Road Trip Down Memory Lane

Note from new contributor Grouchy G: Just because S hasn't updated here in a long time doesn't mean she hasn't had stuff to update about. As many of yall know, there have been plenty of life changes for us, so free time to spend on the internets has been hard to come by. So she invited me to be her co-conspirator on this here blog, so there is less pressure for frequent updating, but so that we can still try to keep family and friends up to date with what's going on, specifically, what projects we got in and out of our hands.

I have guest posted on this blog before, but now I'm a real partner on it! This is really what I wanted all along. So below, I present to you my first entry as an official Home Engineer. (Holla!)

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On Saturday, I had a show at Amherst College. S and I met and became friends as students at UMass-Amherst, so we made the trip together and visited some of our old favorite places.

It was very meaningful actually. This was the 12th annual Voices for the Voiceless poetry concert, and I've been to about 7 of them. Maybe 8, maybe 6. I dunno, but a lot. It's one of my favorite shows to do every year because of the quality of poets and the attentive crowd. But usually, I drive right back to Boston after the show is over - but now that S came with me, we decided to take advantage of the school's offer for a hotel room and stay the night.

Moreover, old friend Shaggy Flores was there, and he was on point. Shaggy is a UMass grad also, who also met his wife in college. They brought their beautiful 5 year-old girl with them too. There are many parallels between myself and Shaggy. We both went to UMass, both moved to DC after graduation - we even were working about 3 blocks from each other. We both have masters degrees, and both are dope. We also both have our share of haters at our alma mater.

Also Bao was there, and he's one of my closest friends in the world. Bao & I have never done Voices together, although we've both appeared multiple times. And since he and his partner J just had their first child 6 weeks ago, it's wonderful to be able to spend time with him as we're getting ready to grow our family.

Also, two legends of Nuyorican poetry were there: Louis Reyes Rivera (amazing as always) and Americo Casiano (my first tiem meeting him) - both were phenomenal. I also got to meet Mwalim, who teaches spoken word and many other things at UMass-Dartmouth. Since I teach a simialr thing at UMass-Boston, we're like UMass brothers. I am definitely gonna hit him up for some knowledge about how to navigate that whole system.

But anyway, the rest of the weekend was focused on - what else? - food. So here we here we go:
Two slices each at Antonio's! Wow, it's been almost 10 years since we had this! Still just as good as we remembered. Maybe even better. Nom nom nom.

Amazing food from Santiago's Family Restaurant in Westfield. They catered the show. Ooooooooooooooh. Damn the pork belly is my JOINT. Even though I try to be pretty health conscious, the Chinese in me makes me unable to resist pork belly and extra oil in everything. Their food was seriously bomb tho. Full plate an hour after two slices at Antonio's.

S did leave the show a little early to catch up with our old friend from college Malis. And to see her beautiful family. Malis moved to Amherst for college, then never left! it was great to see her. After the show, we got calzones from DP Dough. We ate them so fast we forgot to take pictures.

Next morning we hit the Korean Restaurant on Route 9 in Hadley. We wondered if it would be as good now that we're older and get good pretty good Korean food near our home, or can get bomb Korean food every time we're in NYC or LA.

Nope, it was just as good we remembered. Mmmmmm.


Cider Donuts from Atkins Farm.


Yes I will have another.