Wednesday Hodge Podge: A Penny For Your Heart?

1. What makes love last?

The sake of argument I’ll assume we’re talking romantic love between life partners. I think making love last requires communication, a shared sense of humor, mutual respect and the ability to feel comfortable and enjoy your time away from each other.


2. The Beatles made their US debut fifty years ago this week. Are you a fan? If so, what's your favorite Beatles tune?

I think I'd say I’m not a fan but I don’t dislike them. I don’t really have a favorite but I sometimes enjoy when I get an ear worm of Eleanor Rigby or Norwegian Wood.


3. Valentine's Day-your thoughts? Do you celebrate in any way? Do anything special for the people you love? Expect anything special from the people who love you?

Some years I enjoy sending kid-Valentines to my friends in the mail but I really haven’t done that since 2002 when most of my Valentines were returned because I put single dark chocolate Dove hearts with a recipe card for “Antioxidant Hot Chocolate” with them and the US Post Office returned them because they were too thick.

Valentine’s Day was a wonderful holiday but not a romantic holiday until I met David. Now since our wedding anniversary is so close to Valentine’s Day he takes me out for our anniversary dinner and I take him out for Valentine’s Day.


4. Steak or burger...you have to choose. Now that that's settled, how do you like it?

Oh the steak or burger part is easy; I hate steak. With that out of the way, if I have to eat beef I prefer ground beef in sauce or chili but since I had to pick one or the other and the other choice burger as in a patty we'll go with the hamburger. If I’m eating a hamburger it must be cooked beyond well done. I usually call the way I like hamburgers “hockey puck.” Really, I like the little bits that fall onto the griddle and are crunchy without anything on them. Since it would take forever to cook a whole hamburger to crunchy I settle for well done and drowned in condiments; end to end coated with about a quarter inch of ketchup and an even layer of mustard. If we havr relish a half inch of that under the ketchup is nperfect. The milder the taste of beef the better.


5. The Hodgepodge lands on the birthdate (February 12th) of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America. Lincoln is quoted as saying, 'Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test his character give him power.' Do you agree? Why or why not?

Oh, the Hodgepodge lands on my friend Tracy’s birthday too, which she happens to share with President Lincoln.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRACY!

I have to say that I totally agree with the quote. We have too much evidence of it being true. Think of all the wonderful stories that you hear of men and women faced with incredible challenges that are doing well in spite of them. Heck even me with my occasional breakdowns behind closed doors can still remain smiling and optimistic. Now think of how corrupt most of our politicians and many CEOs are with all of their power.


6. Honest Abe's image is featured on the US penny (1 cent coin) so I'm wondering...what do you do with your pennies (or your country's equivalent)? It's been suggested the US stop making the penny, and two bills have been introduced proposing just that, but neither were approved. What say you?

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Don’t stop making the penny! I collect pennies! I have books of both American and Canadian pennies. Those include pennies minted in San Francisco, pennies with wheat or maple leaf clusters and I even have a handful of Indian head pennies. They changed the penny again and I have a few new ones too; the 2009 Lincoln series and the current shield.

When I was little the wheat pennies were already rare in change, but I remember always thinking it was special when I got one and spent it last. It’s a small enough denomination that children have them and there are pennies on the dollar sales tax and prices that end .99 for the marketing value of not rounding up to the next dollar; we need them.

Think of the travels of a penny. I don’t collect mint sets or anything like that; I want the pennies that have history, even if I don’t know the history. I look at the well-circulated penny that was shiny and new the year WW2 ended and I can romanticize where it was on V-J Day. The Indian Heads are over 100 years old and when they were new they bought a lot. Looking at one of those makes me wonder what my great grandmother might have bought with one of them when she was a child. And the old Canadian pennies with the maple leaf sprays, well, how much Canadian Chocolate would they have bought when they were new?

We can’t get rid of the penny because of those cents at the end of prices, which are valuable marketing tools, but the penny is also an inexpensive introduction to the magic and wonder of history.


7. Do you think pop deserves serious study?

If you mean historic pop culture, absolutely! Understanding daily life, popular recreation and fads in the past help us better understand and appreciate our life now. It also helps us improve upon where we are by knowing what worked in the past. Should we study ur own pop culture now? Definitely. It’s the history of everyday life we’re sending forward.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

After 2 years of no snow removal needed, the guys from Rapid LLC have been here SIX times this winter! I was chatting with the driver on my way home from my monthly MS meeting last night and we agreed with a chuckle that this year has not only made it okay, but fashionable to “talk about the weather.” That’s good as I’ve just finished week 6 of Random 2014 and gee I’ve talked about snow and cold a lot! In a few weeks I’ll be talking about Florida and the fun I’m having reading Edna’s posts about the vacation I’m enjoying vicariously through her blog! But for now, I’ll continue to enjoy fashionable Toledo conversation\; BRRRRRR!!!!!!

Friendly Photos

Today is a take it easy day for blogging in the 30 Day Blog Challenge. It’s a Photoblog!

Share a photo of your friends

I don’t think I have just one photo with all of my friends. This one has most of them:

My 40th birthday

July 29, 2006

This one from a week later has the rest of them in it but not everyone from that first photo.

Cracker Barrel after The Reds game and my big birthday surprise with friends from 3 states.

I have three friends who are like brothers and a sister to me

This is me with John at my wedding reception in 2009. We lost John in October of that year. He and I had been friends for almost 27 years and his sister asked me to speak first at his memorial.

This is Scotty and me in 2006. We’ve been friends for 30 years this summer.

Kelly and me; my biggest surprise for my 40th birthday was when she walked in to the section where we were sitting for the ballgame! She is the one who knows when I need a push and isn’t afraid to give it to me, square in the butt if need be! We’ve been each other’s instigators and confessors since early 1989.

Kelly, Scotty and me at Sizzling Sticks in Northville, Michigan, 2010. This was the day we did a balloon release in John’s Memory.

This was Scotty’s Big 25 (50th Birthday) party just last year.

Tracy, Me and Heather 1999

I met Tracy in 1993 at work and we hit it off immediately.  It was pretty much a given that we'd be friends long after we weren't working together anymore.  Tracy shakes me and makes me think when I'm emotionally going nuts.

Heather and I met when she was hired as the associate producer to my producer position in 1994.  We got along well and worked together fantastically.  Heather will drop everything for a friend in need and has always been one of the first ones to say "I'm in" when I have a crazy idea, even if it seems too crazy.

Rich and me, New Yer's Eve 2004 into 05

Rich was my first sports intern in 1993.  He is an awesome worker and totally the man you want as a great employee, but for all that awesomeness professionally, he's an even better friend.  I've said before that the truest test of friendship is when you find out who will still be there to push your wheelchair.  Well, Rich took charge and delegated duties to carry the chair up a couple of steps to get me in to a party!

Sheri and me, Christmas 2004

Sheri and I were friends in high school. but lost touch after graduation.  We reconnected around the turn of the millennium and after a few hours of catch-up coffee we got right back into the groove we had so many years ago.  Sheri's is generous to a fault and one of the most loyal and loving friends I could ask for.


Honestly I love all these people and I’d roll in front of a bus to push any of them out of harm’s way. I went several photos over the “a” picture in the prompt, but my people are worth so much more than one photo to me.

Will The REAL Monday Please Blog-Up?

As common everyday goes, last week was just weird! The Fourth of July midweek throws everything off. Once I got over the fact that Friday was indeed Friday and not Monday, it was suddenly the weekend! The fact that in order to get the train-time off and to help out with vacation times, David worked straight through the weekend and is working odd hours all week this week just adds to my confusion.

Yesterday I met Heather and Tracy for lunch in Monroe. It’s always a great day when we get together! After a leisurely lunch at Cracker Barrel, we went to the porch and continued our conversations. It was sunny, mid 80s and a mild occasional breeze; a gorgeous day! It ended up being a 5-hour lunch.

Monday Mug Shot

Wright Brothers National Memorial

Kill Devil Hills, NC

I guess I’m a little warped. I got my photo of the Kill Devil Hills water tower and with a wicked giggle and a raspy voice said “Kill Devil; Kill! Kill!” It just struck me as a horror movie name and it brought out my inner-imp!

The Wright Brothers museum and monument are pretty cool. We invited anyone else in the house that wanted to go to join us, but it ended up being just David and me. I know a lot of people like to just go to the beach or sit in their rented house and look out the windows when they’re on vacation, but I just couldn’t do that in an area with so much to see and do!

It was gray, rainy and muggy when we went to the museum, so it was busier because all of the beach bums settled for history to hide from the rain. That’s more of an observation than anything because there were a lot of people there and many left when the rain stopped!

It was fascinating watching the step-by-step of how the first airplane was tested and eventually constructed. Orville Wright was the brother who piloted the actual first flight. Wilbur piloted the second of the four fights they did on December 17, 1903. It was the fourth flight, by Wilbur, when they actually had established full control of the Wright Flyer. There was no “seating” in the Wright Flyer. The one-person airplane was piloted lying on your belly with your legs back while controlling the plane with your hands. Can you imagine flying like that today? But if the Wrights had never flown that way, the advancements that put seats in planes never would have come about!

After our time in the museum, David went up to the top of the hill, where the monument to that first flight that took off from that hill was. I stayed at the base of the hill with the car. It’s not at all that the monument wasn’t accessible, just steeper than I wanted to climb or make my husband push!

Wright Brothers Memorial

Our original plan after the Wright Brothers museum was to find a nice seafood restaurant and have our lavish meal of the trip for lunch. But the sun came out and there were lighthouses calling. No really, “David…Nani…have a late lunch. We’re waiting…” If there’s sunlight, they will come and all, we passed on immediate lunch and headed south!


Stay tuned for more Carolina mugs!

Read more about the Wright Brothers and the first flight!





Monday Quiz About Me

This is how I knew Friday wasn’t Monday; no quiz at Acting Balanced! Even while on vacation and enjoying the summer, Heather has been keeping this fun meme up. It’s a great way to wake up your brain for the new week! It’s not question-overload and the last question that you present readers adds just a bit of entertainment for them and it also makes commenting easy! (More fun to read than “yeah, what you said” too!) Won’t you think about joining in?

1. What are two must haves when you go on a road trip?

My camera and a notebook. We often keep track of license plates when we travel and I write down the ones we see. We saw Alaska three times on our vacation this year! I also take scrapbook notes to go with the photos I take.


2. What is your favorite amusement park ride?

I don’t do amusement parks so much anymore. I did them and carnivals often when I was a teenager/early 20s, but got bored with them. I’m not a huge thrill seeker, but when I seek thrills, I actually prefer a little more real risk. I thought the areas of the Blue Ridge Parkway that didn’t have guard rails when I drove on that were more fun than any amusement park ride I’d been on.

When I did go to amusement park/carnivals, I liked the Tilt-A-Whirl because, with my friends there with me, we could make it spin faster ourselves.


3. Post favorite picture from the last six months?

Well, my favorite, most meaningful, photo of the past 6 months I already put in my blog. That would be the one of me with Tori and Rina grasping their honors cords on their graduation night, so I’m representing that photo with the shots of them individually with me.

Nana and Tori

Rina and Nana

And here is another big favorite of mine, the group shot from Scotty’s BIG 25 Party:

4. What do you (did you) call your grandparents? If you are a grandparent what do your grandchildren call you?

My grandparents were Grandma and Papa on Mom’s side and Noni and Nono on Pop’s side. I don’t have kids, but Tori and Rina call me Nana, formed from the attempts at “Aunt Nani” when they were little. I suppose if they have kids I might be “Grandnana” or I may just stay Nana. The oldest kids are always the ones who ultimately decide what grandparents (or grand-aunts) will be called.

And don't forget to add a 5th Question on your own blog so we can answer as we hop around!

5. Do you have a cup or glass that is you favorite for your morning beverage?

I have a couple hundred mugs in my collection, but I still drink my morning coffee in my “good morning mug.”

Happy Naniday!

Perfect black forest birthday cake, huh?

Original photo and recipe at Ahaar Pleasure and Sustenance

Happy Naniday, everyone! I am officially 45 today. My Twitter message said that I was 45, even to a newspaper reporter. Yes, that’s directed at that guy who shares the same last name and address as me. For the last 48 days we’ve been calling ourselves the same age, but he has insisted I was 44. I think when I’m 48 days away from 45, I‘m much more 45 than 44, My always cheery honey, reminds me that if I dropped the day before my birthday, the obituary would call me 44, not 45. Okay, so I made it to 45. Told him so! :P

Last weekend David and I kicked off Nanifest XLV with baseball in the Motherland, specifically in Lansing. I hadn’t been to a Lugnuts game in a few years and when I lived in Michigan I went to a couple Nuts games every year, so I really missed seeing them. I’d been to a couple Lugnuts games on my birthday or during the Festival. We kinda copied the first Saturday off Nanifest XL, stopping in Hell on the way to Lansing. The ice cream in Hell is great! This year, also just like when I turned 40, David bought me a Hell T-shirt! The new one is a Screams Ice Cream shirt! It’s cool! The lettering is in glow-in-the-dark green on dark purple! The shirt is a “goal shirt” right now. It is a size smaller than I usually wear and just a bit snug. By Halloween, it’ll fit great!

After ice cream at Screams, I had chocolate fudge wrapped around cherry in a waffle cone, black forest cone, baby, we went to the Lugnuts game. Finally the streak of losing home teams is over! The Lugnuts won 3-1!! I’m feeling better about upcoming games at home in Toledo and in Cincinnati to see my Reds! The Lugnuts celebrated my festival with fireworks after the game. I love birthday fireworks!

On Sunday, we took our buy one get one coupon to Baskin Robbins with us after dinner. I had two scoops of Baseball Nut in a waffle cone. I like waffle cones because they hold the ice cream all in the cone instead of on it, better for avoiding dropped ice cream! I’m using the Weight Watchers Points Plus system to help with my diet goals and the coolest part of the program is how real it is. There are weekly extra points that allow for an occasional treat on plan. With the extra points I was able to have ice cream twice. Okay, that uses almost all the points, but hey, it still working, slowly and safely! Best news is the weekly points reset on Thursdays, just in time for the Festival weekends!


Last night, David took me out to Mancy’s Bluewater Grille. I had the Pretzel Crusted Flounder, a dish with Nani written all over it! We shared a flourless chocolate cake for dessert, truly decadent! Tonight the Mud Hens are having fireworks to celebrate the actual day again, just like last year and we’ll be there. I know the Reds really wanted me to come to Cincinnati tonight, they’re doing fireworks set to music from the 60s, the decade in which I was born, but my Dad is doing a barbecue for me tomorrow in the Motherland and Tori and Rina will be there too. So, my Reds game will be later in August. I still love the Reds for hosting a Naniday party!

After dinner at Pop’s tomorrow, which will be chicken kebabs and teriyaki pork with grilled veggies, oh my mouth is watering already, Pop is the king of the grill, Tori and Rina are coming home with us. They’re having lunch with me and Sheri Sunday at our favorite Toledo restaurant, Ya Halla. Sheri likes Middle Eastern food and this will be her first time at Ya Halla. Then we plan to visit Cold Stone to use my birthday coupon for dessert. Sunday evening, the girls and I will meet Dave and Laura for dinner and they’ll take the girls home. Both of the girls have their drivers licenses now, so I’m thinking I can get by with only having to drive home from dinner this weekend!

I’m trying to set up some travel to the Motherland for next week. Maybe the Farmers Market with Scotty and then lunch with Heather H and Tracy. Still working on that plan.

I’ve had some interest in doing the Photo Walk in Frankenmuth in October, so maybe I’ll gather a modest group, maybe I’ll even sign up for it being an official Photo Walk. Edna, when I posted about Photo Walk, I SO had you in mind too! Anyone reading can either form an informal or solo Photo Walk or check that website out to see if there’s an organized one in your area. It’s definitely something to which I’m looking forward!!

My birthday wish is that I hope everyone has a great Naniday, do something that makes you happy and eat ice cream!

Planning Ahead

I’m going to share a couple scrapbook layouts this morning and talk about the good and bad jobs I do in planning ahead. First I’ll tell you that, yes, this is a stall because I haven’t written the Monday Mug Shot yet. I think I know which mug and the story though, that’s half the work! I’ll write it up thus afternoon. It turns out that I will have some extra time because of something I DID plan ahead correctly! I have stuff I need to do for Grandma’s estate in Michigan. I was going to do what I needed to in Livonia and then meet Tracy for dinner on the way home. We planned this contingent on the weather. Well, slushy snow is all over the ground and they are calling for maybe more snow, maybe ice. I don’t want to be driving home from the Motherland at night in that. We rescheduled that proactively yesterday.

Speaking of snow! That something else we planned ahead that worked great! Remember that nasty snow I mentioned? The one we left early for Connecticut to avoid? We returned almost a week later. In that time, we of course needed the kids' sitter to come in and visit them. We needed the tons of snow that was starting to fall in our driveway when we left at least cleared out enough for Lillian to get in to see her grandcats and the idea of reduced snow for us to trudge through with bags when we got home was a wonderful idea too, let alone needing to shovel it would be a nasty welcome for David! I did some calling the day before to see what the financial damage would be if I could get someone to come in and do it.

Now comes the unsolicited testimonial part! I contacted Rapid Snow Removal in Toledo. I told then I wanted to get price and availability information. I explained that we were going to be out of town for a funeral and we have a cat sitter who’d need in and out access while we were gone. A few questions and answers were exchanged and I told them I wanted the driveway plowed, the sidewalk in front of the house shoveled and the steps to the side door. I was quoted an incredibly nominal amount with only ten dollars additional to salt everything. I was also offered to have a photograph of the house when it was finished sent via text. I accepted and contracted them to do the job as soon as the snow stopped falling. I made the payment with my PayPal account.

Once the snow had stopped, just after I’d received a text that school was going to be closed for the second day in a row and we were beginning to shovel out of Ben’s drive in Connecticut, I got this photo text:

When we got home, our driveway still looked great! In fact it warmed up a little so the salt could really do it's job and it was mostly DRY! It lightly snowed a couple of times since then and nothing stuck in the drive or on the steps! FABULOUS!

When we have an appreciable snow again, I’m definitely calling Rapid Snow Removal again. Even when we’re home, I can’t do the walking at all to help and David ends up doing all the snow removal. So, when it’s a big snow, my compensated blog posts will cover me subcontracting my share of the snow shoveling and David can stay in warm, dry and not in any overexerting danger. For that I love my sponsors for the feeling of personal value I can have at home. Sacrificing a little of my coffee money for snow removal is so worth it for that! I also love Rapid Snow Removal for the fantastic job they did for such a reasonable cost!


Now in closing this “plan ahead” blog, I want to show you a couple of scrapbook layouts. No, they aren’t about planning ahead, they ARE planning ahead!

I take lots of photos, some silly photos and some that never make it onto a scrapbook page, but I have a folder of “extra layouts" in which some of those fun photos often end up featured. Extra layouts are one-page layouts that don’t really have a time stamp and can be put into a book anywhere. I don’t always scrap in order, in fact, as I’ve told before, I’m scrapping up from 2007 and back from now with the plan to meet in the middle and be caught up. Sometimes, a 2-page layout just fits for some subjects and events or when I have a surplus of good photos in a particular folder. When I order my printed books, 2-page layouts must be even number-odd number in the placement or they will be front and back of the page instead of pages facing each other. When that doesn’t work, in comes an extra page! I slide the extra into that book’s folder just before the 2-page spread and it lines everything up. That may not seem like such a big deal, but having the folder of extra pages, allows be to keep moving without messing with my creative flow in a certain folder of photos.

Here is one fun page I did as an extra:

Credits: background paper from my stash,
designer unknown, sorry! Butchered lyrics by me

David or I will buy one lottery ticket when the jackpot is really high once in a while. A rate which will never win us immeasurable millions of dollars, but, well, ya never know!


This next one isn’t so much an extra page, but because it documents a few weeks, it can be inserted before or after other pages in the same time frame. This is the answer to Edna’s question in comments about that post I wrote last month for Zenni Optical. Yes Edna. I really did fall and bruise my entire left side of my face! I was so grateful that I didn’t break any facial bones, just a nasty bone bruise that still hurts a little if I nudge it right with my hand, but oh, I sure was scary-looking for a few weeks!

Credits: Credits: Kit: Cocoa Blush by Scrap Kitten,
Template: 12 of 12 by Urban Mom Scraps
Fonts: Make Me Alpha, Courier New, Angelina, Comic Sans,
Celebrate The Day, Champagne and Limousines, Juice

Okay, after that, I need coffee!


Links:
Rapid Snow Removal - Simply the BEST in Toledo!

Monday Mug Shot

Yeah, I know, a day late, but it’s here! I’m on a tight schedule this week. I fell a chapter behind last week with John’s funeral and all the prep for that, so I have two chapters to do this week, plus getting ready for Halloween and a few other odds and ends. Busy, busy, busy!

So without further ado, here’s this week’s Mug Shot!

Underground Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia

I’ve been to Underground Atlanta many times. It’s a mall in the heart of downtown at Five Points, where five main streets meet or cross. The underground mall is built over underground “streets” that were part of Atlanta’s passenger train station before they went underground. In the 1920s, the streets were built up with viaducts to level the roads for better flow and the merchants moved up to the new street level, creating an underground level. Merchants used the storefronts on the underground level for storage and moved their businesses up to the main streets. In 1968, the whole section was reopened as an underground center for retail and entertainment. Underground was closed in 1980 for the construction of the MARTA rapid transit lone, but it reopened in 1989, having been out on the National List of Historic Places for the significant infrastructure and railroad historic past. I went to Underground Atlanta for the first time in October, 19898.

But the first story this mug brings to mind with a huge smile, is from 1996, well, 1995 THEN 1996.

The Olympics were coming to Atlanta. That had been such a huge deal every time I visited the city since being awarded the Olympics. On the top level of Underground The Olympic Experience had opened up where visitors could purchase commemorative everything for the Olympics. There are a few other mugs to tell about that! But the significance of the Olympics now, is that’s why we were there at the end of 1995. I thought it would be fun to welcome the Olympic year in the Olympic city!

I started planning in the beginning of October. We’d stay at The Suites Hotel at Underground. It was the only hotel that was actually at Underground Atlanta and we could just walk from our rooms to the giant party at Underground that went all day and culminated in the big Peach Drop at the center of Underground. I made the plan, figured the ballpark total cost and the prices for plane and hotel and made the flyers. It ended up being John, Heather H, Tracy, Rich, Jeff T, Jeff’s then girlfriend, Jeanne, who is now Mrs. T and Me!

It turned out a good thing that we were staying at Underground for several reasons. First off, once the New Years Eve festivities officially started, Underground was roped off with ID checkpoints. For the evening, it was a party you had to have an official wristband for and 21 and over mall! But we started sampling the fruits of the mall’s entertainment before that!

Tracy, Heather and I met Dave and Dee and their just over year-old twins for lunch a MARTA stop away while Jeanne and the guys went to Hooters at Underground. They were craving football and hot wings. I know the guys were not going there to drool. There are just no other good restaurants at Underground. (And I’m making it clear that’s sarcasm because there are FABULOUS restaurants at Underground!) When we all met back up after lunch, we discovered Fat Tuesdays.

Fat Tuesdays is basically a long counter of slushie machines – alcoholic slushies! We all tried some. Very good! By the end of New Years Eve, I think we’d tried all the flavors! We’d stocked the bathtub beer wine coolers and a couple bottles of champagne for toasting at midnight. There’s another good reason we were staying at Underground. The crowds at the MARTA station not withstanding, although no one got sloppy drunk, I don’t know that any pf us were in trustworthy shape for navigation!

We had dinner at Dante’s Down The Hatch. Dante’s is a Jazz-Fondue restaurant that is built to look like you’re dining on an old ship. I don’t think the one in Underground is open anymore, but the one in Buckhead is! We had a really nice dinner and I think most of us too home souvenir glasses! Then we went back up to the guys’ room, where we’d stocked the tub. Jeff’s brother, who lived in Atlanta joined us for the evening too and we all had a few drinks in the room before returning to the party.

Once the party was really going, it was loud and festive and CROWDED! After a trip back to Fat Tuesdays for more slushies, we agreed that we’d all meet near the Peach Drop site before midnight and ventured off into the party atmosphere. Tracy, Heather and I went into the center of Kenny’s Alley, where all the bars and restaurants were and where a crowd made up almost a mosh pit of dancing to Devo’s Whip It. We were thinking we’d cross over to the other end and ventured in. We got caught up in the dance and totally lost each other. I figured we’d all find each other again on the other side and danced along moving in that direction. When the song was over, we did find ourselves all together again, in front of Fat Tuesdays. The crowd dancing had turned us all in circles and we ended up right back where we started! We decided we didn’t need to go to the other side and bought more slushies!

When our group reconvened in at the spot we’d watch the Peach Drop from, Rich shrieked, “THE CHAMPAGNE!” He said he’d run up to the room to get it.

Now, the Suites Hotel had one elevator, lots of guests there for the New Years Eve party and our champagne was on the tenth floor. That one elevator was moving VERY slow! Rich waited for a while, nervously looking at his watch as it ticked on to midnight. He ran to the stairs, up to the 10th floor and grabbed the champagne. Then he ran down 10 floors of stairs and back across the walkway and down to where we all were with 2 minutes to spare before the each fell! He panted until 1996, but had caught his breath back in time to open that champagne and toast the New Year as the peach fell and the fireworks started.

Once back in the hotel, we looked out the window at the stopped traffic on Peachtree Street and the huge crowd of people waiting to get into the MARTA station and were glad we were staying at Five Points. We also, as we sat sipping from the beer, wine coolers and another bottle of Asti Spumante from the bathtub, realized that we’d had an early dinner at Dante’s and were somewhat picked and hungry. Jeff grabbed the phone and called for pizza.

If you’re painting the picture of this scene in your head, you know the streets are a parking lot and there is still barely room to move in the line into the subway. There are some great restaurants that have now all closed, at Underground and there is NO pizza place at Underground. Dominos Pizza told Jeff that they couldn’t deliver to The Suites hotel at Underground.

This became a “Let me talk to your manager,” issue with Jeff, who insisted on having him paged when he was told the manager wasn’t in. Jeff explained that there was a roomful of drunk people who needed food to sober up and it was their fault if we never sobered up. He went on to inform the poor manager that we were from Michigan and could easily report him to the owner of the franchise in Ann Arbor. You just can’t deny people from Michigan Detroit-style pizza when they travel! The manager asked for his address and said he’d send some coupons for free pizza. Jeff gave him his address and seemed satisfied. Honestly, no one was THAT drunk and Jeff was just being mischievous, but it was a fun prank for everyone, even, I think, the Dominos manager. He might still tell the story about the insane Michiganders to his friends.

We ended up emptying the mini bars in both rooms and crunching candy, chips and macadamia nuts and boy we went to town at the complimentary breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant that went with our stay! We had a great time and learned a valuable lesson this trip – when you buy the New Years Eve booze, BUY MUCHIES!!

Monday Mug Shot

Toledo Mud Hens
Detroit Tigers AAA

This is a brand new mug! I got it last week at the game David and I attended. I had intended to stop at “The Swamp Shop,” the Mud Hens’ store at Fifth Third Field, and fix a terrible wrong - I didn’t have a Mud Hens mug in my collection!

Of course a brand new mug doesn’t have a specific memory attached to it, but it does symbolize so many great memories. I’ve been seeing the Mud Hens play live since 1999. I started going to Minor League Baseball games in ‘99 and the Mud Hens were the closest to home for me. They were even a little closer than the Lansing Lugnuts. I interned for WUPW in Toledo in 1996, so I knew the timing of the drive and basic directions well. In fact, when the Hens played at Ned Skeldon Stadium, I drove right by where I live now!

I’d been to games at that park many times. The sight lines were okay, but the park had a VERY minor league feel about it. When you were in the concessions area, it kinda felt like a community ice rink, you know, the part where there’s heat and you can drink hot chocolate to warm up before going back into the ice area?

I’d been there in the rain, the cold and the very hot muggy days. I’d been there with friends, with Mom and Tori and Rina ran the bases there. I‘d been there on a date too. That was with the first guy who took me to a Mud Hens game for a date. (I waited for better!) I have pictures from a rainy night in the last year of the Mud Hens there with Heather and Tracy. Dark skies and umbrellas!

Then came the new stadium. Fifth Third Field in downtown Toledo opened in 2002. I traditionally took Mom to a ball game for Mother’s Day and for Mothers Day 2003, she wanted to see the new park in Toledo. John and Scotty went with us for that game. It turned out to be the last baseball Mothers Day I had with her, so that is a very special memory.

My second date with David was to Fifth Third Field for a Mud Hens game against the Indianapolis Indians. That kinda adds a coolness factor to the fact that our planned reception is going to be at Fifth Third Field and the Mud Hens are playing the Indianapolis Indians! Add to that the fun of my now having family in Indy. Plans are to make sure they have Mud Hens hats to take home!

It’s funny how many special things become so “everyday” to us. The Mud Hens are just a couple minutes drive or even a bus ride from home and we go to see a few games a year. It’s no big deal to meet David at work and catch a game. But it’s never going to be just another team and just another place to see a game. I have so many wonderful memories as a baseball fan and personally about our small-city, AAA Minor League team, that it will always be an event when we go make some more.

Monday Mug Shot

Busy, busy, busy... Just the way I like my Mondays! Oh, it’s not a job offer Monday or anything, but lots of little nice things Monday. I’ll blog about some of those things later tonight or tomorrow. Today is a kinda creepy Mug Shot!

Philadelphia. Pennsylvania

The 2008 World Series will be the Philadelphia Phillies vs The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. YAWN um, excuse me, sorry about that. Yawning at the announcement of the pinnacle series of your favorite sport is seldom polite, is it now? It’s just with a marketing and television sports background, it’s hard to do anything but feel sorry for FOX Sports. Going into the post season, the Red Sox and Cubs were what the advertisers wanted to see! Then in the LCS tier, just bring on the Red Sox and Dodgers, so many stories! The Red Sox back-to-back possibility , the Red Sox-Manny Ramirez controversy, Joe Torre back in the Series the year after the Yankees gave him the snub when they were home all October. There were just so many vignettes waiting to be produced for that World Series! Even if it couldn’t be both, either team would add so much to entice advertisers with for top dollar. But the Dodgers aren’t in the World Series. The Red Sox aren't in it either. It’s the no skeletons in the current closet Phillies and the Devil Rays that didn’t even have fans until half way through the season.

:::crickets chirping::::

FBR this week will be about my decision of for whom I’m rooting, but if you read this post and know baseball a little, I bet ya already know! ;)


But on to the mug shot story!

My mug rack covers a substantial portion of one of our breakfast nook walls, so I can only look at the ones on the top. I can’t drink out of them, because I can’t reach them! Dad placed the top rows of mugs when he put the racks up for me and when I want a mug from up there down, I need help. Today’s mug was David’s assistance for choosing it, as well as getting a few Mondays worth mugs down to photograph.

One of the first Mug Shots I ever did was The Old Bookbinder’s Restaurant in Philadelphia. Now, I’ve only been to Philly once, so the mug brings up memories about the same trip. David picked this mug today because of baseball. But the rest of the story from that trip is SO October in another creepy, Halloweenish way!

Mom, Tracy, Heather H and I left from Detroit on Spirit Airlines, a value airline that flew into Philly. As I recall, our flight was delayed about an hour leaving Detroit because of fog in Philadelphia. Starbucks wasn’t open yet when we originally got there, but the delay gave us an opportunity to have a latte before takeoff. That delay was almost half the length of our flight! We joked about the plane being a small plane and there were a couple hits of turbulence on the flight. I know I joked about hoping it wasn’t going to drop us out of the sky, but we landed safely and were on our way around Philadelphia.

We’d visited the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall and had lunch before we checked into the hotel. When we got to our room we wanted to see what the weather was scheduled to be like for the game. It had started to rain and we hoped we wouldn’t get rained out! After all, the history was a bonus - it was a baseball trip, a rain check would NOT be a cool souvenir when we were all there to see a new park! (It turned out that there was a couple hours rain delay, so we REALLY got to see the park! Then the home team lost 11-3!)

When we turned on the hotel room TV, we didn’t see quite what we were prepared for. That morning when we’d left Detroit, was May 11, 1996. When we had checked into the hotel early, just after 3 PM, all of the network channels and many of the cable channels, including CNN, were reporting a plane crash. It was the day Valujet flight 592 crashed just after takeoff from Miami headed for Atlanta, killing all 110 people on board. The flight is about the same amount of time as Detroit to Philadelphia and that flight too, a discount airline, took off about an hour after scheduled due to weather conditions in it’s destination.

We all stood in front of the TV, a bit shocked, a bit nervous. Had we really just been on a similar plane and joking about turbulence and the plane nose-diving? It was a little bit chilling, a creepy sensation, like there were two so similar flights and fate flipped a coin. The odd parallel, the same length of flight, the same delay, a discount airline - But that flight was going to Atlanta. We landed safely in Philadelphia - to see the Phillies... and the Atlanta Braves.

Monday Mug Shot

Hershey’s Chocolate World
Hershey, PA

We’re settling up plans for our summer trips with Tori and Rina. Rina, of course, is going on a railfan weekend with us! Last year we went to Hancock Tower, which Rina thought was wonderful, but that trip was a lot of bumpy roads and CSX trains. It was, in her mind, shy on Norfolk Southern’s “black beauties.” This year’s trip to Pennsylvania will have us staying near the NS main line and she’ll be able to photograph plenty of engines with her favorite horse!

Hershey was Tori’s choice. I’m making sure the cooler that plugs into the car’s data port to keep things refrigerated is clean and ready for transporting souvenirs! ;) My “deal” with Tori was that we could go to Hershey if she brought back souvenirs for her sister. David’s addendum to the deal was that she had to be okay with a couple of trains on the trip if we’re driving that far. For a weekend of chocolate, Tori said “no problem!”

It won’t be my first trip to Hershey. I got this mug on our “Sweet Retreat” in 1995.

It was the only weekend in May that we weren’t totally booked at work. In fact it was the only weekend since March and the only one there would be until the end of June! Community television got very busy at the time of spring concerts, recitals, playoffs and graduation commencement ceremonies for four high schools. The local programing department pretty much worked seven days a week between videotaping events and editing them to get them on the air soon after taping. We were pretty well running on fumes and needed a break. I presented the idea of meeting up at the studio at close of business on Friday and taking a weekend adventure.

Rich, Heather and Tracy were interested in going. I had opened the trip up for “and guests,” which included John coming with us too. The four Omnicom Employees made sure the playback operations were covered for the weekend and we were ready to go.

Everyone met at the studio at 9:30 and with the extra time I’d put in earlier in the week, we were out the door and just about gone by ten! We took driving shifts. The girls drove first, while the guys slept. At about the halfway pint, we stopped at a turnpike service plaza in Pennsylvania, sugared and coffeed up and switched, the guys driving while we slept. We got into Hershey just after sunrise.

We stopped at a diner in Hershey for breakfast. My chocolate holiday had begun! On the menu were pancakes made with real Hershey’s chocolate chips! Yep, that's the breakfast for me!

Next was Hershey’s Chocolate World. Mmmm! At Hershey’s Chocolate world, there is a free tour, a ride that takes you through an animated exhibit about how chocolate is made, the founding of Hershey's and how Hershey's Kisses got their name! At the end of the ride, they gave everyone a full size Hershey’s chocolate bar! We got lunch at the Kit Kat Cafe and ogled the ice cream shop. Then we went through the store, Candy Heaven with a big time emphasis on Chocolate! We decided that we’d come back before leaving for home on Sunday to get souvenirs. It was May and just warm enough to make us want to leave chocolate sitting in the car as little as possible.

The next stop was Indian Echo Caverns. We toured the caverns, where we saw very cool stalactite and stalagmite formations and bats sleeping on the ceiling. Then we played a game of mini golf at Indian Echo Mini Golf before we headed back into Hershey to check-in to the hotel.

We stayed at the Hershey Lodge, five people in one room made that affordable. When I checked in I made sure they had the rollaway bed in the room and the woman checking us in asked how many people we had staying in the room. I told her there were 5 of us and she gave me 5 full size Hershey’s Chocolate bars! We were all falling in love with the town! We had a really nice dinner at the hotel's restaurant and it was shortly after dinner that the amount of traveling we had done and the amount of sleep we didn’t have hit us! It was an early night!

Sunday morning after breakfast, we did some walking around, checking out the kisses-shaped streetlights on Chocolate street and checking out the view of the Hershey's plant. Then it was back to Hershey’s Chocolate World to go shopping! I bought night shirts for my almost a year old twin nieces. NEVER too early to get them chocolate-wear! I got a stuffed lame' Hershey’s kiss for me. I also brought home some edible souvenirs, how could I not?

When we got out to the car to get going home, John gave me a bag. In that bag was a 4-car pewter mini train, a steam engine and caboose with two flat cars with a kiss ad hug on them. Rich got me a Hershey’s magnet clip that I displayed on my filing cabinet at work and Heather and Tracy showered me with more chocolate! While I was thinking how great it was to have friends to go on a trip like this with, they were giving gifts to say “thank you” for planning it! The coolest things about that first trip to “the sweetest place on earth” with friends, mostly from work, is that 13 years later, I can talk about it on any given games night, and there are still 4 people there sharing those memories with me. Chocolate is so much more than candy - it binds hearts and souls for life!

Weekend In The Motherland (conclusion)

Continued from the last post - if you haven’t read that one, go down and read first!

Credits -
Kit - Kismet by Beckie Wallace, Yellow BBQ bow by Swheat Creations
Fonts - Sand, Note This, Georgia

This is going to be the title page for the scrapbook pages for last weekend

I got to Pop and Aunt Judy’s place just before they got in from the birthday party for my cousin’s twins they’d been at. My cousin's son and daughter turned 4 the same day David turned 42! I think it’s neat when you meet someone with your birthday, but I guess when you’re a twin that’s not such a big deal. Last Christmas when I told E and A that they had the same birthday as David they were thoroughly unimpressed!

Dad started up the grill for the feast! He made IItalian pork roast and Italian sausage. He finally found somewhere near his new home that makes Italian Sausage without fennel. Too many American stores believe that the fennel is what makes it Italian. Not at all true! It’s the other spices and style of processing that make it Italian! My imported Dad doesn’t like the fennel flavor at all and I’m allergic to fennel oil. When someone tells you “all Italian sausage has fennel,” it’s a lame excuse to hide the meaning, “We don’t carry it without fennel, but buy it here anyway.”

The meat was wonderful! I love my Dad’s gill-cooking! He also did grilled veggies with a seasoned bread crumb topping. That’s an old family recipe. Noni used to make them, so I’ve enjoyed them all my life. He included some sweet red peppers stuffed with the topping that were sheer heaven! I had a second pepper!

After supper, we played euchre. Dad and Dave against Laura and me. It was my first time playing in a long time and my first time with Laura as my partner. After we won the first game, I just looked at my brother, smiled and said “Thank you for the new partner, Bro! You did well!”

Before bed, in honor of Fathers Day, we put in the DVD I’d done for Dad’s 60th birthday party, “0-60 in 14 Minutes” It was fun to watch Dad grow up again! hehe...

Sunday morning, after breakfast, we called my Aunt in Italy. Actually, it was calling my Aunt in San Marino. I’d asked Dad what I needed to do to get my San Marino mail sent to my new address. I‘d done the address change with the post office, but I hadn’t been getting any San Marino mail. Since my Dad hadn’t become an American citizen yet when I was born, I am a citizen of both the United States and San Marino. Of course I’m not an active citizen there, but a citizen none the less. I get mail from the government concerning political issues, inviting me to come vote and with socialized healthcare, any changes in that as well. The biggest thing that I missed the mail from San Marino for was the opportunity to continue learning to read Italian. I am by no means someone who can correspond in Italian...yet...but I can read and get the general idea of hat’s in the letters and every time I read a letter I pick up a new word of two. Someday,maybe I will be able to correspond in Italian without translation software!

After getting off the phone with Auntie, it was another long hug goodbye and a final {Happy Popsie’s Day.” I think my Dad had an awesome Fathers Day weekend with both his kids there!

The road back south had me stopping to photograph the water tower in the burka. Unfortunately, she didn't have the dress anymore and the sun had been brighter Saturday, but it’s still neat and I’ll have that picture to pair up with a new one when it’s painted. Then I met Scotty and Sheri at Dunkin.

The darker skies around the water tower were a forewarning of the killer rain deluge that passed over Dunkin Robbins just shortly after I got there! I sat outside at a table with Scotty and Sheri and felt the rain drops starting to fall on my back. Then the sky zipped open and we retreated inside. I bought iced coffee for me and an iced tea for Sheri when I ordered an ice cream cone. Scotty remained outside in the “smoking section” until the rain and wind were knocking over the umbrellas on the tables. Then he snuffed out the cigarette and came in! The rain did stop in time for me to leave on schedule. Once again the long hugs that had been a staple of every stop on my weekend tour of the Motherland ensued. On the road again, a little farther south, Belleville.

I met Tracy at Cracker Barrel for an early dinner. Early was a good thing! It meant our wait was only about ten minutes! Hey, for Cracker Barrel on a Sunday, that’s a record! We had dinner, caught up, talked, philosophized and laughed. We met for dinner at 3:30. We finally said goodnight because it was going to be dark before I got home 45 minutes later if we didn't go “now.” After dinner, moving to sitting on the porch to talk more and then standing in the aisle for ten minutes saying goodbye, I finally finished the trip home, before dark, but after the ran that had gone through Toledo.

It really was a great weekend! Like the song by that Ann Arbor Michigan boy says “see some old friends, good for the soul.” Of course, I headed north, not west, but it was a fantastic trip visiting some old haunts and the people that make those places special!

Lunchtime Tales

Grab a mug and a slice of black forest cake and enjoy the read!

Welcome to lunch! I have a bunch of things to share and we’ll just see how much I can type (and typo-check) in an hour. I may end with a “to be continued” and ask y’all to come back tonight! **smiles**

First, The Chronicles of Nani got an award over the weekend! The blog awards are the best because they are kind of like the “People’s Choice” kind of awards. For a cyber coffee shop it’s like being compared to Starbucks!



Thanks to Livia for awarding me this “cyber-plaque” which is mounted on the cafe wall to the right. As for the “five” blogs I’d give award to, well, look at the list at the bottom of the right column that I put up last week! These are the blogs I read whenever they are updated (or catch up on when I’m away for a few days). Every one of them deserves the award in my opinion! That’s why I made a point of having them in my Google Reader! If your blog is in that column, please snag a “plaque” to post on your blog from me! And everyone, by all means, visit these great blogs!



While I run into the kitchen to get lunch out of the microwave, check out Kim’s Scrappin. Kim’s daughter’s family lost everything in a house fire. Eight other digital scrapbook designers have joined her in creating a mega kit called Small Wonders. It’s a great kit and the cost is a donation to the fund to help get her daughter's family back on their feet in pretty much starting over. It’s a huge kit and the suggested donation is only $9.95. Of course, if you can afford to donate more, the kit is SO worth it and your donation is going to a worthy and personal cause.



I’m back with Salisbury steak and rice by my side. Yeah, no veggie, but I’ll probably have a salad for a snack later and I’m thinking of making pasta primavera for dinner. I got a lot of wishes here and on some of the scrapbooking sites for a nice weekend in the Motherland, so I thought I’d let you in on some of the highlights of the weekend.

My whirlwind tour of the Motherland was just two days! But my homesick heart got a great lift from it! The weekend kinda started Friday when I made the cookies for Dad. There were 2 dozens each of peanut butter and peanut butter-butterscotch chip cookies. Silly money. Dad would have rather had me there than a tangible gift, but I couldn’t show up for Fathers Day without a gift! Anyway, he really liked the cookies!

My first Michigan stop on Saturday was at McDonalds in Milan. I hadn’t had my morning coffee yet! Next stop Panera Bread in Southfield! I met my friend Liz for an early lunch. Liz and I worked together at the job that became the monster 2-hour one way commute after I moved to Toledo. That commute ended about 15 years mileage on my car, ten years of short sleep on my face and 5 chronological months later in June of 2007. Liz and I went to Panera after work about every week or two when we worked together, but our contact has been phone, text or email for over a year! Needless to say our just over 2-hour lunch was nonstop talking and a huge hug afterwards! It’s wonderful-amazing how I get so much more out od a 2-hour lunch than I did from the 2-hour drive into work. But then again, Liz and I are much friendlier than I ever was to my fellow rush-hour drivers!

After lunch was a couple hours of coffee with John and Scotty at Dunkin Donuts, THE D&D where I met them both for the first time and home base since I was a teen. It was a nice enough day to sit at the outside tables and talk and talk. They asked the common big-brother type questions about how I was, how the job hunt was going and shared the same health-work-money tales of themselves while I sipped my iced coffee and just soaked up the pleasure and the peace of being in their company. They don’t ask if David is treating me well anymore. They feel that I’m in good hands with him. Besides, John was the one ho said, “Ah, you’re married. You just haven’t bothered with the rings yet.” I don’t consider myself married, but I also know better than to debate with John if he is resolved in his opinion!

Next, with an equal desire NOT to leave as I had after lunch with Liz, I took off for Dad’s. While it’s about an hour and a half from home, Dad’s place is only about half hour from Novi! On the way, I did get to see a water tower with a burka! It’s a new water tower that you can see from the I-96 that is so new it still had lines and cloth wind screens while it’s under construction. It’s a lollipop shaped water tower that looks like it has a veil and a dress! I didn't stop to photograph it on Saturday since I’d already called Pop to let him know I was on the way, but I planned to stop on Sunday.

More to come this evening!