CT Day 6 - A Very Childish Day- Pizza, Ice Cream, and Games of Chance
I started the day back in MA. I'm sure a lot of stand ups and possibly other performers can relate to the feeling that after the high of a successful show like last night there's usually a crash. It didn't help that I then had to say good bye to a bunch of my friends and being back on campus made me think of other goodbyes that I wish had gone a little differently. Needless to say I started the day with a bit of a mental funk.
Luckily I knew myself well enough to predict that I would react this way, and planned a day that was mostly based around self-indulgence. (In hindsight, I guess I could have and maybe should have stayed to see my friends longer as this is all self-structured but I panicked at the idea of not making the most of a my week in a state) I decided today I would treat myself by riding the Connecticut Antique Trail and also trying to determine Connecticut's best pizza
My first stop on the antique trail was Scranton's Shops in Woodstock. It's a cute little shop, filled with a pretty large collection. I love antique stores, because they are such beautiful mysteries to me. Where do these things come from? How do they stay in business? Who comes into a store and goes, "This! I need this!" when they see something like:
From there I went to Giant Pizza for my first slice of the day. I really liked that they had the story of the pizza place on the wall of the entrance. They called it a real American dream come true, as one recent immigrant worked hard at starting his own pizza place and then was able to build up a small chain of them. The pizza was pretty darn good as well.
The next antique store probably my favorite. Jeremiah’s Antiques and Shoppes. It was just expansive and fun. Everyone there was really fun and it also had a sister store called the antiques marketplace that was three floors! The two things that tempted me the most were some first run Howard the Duck comic books and a book of limericks just called Not For Children, but I was able to curb my consumerist urges.
My more childish urges were less easy to control as I got myself some homemade ice from the Victoria Station Cafe. I also got some coffee there which was very good but happened to be overshadowed by just how good the ice cream was. I got Peanut Butter Cup. but it was bananas how good it was.
The next slice of Pizza came from Pizza Pizzazz, which was my favorite pizza place name but probably my least favorite slice of the day. But as the old saying goes, bad pizza is like bad sex even when it’s bad it’s still pretty good. Honestly if anything that can only be more true for pizza.
After that just about all the antique stores were already starting to close even though it was mid-afternoon. Again how do they all stay in business?!? So I still drove along the trail because the towns were scenic and I went to my next pizza stop. Vocatura Bakery in Norwich had the cheapest slice at $0.99 but it was also one of the bests. It was sicilian style and even though it was a little cold because of when I got there it was packing a ton of flavor. Definitely a recommended stop for quick good eats, and the deli and actual bakery components seemed really good as well.
Because I was so single mindedly focused on pizza, I didn’t even realize that the next stop I was going to check out also happened to be Mohegan Sun resort and Casino. The pizza place didn’t have slices though, so instead I hit the slot machines. This one in particular was calling to me:
Much like a mogwai turning into a gremlin, I just stayed up too late, and while I did win $15, I quickly blew all of it. This was the first time I’d been to a casino since being legally old enough to actually play the games, and it just felt like total sensory overload. It has a really similar vibe to an arcade but honestly was a lot less fun even though you can stand to win a lot more than useless trinkets. I played the slots but didn’t really know what I was doing, and I didn’t have the courage to actually sit at a black jack table so I just left after I lost a small chunk of cash.
From the casino I went to the Mystic Seaport. It’s a really pretty old village in connecticut that’s now got a bunch of kinda bougie but kinda fun shops and restaurants (like ever seashore basically). There’s also a maritime musuem but it was closed by the time I got there. I was tempted to go to Mystic Pizza where the Julia Roberts movie and one of my dad’s t-shirts takes place, but I read that this place called Pizetta was better. They didn’t have slices either so I got a whole pie and saved half for lunch tomorrow. Maybe it was because they added a little asiago to the mozzarella or some other old Italian mystery or perhaps just the sunk cost fallacy of buying a whole pie, but this was definitely my favorite of all the pizza. The cheese and sauce were flavorful in a very complimentary way, and the crust was the perfect balance of fluffy and crunchy. It was mystical.
After that I went to an ice cream shoppe quickly realized I couldn’t eat any more ice cream, and decided instead to get a coffee and a champagne truffle to end with a tinge of class.
At my Air BnB, I kept the childish vibe going (albeit with a darkly adult twist) by watching the documentary Tickled, about underground tickling rings. Both my former roommate and my cousins were recommending it to me, so I had to check it out. It is a real wild, surreal, and disturbing ride. I don’t wanna give anything away, but you should check it out and you will not believe that it could possibly be a documentary instead of fiction.
Favorite Random sighting: Primitive Crow; No Knot Sense Healing Arts (the pun is pretty forced); A "Superior Court" sign pointing directly at a supermarket; A decrepit sign advertising "Hot Tub for the Whole Family"; Spooky Nights!; Framers of the Lost Art; 2 Young Studs Moving Company
Regional Observations: A lot of Bars in CT have Cafe in the name, and it'll confuse your GPS
Albums Listened To: Campfire Punk Rock by Frank Turner; Candy Coated Fury by Reel Big Fish; The Captain and Me by the Doobie Brothers (Just China Grove); Cardboard Castles by Watsky (just Sloppy Seconds); Carrie and Lowell by Sufjan Stevens (lovely but a huge downer); Caught in the Act of Not Being Awesome by Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains; Celluloid Heroes- Greatest Hits of the Kinks; Champion Sound by Jaylib (J Dilla and Madlib collab, really not as good as that should be though); Changes by Charles Bradley
People's Favorite Jokes:
What do you call a woman with one leg? Eileen
What do you call a woman with one leg in China? Irene
Did you hear about the explosion at the cheese factory? There was nothing left but de brie
How do you get a baby astronaut to sleep? You rocket
What is the difference between a dirty bus station and a lobster with a good body? One is a crusty bus station and the other is a busty crustacean
