Salem - 3/16/11

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Wednesday dawned rainy and cold, but we still decided to drive up to Salem and see what we could see. We had the place to ourselves - many places were still closed for the winter. Lauren made a bee-line for Derby Square Bookstore. Here, the books are precariously stacked up as high as they can go before reaching the tipping point. And, they are all 50% off. I do recommend stopping here if you’re ever in Salem - it’s a lot of fun. I spotted a pile of Janet Evanovich books and managed to topple two stacks of books trying to figure out if I’d read them all. Oops. The owner assured me that in 20 years he’d never broken a book. When we started taking pictures, he told us we had to buy a book first, so I told him we’d come in with the kid who was then checking out. (Lauren bought a couple books, so we were taking pictures legitimately. Not that I’d have felt bad about taking pictures without making a purchase - this is free advertising for him after all.)

View from under an umbrella

After leaving the Derby Square Bookstore, we wandered into and out of stores downtown looking at witchy merchandise as well as cookware and clothing and other typical downtown shopping fare. In the afternoon we found a seafood restaurant on the wharf where we could look out over the water and the rain. Tricia and I had halibut with green beans and sweet potato fries (they charged us $2 to substitute sweet potato fries for the regular fries - nice, huh?). But the food was pretty good.

Stirring the caldron



This is how you know I'm
a princess.



Finally we went to the Salem Witch Museum. We didn’t have time to do the tour, so we hung out in the gift shop. We tried on hats and stirred a caldron with invisible sticks. Tricia and I have spent 2 months honing our taking-embarrassing-pictures-in-public skills, and it took my sister a few minutes to warm up to this. But she’s a good sport and we have some goofy pictures of her too.

We next decided that we needed ice cream, but all the local places were still closed, so we went to Rita’s once again and had Blendinis. These are custard, Italian ice, and a candy or cookie mix-in. Lauren had pumpkin with Nilla Wafers, Tricia went with Chocolate Raspberry Oreo, and I had Strawberry Kiwi Raspberry Chocolate with Reeses Cups. Mmmm. J Then we went back to the car where we’d put 2 hours worth of quarters in the meter and then never returned. But, since we were just about the only car there and it had been raining all day, it probably didn’t make any sense to pay someone to write tickets, so we were fine.

At home, Tricia went off to Simmons again and Lauren caught me up on all the American Idol I’ve missed this season. (For the record, I’ve watched 2 seasons of American Idol - the one in which Fantasia one in circa 2003, and the one in which David Cook won in 2008. The former because all my friends were watching it in college and I succumbed to the peer pressure, and the latter because I was unemployed and had cable in 2008.) We also watched the latest House episode. I actually am depressed to be missing House, but am putting this blog before my House obsession. House and Burn Notice are the two things I wish I was still caught up on right now. L

Wharf in Salem - I have no Rino's pics

After the tv veg, Lauren and I decided to give Rino’s a second chance. This time it was late - 8:00, and they closed at 9. And yet - hour and a half wait. We put our name in anyway, and they promised to call when a table opened up. And we drove away to find a less-popular restaurant. While we were driving around in circles trying to find a parking space, Rino’s called - barely half an hour later! Since we were out of luck finding parking anyway, we drove back to the East Side to Rino’s. I had the Gnocchi, which is what I always have since I discovered it during Madison’s Restaurant Week two years ago. It was good, but do I think it was worth $20? Eh. As my sister says, the restaurant knows they’re good, so they don’t necessarily need to try as hard anymore.

And then it was back to the house and one final episode of American Idol before hitting the sack.