled out on the Fashion categorey for example. So much character!
And the shopkeep? Adorable. I was eavesdropping and heard her exasperatedly claim, “I want to sell to queer people, not rob them!” In this capitalistic hellscape we live in such a statement is so refreshing! Not to mention allyship always warms the cockles of my heart.
So yeah, looking for something obscure, old, or weird, this is you place!
This one had been on my list for a long time because it was so odd. And the entrance fee was only $3 a head. Win.
I didn’t actually know where Rockport was. On the other side of Boston of course… so we did that whole fun trip right through the city and all the traffic but luckily it wasn’t that bad on this spring day. When we got to the Paper House it was in a residential neighborhood that was littered with signs reading no parking on this side of the street.
The sign was outside a regular house and up a small city driveway. Was I supposed to go in the driveway??? Could I park on the street?? The driveway had two parking spots, one had what I asumed was the home owner’s car in it. I parked in the other one and we walked awkwardly up the driveway wondering what was going to happen from here. Would we have to ring someone’s doorbell or ring a number? We walked up to the building on the property that read Paper House and looked in the windows. Yep, it was the paper house. It took us a minute to find a sign stating the door was unlocked and we could go in. There was an honor box outside to leave our entry fees.
This place was really small but fun. We were clearly the only ones there. In the structure the walls were decorated with folded paper in the style of “tramp art,” which was common in the 1920’s when these pieces were made. There were chairs, a table, a piano, and a grandfather clock, all decorated with rolls of paper. The information given was that these were made as an experiment to see how long print paper (in this case newspapers) could hold up if varnished and used to make things. There was no explanation as to WHY this experiment was going on, only that it was the homeowner’s grandfather who started in with this quirky hobby in the 1920’s. Some postcards sat out for souvenirs if you wanted to pay an extra 35 cents.
There was also a few pamphlets on other cool places to go in the area including a pottery shed just a few houses down. We’d continue our explorations there. This was a quirky little side quest and if you’re int he area I deffinately think you should give it a little lookey-loo. Otherwise, on it’s own, this probably wasn’t enough for me to say it’s worth any sort of drive, especially through Boston traffic! However, there’s lots of other stuff to do in the area that may make it worth it.
Sadly, I have fallen WAY behind on writing these entries. This was 15 of 17 I had let pile up and as such I don’t remember why I was here. All I remember is it was a hot day and we’d already done our adventuring and were looking for good grub before driving home. So, I did the usual dance of trying to find parallel parking (BOO!) and then walking half a block to see what we had chosen.
This place… it was a trip. You would not be wrong in thinking it was closed based on the fact there was no light in this place, not via windows or electricity. Did we just walk into a swinger’s club? I couldn’t be certain. The only lights were fairy lights and I…. am not a bat. So, even though the menu was on the wall in huge font I was still having a hard time reading it! Though I admit I was deeply amused that one of the options was a grilled Fluffernutter. How very New England! I was overheating at the time so I knew my stomach was going to reject basically anything I tried putting in it. A Fluffernutter would have ended up painting the walls if I tried it. None the less I got The Tomboy which was loaded grilled cheese with heaps of fried chicken thrown in. Funny, this was the first autistically coded menu I’d come across but I’d bet money based on the fact this choice was named after gender variance and contained a pile of common “safe” foods that whoever it was named after was most likely autistic. We have an obscene amount of gender variance and love of over processed food in the community. It made it an easy decision. We also ordered fries as potatoes are my “safe” food (something I won’t hurl up even when my stomach’s being an ass, like today.)
We wandered into the back room and sat down. It had this delightful 20-watt chandelier which I wanted to bring home with me. And the music? It was wild. Literally anything that had been popular in the last hundred years would play at random. Ella Fitzgerald followed by some random 90’s garage band? Check. Also some Bob Dylan which luckily didn’t trigger me like the last time I’d heard a Bob Dylan song by surprise. Nothing quite like sobbing alone at a Panera! (To be fair it was a BAD point in my life and I think it was triggering because it reminded me of all the parts of myself I’d lost while in long term relationship with a narcissist including listening to 60’s folk all the time like I did in my teens. It’s a story as old as time and I wish so many women [and others] didn’t have to go through it.) This time I found myself singing along to Tangled Up in Blue and thinking to myself, “Jesus Christ, that’s insane, it makes me happy I’m not still 20.” Funny how things hit differently when you age..
This is when the food came out and I ate it quietly in the dark. Actually, the dark was very calming after having spent a few hours being active in the outside world. My autistic ass thrives in the dark, even if my eyes no longer adjust to it. And the grub was good! Perfect stoner food if that’s your thing, the sort of faire that goes straight from your mouth to your arteries. Good times.
It was another gorgeous spring day so we decided to spend it outside. In a cemetery. Because that’s what normal people do. I left the choice of which cemetery to my travel companion who chose the Holyhood Cemetery because it was said to be haunted. Aren’t all cemeteries haunted? Probably, but this one seems to be mostly ghost children running between the stones and in the 1920’s people claimed to hear Gaelic lullabies in the wind.
But the cemetery’s real claim to fame was the fact it was the burial grounds that contained the Kennedys. Specifically, the mom and pop of the never forgotten former president John F Kennedy. And his sister… the one who at 23 had too salacious a lifestyle for her parents to handle so they had her lobotomized, then institutionalized, and no one ever spoke about her again. Shame, I think she seemed like the sort of live wire I would have loved to have read about if she weren’t turned into a human vegetable for the convenience of her rich family. I pondered for a moment what they must think of their legacy now being carried by RFK Jr, their nephew, who is currently succeeding at killing dozens of children through his campaign against measles vaccinations. He also thinks germs aren’t’ real and was recently stopped from starting a non-voluntary register for autistic people for… reasons. Oh Rosemary, you were the only sane one in this whole family weren’t you? I am so sorry you were robbed of becoming way better than any of your male family members. Also, at the risk of making a political statement on a blog which is not… Fuck you RFK Jr, go back to the rock you crawled under and die. We do not need or want you.
BUT BACK TO THE CEMETERY! It was well spaced out and pretty large making for a nice little amble. The majority of the stones were very typical but there was enough more individualistic ones to make it worthwhile. My favorite ended up being a woman angel made in bronze who was just… dramatic.
We spent maybe an hour or so walking around here. I can’t say I saw any ghost children or heard any Gaelic lullabies but it was still enjoyable. Perhaps worth it if you’re in the area.
