The Cooking of the Great Bird

Thanksgiving. Some remember it for a time to be with family and celebrate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Others about Pilgrims, Native Americans, and the harvest. Still others choose to celebrate the Holiday strictly for the eating of delicious foods that make you pass out while watching football. Whatever reason, a day for thanks.

This year's Thanksgiving was unlike any other. For starters, it was the first time Christine and I made our attempt at cooking a turkey. For seconds, Justin and Jennifer Little also graced us with their presence for the Great American Holiday. Just look at them. Who wouldn't want to let them live with you in a small apartment for 5 days? Well, I guess we did anyway. Little (no pun intended!!!!) did we know, that this would come back to haunt us....

What can now be considered "par for the course," the Little's arrived at our apartment after hours (for those of you who don't remember their visit last year, see this post). Once again, I tried to stay up for them, but it wasn't happening and I fell asleep on the couch. But, they arrived without a hitch, and pretty much went straight to bed. The day before Thanksgiving was surprisingly an easy day. Christine had to work (bor-ing!), so JJ and I went to the store for some preparations and hung out in the City. It was fun. It was kind of rainy, but, you know, "fun." A mostly uneventful day, we made our way to the main event...

The morning was brisk. As the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, Jenny and Justin were up and heading down to watch the infamous Thanksgiving Day Parade. Personally, Christine and I were more than content with watching it on TV...with our pajamas on...in the warmth...with a cup of coffee...and with personal space. Anyways, we had a grand task to take on of our own: The Cooking of the Great Bird.

I'll go ahead and say it. I didn't know what I was doing. I don't think Christine really did either. But hey, we can cook, so how hard could it be? Duh duh duhhhhnnnn!

The first step is to scoop the innards out of the turkey. This is gross/not gross depending on how you look at it. It really wasn't that bad, if you ask me. The biggest problem was that I had hardly any help on the matter because Christine was "totally grossed out, Eric!!!!" Good thing I'm a man and can handle literally anything. So we de-gut the bird and put it in the oven, leave it for 6+ hours, taking it out every once in a while to make sure it's "moist." Repeat until ready. This is about the time that Jenny and Justin returned from the parade. I sadly gave up my cooking duties and went out and unfortunately had to watch football and eat hors d'oeuvres with Justin. Justin and I also had "grocery store duty," which means we made no fewer than 8 emergency trips to the store in order to save Thanksgiving.

Benjamin Franklin Wietmarschen and Jenny-Beth Thomas were kind enough to join us, looking dapper as ever. Cute as a button, those two are.

After some delectable finger food that Christine made perfectly, it was onto football time for the dudes. It's not a big deal or anything, but I dominated Justin and Ben. DOM-inated. But, after about an hour, we made our way back to the apartment to help with the Holiday preparations.

Then something happened. Something that will forever stay in our minds for the rest of Thanksgivings to come.

"Christine, I don't know what the deal is, but every time I pull the turkey out of the oven, it seems to be dripping all over the place. Am I that uncoordinated?"

*rolls eyes* "Just put the turkey in the oven."

"But this smoke - what's going on...oh my GOSH!!!!!! there's a leak in the turkey pan! Call the fire department, this one's out of control!"

Yes folks, you read correctly. We were almost smoked out of our small apartment with this mishap. To make things better, the food wasn't done, so we had to sit in the apartment while the smoke just pumped out of the oven. But, to look on the brightside, us men were called into the kitchen to save the day ONCE AGAIN. We looked cuter than ever in our aprons. Our Man-prons, if you will. And, we saved the turkey.

The food was great. The smoke may have caused us eye and lung problems, but the food was fantastic. Take a look at some of the pictures and try not to salivate.

What a fun Thanksgiving! Although we missed the family dearly and wished we could have home with everyone, it was still nice to feel a little like home with such great friends to visit. And it was sad to see Thanksgiving end, but you know what season starts as soon as Thanksgiving ends...........CHRISTMAS!!!! We'll see you all soon!

A SPOOKtacular good time!!!!

First, this:

And now, some Fang-tastic hilarity on the account of a super spoooooooky day!!!!

Q. What kind of streets do zombies like the best?

A. Dead ENDS!!!!

Q. In what room of the house would you never find a ghost?
A. The living room!!!!!

Q: Why did the vampire quit the baseball team?
A: They would only let him be BAT boy!!!

Q.Why aren't there any famous skeletons?
A. They're a bunch of NO BODIES!!!!!!!!

In case someone forgot/didn't care/is weird, last Saturday was Halloween. Halloween is a holiday, that like most others, comes once a year. What originally was celebrated as the night before All Souls Day, and is now celebrated as an excuse to dress up and eat candy until ones stomach screams in frustration, All Hallows Eve is a big deal here in New York. As if there weren't enough interesting people on the streets of New York, I decided it was a good idea for me to dress up as "Miss Piggy." Yeah.

Christine completed our perfect costume by being a perfect Kermit, or as "muah" would like to call her, Kerrrrmiiiiieeee!!! Oh, and we won the costume competition. It's really not a big deal or anything, but we won.

We had a rockin' good time at our Apostolist Hallowen party. The theme was costumes, pumpkins, and candy, naturally. With Kermit, Miss Piggy, a cupcake, a cow, and Abraham Lincoln dressed up both as a zombie and as a basketball player, you could say it was a frightenly good time! It was so good it was scary. Ok, I'm done.

Enjoy the pictures below. I apologize for some of the pictures of me dressed as Miss Piggy. No one should really have to see something that scary, even on Halloween, and if you have small children, you might want to shield their eyes....

Hope you had a boooooootiful Halloween!!! Go Bearcats!

The Humble Mayhaus Abode

I've been getting a ton of emails recently, saying things like, "Eric, I love catching up with Christine you, but I want to get to know the real you," or, "When do we get to see where you live?" or "I want to stay in your apartment for a free trip to Manhattan!" Slow down, everyone, we had to get our apartment ready to show you, and "free trip?" Ha! We'll see about that!

Christine and I will now take you through a detailed, fun and exciting tour through what we both venture to call "our apartment." Also, this post relies heavily on the pictures, so if you can't see the pictures in your email, click here.

C: Hey everybody! We're so excited to take you through our apartment!!

E: Yay!

C: Look how cute our door is!!!! We didn't even do this, or anything! We saw it when we came to the open house, and just knew this was our new home!

E: yay!

E: Right away you can see our cuter-than-life kitchen. This is where we do things like: cook, store food, refridgerate and freeze certain items, bake, and get glasses of water. Most other "normal" activities like watching TV and sleeping are done in other rooms of the apartment.

C: *rolls eyes* Oh, Eric. I just love the pot rack and the yellow paint that we (I) decided on. It really gives it a homey feeling, and brightens the room up. Yay Le Creuset!

E: This is the "Bathroom." 'Nuff Said.

C: Our first main room area is a quasi-kitchen, library, desk area, and dance floor mixture. Normal nights are spent eating dinner on our kitchen table, but you better believe that on Friday nights I'm out in the middle of this floor breaking it down while Eric flickers the light on and off like a strobe light with the bass pumping through the air.

E: ....and then we go to our second main room, or as we like to call it, "Room Awesome." The only thing of note in Room Awesome is the totally sweet and rad-tacular HD tv, perfect for sports and 24 watching. Moving on to the...

C: You forgot to mention the cute couch, rug, and audamin! Not to mention the paint color and curtains! We got such great deals on all of these, from the couch to the new pillow cases. Oh, and we need to talk about getting cable soon - Project Runway has started.

E: Sorry. Project Runway is on at the same time as The Office. I'm not skipping hilarity for fashion. Done.

C: Er-IC! We will be watching Project Runway. Actually, it's on after The Office, so we can watch both!

E: *silence*

C: And how about this cuuuuuuuuute bedroom?!? Just look at this bedspread, it's so cute, I can't even stand it! The color was my pick again, and I like how the light blue cleanses the palette after a tough day, and can brighten up your morning on a lazy Sunday! Oh yeah, look at these super cute hooks I got from Anthropologie! Aren't they just adorable?! And my cute jewelery box! And this cute....

E: *cuts off* If I had a nickle for every time we moved the bed around in this room, I'd have 15 cents (3 times moving x 5 cents each time = 15 cents).
C: *still talking in background*
E: I mean, it's a bedroom. We sleep here, sometimes read, sometimes watch tv. It's dece, I guess, but nothing to dwell upon. Now that TV out there....
C: ....and this great little closet right here! So, that's the master bedroom! Onwards to the guest bedroom!!

E: The guest bedroom is much like one would imagine it to be. A bed with a dresser and a closet. As you can see, this is where my stuff is stored.
C: *glancing around room* Oh, Eric, we need to clean up that guitar, fix the dust ruffle, actually wash that bedspread, and dust off that shelf finally......

E: So that's our apartment. It's pretty darn sweet if you ask me. What I didn't say earlier is that it's right in between two phenomenal parks - Central Park and Riverside Park. We're right by a subway stop and within a block of the grocery, laundry, and the local watering hole. We hope you've enjoyed this wonderful tour, and now if you'll excuse me, I've got some 'cleaning' to do...

Mr. October

(click here if you can't view pictures)

Yes, it's October. Ok, so, it's November, but this is about October. Do you know what that means (besides colder weather, apple cider, pumpkins, gourds, cornucopias full of joy and laughter, scary movies, Mr. October, and the excuse to eat candy till our stomachs implode)?

It marks the start of the season in which people decide to come in droves to the Great City of the East. To visit us. Or to have an excuse for a free place to stay while they enjoy the Fall in the City. It's still up in the air.

Kyle Dragan was the first to come visit us this year. Maybe it was in September, but it was close enough. In case you don't know Kyle, just know that he's a great friends of ours, and that he currently is owned by me at running. You see, one of the main reasons that Kyle decided to hang out with us the last weekend of September was because of the 5th Avenue Mile, a race that I ran last year. Needless to say, we raced head-to-head, and I championed victoriously. Kyle, we love you, but you're just less of a person now. It's science.

We hung out the rest of the weekend, hitting up street fairs and local establishments, with a high point arriving late Sunday evening, as Kyle was preparing to leave for the airport. The mighty Bengals of Cincinnati did battle with the lowly Steel-workers of Pittsburgh. And what a struggle it was! The Bengals came through as victors, slaying the perennial victors of the Super Bowl and giving hope to a hopeless franchise. The Bengals bar we were at went nuts, with jumping and cheering and glee. (My prediction of the Bengals going to the Super Bowl STILL STANDS!!!)

The next round of visitors were none other than the Mayhaus family! Coming up to spend the weekend, they provided me with a perfect opportunity to take a Friday off of work! Surprisingly enough with all of our visitors, we hadn't had any family members stay with us in Apartment Awesome as of yet, so this was our chance to shine, and let New York's restaurants' do most of the talking. We got pretty lucky on the weather for the weekend - as you can tell from some of these pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, what a fantastic group of people and park! It must be nice to live 3 blocks away from that place. After spending a good solid day walking around the Upper West Side (nicknamed the Upper "Best" Side - get it?), we enjoyed the delicious tastes, smells, and sounds of Little Italy for dinner. Dinner was delish per usual. The night previous we ate at our favorite sushi place, which turned out great once again. I feel like I should start name-dropping these restaurants that we've been taking people to eat, because I feel like we could make some sponsorship money. For example, we took my parents and sister to eat at: "Sushi Mambo NYC!! Come for the best sushi and most authentic Saki this side of the Mason Dixon line! If you're looking for fun, food, and folly, look no further than New York's premier sushi restaurant! Sushiiiiiiiiiiii Mambo!!!!" Something like that.

We had a great time. It's always great to see family, and was enjoyable to hang out and try to relax a bit. Our apartment isn't huge by any means, but we made it work and I think everyone was happy with the arrangements. We spent Sunday eating crepes, going to church and chilling out before the fam's flight took off back to the Nasty Nati, home of the 2010 Super Bowl champion Cincinnati Bengals. The conversation ran deep, overturning new ideas, and provided laughs, drama, and fun for all involved. A great weekend. And my dad decided to do the whole thing all over again 2 weeks later! We were that good that he couldn't wait but two weeks! This time was spent more relaxing in the apartment, eating at different restaurants, and watching the Cincinnati Bearcats and Cincinnati Bengals dominate their respected opponents. Once again, a great weekend.

Right smack dab in the middle of October, Christine and I joined thousands of others around the City for the annual New York Cares Day event. Our church group was stationed in the Boogie-Bronx at a middle school needing new painting inside and outside the school. What came of the event was arguably the greatest and straightest playground lines that have probably ever seen the light of day.

We had a great time - even though it was roughly 45 degrees and we were slouched on the ground all day so our legs, back, and overall 'beings' hurt - and it was an awesome way to spend a Saturday morning/afternoon that would have otherwise been spent sleeping in, eating breakfast, and watching college football. I mean, who'd want to do that? Certainly not me....

Just look at the master artwork by Christine, now to be enjoyed by hundreds, if not billions of middle-schoolers in the Bronx!!!!!

Look at that fantastic looking group!!!!!!!!

Also, look forward to a November recap! And book your weekend now at Hotel Mayhaus! Availability is running out fast, so if you want a trip booked, do it now!!!!

Back?¿!¡

Oh, hey! I didn't see you come in! Welcome back inside the exciting and amazing lives of Eric and Christine: official New Yorkers, official awesome-ers, and official people. I've heard low grumbles all the way up here in New York of people wanting "more! more!" of this infamous blog, and, well, if you complain loud and long enough, I WILL put the TV remote down and write something. Truth of the matter is - we had a good, solid blog ready to be posted a month ago, and our camera suddenly won't turn on or take pictures. No worries - the situation is being fixed and that blog posting will resurface, but until then, you won't see where we live. Sorry. Instead of making more excuses, however, I shall not delay in providing good and detailed updates.

I think the main topic to be discussed, or really even brought up, is the one about how awesome Cincinnati football is right now. I mean, like, right?! I'll start with the mighty Bearcats. Let's take a moment just to look at the newest AP rankings (located here), and soak in what we all see. Now just take that moment.

Got it? Now, as you can see, there is a little "8" marked next to the team named "Cincinnati", and a "9" marked next to the name "Ohio State." On second thought, that's really all that needs to be mentioned, and we can just leave it at that. All else I'll say is: on February 8th, 2010, we will be celebrating a Bengals super bowl victory, still relishing in the sweetness of a UC football national championship, and enjoying the Bearcats basketball tear through the Big East with a #12 ranking. You heard it first here, folks.

We've been quite busy this summer, running around like crazy New Yorkers always on the move. I'll see if I can highlight a few occurrences of greatness for y'all's pleasure.

We've played speed scrabble!!!!!

We've hung out with our pastor at church!!!!!!!!!

And we've hung out together!!!!!!!!

Just FYI, there will be a couple more postings soon on this here blog, and then you'll get your fix. Apologies all around, but it's really our camera's fault. So don't blame us.

"It's a Hoedown, Everyone!"

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re sorry to inform you, but your plane from Cincinnati to New York La Guardia has been delayed multiple hours due to thunderstorm activity in the New York airport.”

Groans filled the terminal, and Christine and I slumped back into our chairs, trying to get comfortable for what seemed to be a long wait (and what turned out to be, in fact, a long wait). Was this Déjà vu? Didn’t this just happen in La Guardia on Friday night, flying into Cincinnati? Was that Santa Claus? I pondered to Christine, inconspicuously motioning her towards an older gentleman, complete with a full-on white beard and red shirt. No, she assured me, it certainly was not.

Then, another "great" comment: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be experiencing further delays due to the fact that we cannot locate your pilot." That's good, right?

Sitting in the surprisingly comfortable Delta terminal in Cincinnati’s airport, I thought back over the past few days – quite a blur, in all honesty. But, then again, the blurring sensation could just be the sleep deprivation. We were on a voyage throughout the southeastern Ohio landscape for the weekend; our main reason for traveling was to celebrate the marriage of our two great friends, Nate and Andrea, but we were more than happy to spend time with family along the way. Now, having spent all our energy and funds on a quite exceptional trip, we sat back and tried to relax, enjoying the last few hours before New York.

The trip started where it seemed like it took place entirely: in an airport terminal. Thunderstorms filled the New York area, and as expected, the plane leaving La Guardia was delayed. Christine and I were able to witness a scenario at the bag check counter that would really only occur in New York.

Foreign Guy From Country I’m Not Sure Of: “Uh, yes, I had a, uh, question about my airline ticket. I was supposed to depart at 6:30 PM, but my ticket that was just printed says that I am delayed and not leaving until 9:30 PM. There has been a mistake.”

Airline Employee: “Yes sir, we’re sorry, but all flights have been delayed due to the weather.”

FGFCINSO: “I don’t understand. I bought my plane ticket to leave at 6:30. Why can’t the plane take off?”

AE: “Sir, have you looked outside? It’s literally thunderstorming out. No planes can take off. There is nothing we can do.”

FG: “This is ridiculous and unacceptable.”

We left, so I couldn’t hear if there was anything else said. No word on whether or not that guy left on a plane on time or if he did, in fact, have to accept the delayed flight. I’d choose the latter. After wandering around the terminal for a couple hours and eating a food-coma-inducing dinner from Chili’s, we boarded our fairly empty plane and set off for the homeland. The flight itself was pretty standard: Christine read, I fell asleep, and nothing too exciting really happened. We arrived at CVG just past midnight, and were picked up by two smiling (but likely tired) parents, as Christine’s mom and dad so graciously picked us up and drove us back to Harrison, Ohio: our resting place for the next few days.

The event of the weekend was slated to take place in Columbus on Saturday afternoon. After multiple people asked me which part of Columbus it was in, I did some research, but am still not convinced I know, or really ever knew. Regardless of where it was, we used google maps and were able to make it to the service in record time, a full 45 minutes early. As you can see by these beautiful pictures, we were able to see Andrea and the Bride’s maids have their official pictures taken. What a group!

After the service, and all that, blah, blah, blah, you can see me, Tyler, Rick, and Fromm were ready to hit up this reception. We heard some great things about the reception site, and we were darn well ready to get ourselves down and dirty on the dance floor. Rumor also had it that the infamous City Barbecue would be catering, offering absolutely delicious pulled pork and good ol’ country cooking. Mmmmhmmm! So after the ceremony and send off and all that jazz, which some people call the important part, but I like to call the “pre-party,” we headed off towards the real fun: the reception.

Picture a barn in the middle of rural Ohio. Include goats, cornfields, hay, straw hats, and the whole shebang. Then picture a wedding party. Sound awesome? Yeah, I thought so, too, and I trusted Nate and Andrea, so I was ready and pretty excited for this party.

This party did not disappoint! All of our hopes and dreams came true (“all” meaning just one, the one that they were going to have City Barbecue), and we ate and drank to our fill. We even were able to have quite a good time with the wedding favors, which made us seem to be like old men. Even the girls got in the fun too, and I must say, looked quite the part. Check out the pictures and see for yourself.

I also overheard quite the conversation between two older country gentlemen, discussing the impending argument at hand: how could this supreme party be labeled?


Man 1: “Well I’ll be! This here’s a hoedown!”


Man 2: “You don’t say! I reckon it’s a hootenanny!”


Man 1: “Hoedown!”


Man 2: “Hootenanny!!”


(This continued for 13 minutes, where a full-out line dancing fued ensued, with Man 1 coming through victorious, officially naming the party a “Hoedown.”)


The wedding was a great time, and even better was that we saw many of the ol' gang from college. I'll list some, so they feel appreciated for gettinga shoutout: Andrea and Nate (obvi), Meg and Tyler, Fromm, Whitney and Rick, Jenny, and Brian, to name a few. It was a reminder to both of us how lucky we are to have had such a great group of friends in college. Thanks guys, YOU're the best.

We left the wedding and made our way back to Cincinnati for the night. Along the way, Christine's parents called us and wanted us to come out with them to a bar on the river. It was 1 in the morning, and Christine's *parents* wanted us to go to a bar. Was this backwards? We ended up heading down to the river and meeting up, closing down the bar. I haven't closed down a bar probably EVER, and all it took was one night with the Plagemans in Cinci to do so. Thanks for helping us check another life goal off our list.

We tried to sneak back into the Westerkamp house, hoping not to wake Christine's grandparents' with our late arrival. But when we walked in the door, Christine's grandmother and grandfather were waiting near the doorway in their robes, arms folded, worried sick about us being out so late. We were teenagers all over again, sneaking in late after a crazy night on the town. Sleep was necessary: tomorrow was another busy day.

The morning brought Sunday brunch. Delicious Graeter's rolls, salads, and fruit cups galore greeted us at the breakfast table. And even more importantly, more family came to join us! The Mayhaus family came over to spend some time with us, and Charlie even pried himself out of bed at the ungodly hour of 10 am to bless us with his warming presence. This breakfast really added to a great weekend, as spending time with both of our families normally does. Living in New York City without a car usually prohibits much time together with the family, so we've learned to really appreciate every chance we have. We hung out with the family for the majority of the day, snacking and chatting away.

The events bring us back to where we are now: an airport terminal, listening to an airline attendant explain more reasons why we're delayed as we look at fake Santa Claus and listen to approximately 17 babies scream their heads off, because it's waaaaay past their bedtime. Another Cincinnati visit is in the books, people, and another good time can be chalked up right next to it. Until Christmas, when we take the city by storm, this is Eric and Christine, live from New York...