Best Birthday Gift

Old Hermit Knitting
A photographFrom
Francis

Thanks

Everybody . Thank you for the birthday wishes. The weekend turned busy and now on Tuesday we're getting ready to go to Rhinebeck. The set up is Thursday, so we're packing and getting Chet to his home away from home for the week. We'll be at Josh and Cheryl's on Wed. Should be a fun weekend, but you won't be hearing from me until Monday.

I've got lots of new things that came my way for the birthday... tons of plants for the front garden. a little bit of new yarn, from Sophie's Yarn in Philly. No photos though. I still need a camera.

So thanks again. Things are okay .... and busy

May 16

Happy Birthday to

Christian Lacroix
Jonathan Richman
Debra Winger



Mare Winningham
Janet Jackson
Tori Spelling
and
me
1957

okay.... so I stole the image of debra winger..... Debra you really aren't angry with me are you?

New reality

Rupaul's Drag Race on Logo it's casting time.

Musty I hope you apply.



And I hope this guy tries out too.

I've been away

Here's the thing...

I usually hate my birthday, but for some reason, this year it feels even worse. I keep thinking that I need a real change in what I do. a new way of making money. I'm in such a terrible mood and my birthday isn't until tomorrow.

Last year I thought I was old at 50.... this year 51 I'm old and grumpy.

OMG I've turned into a grumpy old man.

shirking blogging

I've been bad about writing lately. It's a combination of being busy with "stuff" around here, ennui, and lack of creativity.

I need a trip to the Cape.

Garden

I'm trying to get some work done in the yard.
I was suddenly inspired yesterday to build raised beds. These will be for vegetables surrounded by perennials. I finally got most of the pachysandra and ivy out. oh and I planted twenty boxwood, they're on the right out of the shot. I'm so happy to have just a little bit of land, and no deer to eat everything.

Since Thursday

Get ready for my longest post ever, with the usual typo's, bad grammar, mis-spelling and stream of conscience writing.

I think I'll start with a little bit about dinner at Osteria.

The restaurant is super friendly and the people working are super efficient, to the point of very nearly rushing us. Nearly but not quite. The wine list is fantastic with lots offered by the glass. It's a casual looking place.

The food - What's great is you just couldn't make this at home. The Pizzas are justifiably remarked on by everyone who eats there. I guess it's something about the oven which is at 700 degrees F.

What we ate -
We started with a spring onion flan with morels and a chervil tarragon salad. very springtime flavors, fresh contrasted with the earthy morels. Then our pizza, we opted for the fava bean mozzarella, walnut which continue our spring theme and in no way was as boring as my description may sound.
dinner was rabbit for me, skate for Francis and Carol(his Mom) had a crespelle with asparagus and truffles. all of the dishes were OMG good, I especially loved the crespelle, the noodle was perfect and the filling yum, Not saying I didn't love the Rabbit , too. I didn't taste the skate since it was scarfed down in a second so I'm assuming it was good. as a side we had the fried artichokes, we debated ordering more of them but as artichokes do they were killing the wine. which by the way was a full bodied dry red from Puglia. We just got a relative cheapie because we anticipated the artichoke effect.

then dessert A rhubarb bavarian, a polenta budino, and a semolina cake with strawberries. I loved the budino a soft polenta pudding with vanilla and chocolate hazelnut. all desserts were great. If you go( I'm already talking about going back) I'd concentrate on the pizzas, pasta and desserts.

The next day.
We cleaned and cleaned and shopped for food. Lunch at Honey's Sit N Eat where we had our favorite waitperson Angel (this is notable because we ran into her later at the B-52s show).
We got Carol to the Hotel by 4:30 so she could get ready for the rehearsal dinner, and we ran home to nap and then get dressed for The Show.

We get to the venue, pick up our tickets and passes at the will call and go in. Sounds simple right? It worked out but I was slightly nervous because I was sneaking Kate's birthday present in, and it was a garden gnome on a stake, definitely could have been a weapon. Lucky for me the security was straight straight straight, so the idea of a thorough frisk of an aging queen didn't appeal to them so the gnome in my back pocket trick worked.

They played all of the favorite oldies and integrated the Funplex tunes. I thought most people were there for the Older Bs. Keith had tons of energy and played all night., Kate was high energy and moving shaking and singing her voice was great (contrary to today's review in the Philly paper), Cindy was a little less forceful and Fred talked/sang dancing all night. The crowd was a little older, the after party was sedate and we were home by 1 pm.

That was a good thing since we had all of Fran's family coming for Brunch at 10 am the next morning...

The brunch was a blur, prepared food, gave tours of the house, gave tours of the neighborhood, hugged, kissed, drank coffee. Everyone left we cleaned up took a "disco" nap and got our selves to the wedding just on time.

The wedding, was fun and dancing and drinking and eating and drinking and more dancing and drinking, and we got home late again with a new pet ( beta fish that was a table centerpiece) and Jonathan and Lori tried again to give us one of their dogs. (Jon's a vet and Lori's a vet tech so they have lots of animals in their lives). We resisted(well Fran resisted).If I stop to think about it If you weren't family at the wedding you were a friend and involved with animals in some way.

Next morning we were back at the Hotel for family breakfast at 9am. I was not the only one there with a hangover. Lots of family stuff both Jon's and Lori's and by about 11 everyone was on their way home. Jon and Lori tried to give us the dog, again.

We just quietly laid around the house for the rest of the day appreciating the Sunday NY Times.

The end.
did anyone make it this far? there's more... but that will have to be later.

Tonight

we see


and I love

The booth in Chicago


That's what we do. Drag stuff around the country and sell it.

I've got a busy few days ahead, so apologies for the brief strange little posts.
Today is garden day. I'm getting the front yard into some kind of shape. .. something that makes visual sense. I'm thinking a boxwood border, with vegetables and perennials wildly growing inside of that tight line??????

This afternoon Fran's Mom arrives. Everyone will be here on the weekend for THE WEDDING..... not ours, Jonathan and Lori's . So tonight we have fun, dinner at Osteria with Fran's mom. It's suppose to be Philadelphia's best restaurant and in the top 10 in the country, We'll see.

then Friday will be spent cleaning and getting the house presentable, The whole, entire family (Fran's) will be here Saturday morning for Brunch hosted by , yours truly. We haven't a clue about the food yet. I think it might be something like a Philly theme.... cheese steaks and pretzels...... but I haven't figured out how to translate that to brunch.

in between all of this we're going to see the B-52's , Friday night. the Funplex tour, should be fun, what will I wear?

Brunch, i mentioned..... Saturday evening the wedding. and I'm guessing more family stuff on Sunday. I hope I have some time to blog it, I'm already thinking of ways to sneak away.

I'm home (sort of)

The Chicago show was soso. That means loads of extra work as we run around trying to stir up some cash. Today we zp up to CT with a bunch of stuff.

Yesterday was spent catching up on my life (and blog reading). and I picked up the dog from his vacation and mowed the lawn for my sister and Mom.

I working on my garden in between all of this stuff........

And the worst part is I wasn't in Philadelphia for Franklin's visit.

I did vote in the primary though.

oops

Back the 21st

I'm away

I'll be back April 19th.

We're packing

Last year's booth at the Antique and Garden Fair at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

This year I hope that the booth doesn't look so dark. No rustic furniture with us anyway.......

One more post before we take off.

six word biography

1.

I wonder what will happen next.

or

2.

I'm frogging all of my socks.

I was giddy

Yesterday I went to the opening of the Institute for Figuring's Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden. Here are some not so good images of the event.
Members of the Harlem Knitting Circle checking out some of the work that they contributed.

People getting a look.
And the true reason I wanted to go to the event. The amazingly wonderful Rockpoolcandy (who I met on Ravelry) and her equally amazing husband Andy. This is a photo I took secretly of them before we officially met. yep, I am a stalker.
So, if you're in NYC and able to get to see this, I'd recommend it.

How'd I meet Rockpoolcandy in the first place? She contacted me after seeing this.

an idea

Not fully formed but I'm thinking of this image in the Gods and Goddesses series

A meme

Because I want to post today - but am having trouble being creative

1.) What was I doing 10 years ago?

Living in Woodstock, NY. Opening a shop, knitting recipes.

2.) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order)

a. Walk the dog and take a photo (of the dog)for a future post
b. go to Lancaster, PA to deliver furniture for refinishing
c. PM Richard on Ravelry - let him know how much I appreciate that he posted his baskets
d. check facebook
e. work on the PINK PINK knitting (photos soon)

3.) Snacks I enjoy
soft pretzels, pop corn, liquorice

4.) Things I would do if I were a billionaire.
establish trust funds for Francis and I, and for the nieces and nephews
buy a house in Mexico

5.) Three of my bad habits

let's see, I use to smoke, I'm lazy about getting my work out there, and I don't exercise enough

6.) 5 places I have lived:

Woodstock, NY : Boston, MA : San Francisco, CA : Analomink, PA : in the us and Amsterdam, The Netherlands

7.) 5 Jobs I have had:

Store owner
Library Assistant (Gov. Docs cataloger and University technical liaison)
Phone Sex operator - this lasted exactly one shift
Law Firm Temp.
Accessory designer (a slight exaggeration)

8.) I'm not going to tag anyone but if it fills a need.........

My random Life

I woke up this morning thinking about

Frank O'Hara - the ocean - and the passage of time