Without a working tv or dvd player, no video games, and only one girlfriend to go around, late nights at 299 stanhope often beg for some alternative forms of entertainment. And by entertainment I mean anything to watch besides the cat. (The truth is I don't mind watching the cat - sometimes he does funny stuff, but mostly he just sleeps, plus Josh tends to get jealous). So rather than kvell over Miles like obsessive parents, we have been known to gather in 'round in the kitchen for a different sort of "watching" experience that is at once exhilerating and exhausting, whetting our appetites for the sensational drama performed by everyday, inanimate objects. The procedure goes like this - after we get home real late from our various evening activities, before crawling into bed, we turn out the lights in the apartment, put on some mood-setting background tunes, and pull up chairs. Around the refrigerator. And we watch. I know it sounds crazy, but you wouldn't believe the drama that unfolds in a stocked refrigerator late at night. And as it does, we comment, either analytically or simply in an observational manner, on what we see. "The sardines look pissed off," Josh says, or "the condiments look like commercials," I noticed. Nathaniel even once admitted that the milk looked "sweet" (and he wasn't talking about flavor).
Watching the fridge, or "Grub Gazing" as we like to call it, brings to bear all of our sensory faculties in an celebration of the one light that never goes out - the "ner tamid" in our modest sanctuary of a kitchen. It's the best of all worlds, as we get to use our ripe imaginations to create the drama that we really want to see, not just what is placed before us. And the best part is, Josh doesn't even need to feel competitive anymore - after all, neither he nor any of us can compete with cupcakes.
