In Montreal

Jerry and I drove up with Carol to Montreal today to enjoy the week and New Year's Eve here. So check out my travel blog: www.thetravelingbaesels.blogspot.com to check out what's going on with us here. Happy New Year

Christmas

This was such a wonderful Christmas. We really enjoyed having Yaric and Jason home. We got to spend Christmas Eve with Peg and Jeff. Our friends Nancy and Steve had a fantastic dinner on Boxing Day Night (with the "friends of Peg and Jeff" crowd). We ate well...Jason's Christmas Day dinner was fabulous...great roast...fabulous red wine reduction sauce...brussel sprouts...mashed potatos...salad. Never did get to the dessert. We went to the movies together to see Tales of Despereaux. Yaric and Jason also went to see several other movies including "The Spirit". A really nice week. Here are some happy photos:

Yaric with Luigi on Christmas Eve

Jerry on Christmas Eve

Peg - Christmas Eve

Jeff - Christmas Eve

Geena - On Auntie Peg's lap

Yaric and Jason

Yaric and Jason (and Luigi) in front of their portrait (done in 1998/99)

Jason, Leonard, and Yaric on Christmas Eve

Jason at Samurai Sushi - 12/27

Yaric - Samurai Sushi 12/27

Christmas Eve Eve

This morning Jason and I made cinnamom rolls from scratch (well, Jason made them..I cleaned up and gave sage advice...some taken). He did a great job...all agreed they were scrumptious. He put in a mixture of finely cut almonds, walnuts, pecans, and pistachio along with cinnamon, clove, honey, brown sugar and honey...and a layer of phyllo dough rolled up inside the roll. Again...yummy.

Yaric and Jerry went sporting clay shooting with our friends Jeff and Steve at M&M Preserve and Sporting Clays in New Jersey. We bundled them up and said goodbye and both agreed (Jason and I) we'd rather be cooking in a warm kitchen than shooting in 20 degree weather. But they had a great time and Yaric had a great first day of shooting!

In the late morning Leonard and his cousin Stephann came over to visit Jason. I caught the tail end of the visit and took a few photos. I miss having Jason and Leonard around...they make quite a pair!

Coffee with Peg

Peg is in town!!! Yippeee Yahooo! Let the holidays begin! To start off the celebrating, a number of friends gathered at Cream and Sugar in Wayne for coffee (or tea) with Peg this morning. We had a great time (even if we think the heater could have been set a little higher!). Here are some pics....

Peg

Mariadela

Marda

Betty and Sherrin

Peg - happy to be with her peeps.


After Coffee...Peg and I went over to visit Em

How thankful I am to have all these wonderful women in my life!

A Tree Full of Birds

This morning it was 12 degrees when I woke up with a windchill around 0! The sun was brilliant but just wasn't strong enough to penetrate those winds from the north! First things were first and I pulled on my Uggs, my wool coat, and half gloves and braved the morning cold to fill up the deck platform feeders with millet. Yesterday's leftover were frozen into a sheet of ice and millet that looks curiously like millet brittle. Although, the squirrels like to pick up a chunk and chew on it, the little birds: juncos, sparrows, and wrens... are not that thrilled with it. So fresh millet for everyone!

Then an hour or so later I was upstairs and looked outside into our big backyard walnut tree. There must have been at least 30 red-winged blackbirds decorating the treed like christmas ornaments. They were basically waiting their turns at the feeders. Poor guys...their wetland home a couple of blocks over is all frozen! I had seen a small flock last week mixed with the robins and starlings that were devouring the berries off the hawthorn trees...but this was QUITE a gang!

I'll miss these little winter visitors when I move to Florida. However, I won't have to worry about pulling on my uggs to go out and feed the birds in December!

The Boys are Back in Town

Jason and Yaric arrived on Air Tran 624 from Orlando this afternoon. We've ordered pizza, philly cheesesteak and salads. The boys are happily occupying "their" chairs in the basement playing with the X Box. Jerry is watching a football game. I'm doing compilation CDs for Christmas presents. All is right with the world.

Crackling Ice

We all know about crackling fires in the heart of winter, but there is also crackling ice (not nearly as warm and cosy!). We had freezing rain and sleet from sometime around 3am to about 10am...so we had a coating of ice on everything! little icicles frozen in motion off the wheelwells of the car and the edge of the BBQ cover. Bird feed was frozen into something resembling millet brittle (the squirrel would break it apart and chewy off pieces...I had to put fresh millet out for the little juncos and sparrows). And a thin coating of ice on all the branches and leaves on everything in the garden. This evening a wind has picked up, so when I went out on the deck to call the dogs in, I could hear this crackle, crackle, crackle reverberating through the air...all the branches were moving in the wind and cracking the surface of all the ice. Amazing.

In the spirit of "Everyone's a Winner"

Does anyone remember when there were just a handful of bowl games that represented the cream of the cream of college football teams. Let's see: Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl, at some point the Fiesta Bowl and Sun Bowls crept into the mix. At the end of the college season you could argue how the top 5 teams ranked amongst themselves...but you KNEW who the top 5 were! Now there are 33 bowl games PLUS the BCS Championship Game. 33 bowl games played between December 20th and January 8th (oh yes...no longer does the season end on January 1st!). 34 bowls! That is 68 football teams that get to play in a bowl game. Is anyone NOT playing in a bowl game? Gee wow!

And some of the names are...well...hysterical...here are a few:

The MagicJack St. Petersburg bowl (on the TV as I type)
R+L Carriers New Orleans
Meineke Car Care Bowl
Papajohns.com bowl (I love the .com bit)
Chick-Fil-A Bowl
Konica Minolta Gator Bowl
the AutoZone Liberty Bowl

Of the "original" five:

AT&T Cotton Bowl
FedEx Orange Bowl
Allstate Sugar Bowl
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl
and
Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi (curiously not the Citi Rose Bowl Game)

And then the most curious...we have the International Bowl in Toronto...the two teams playing? Buffalo and Connecticut...don't you think at least one should be Canadian?

Em

My dear friend Em had a lumpectomy yesterday along with several other procedures. The news is cautiously optimistic as there is no involvement in her lymph nodes. VERY good news. The day was long and I'm sure she is sore and exhausted today. But the rest of us, her eM Team gals are doing a happy dance for her.

How is it....

that today it was in the 60s in Philadelphia and tomorrow they may get snow and ice?

In Mourning

There will be no more Boston Legals. Jerry and I are sad. We will miss Alan and Denny sitting on the office balcony of Crane, Poole and Schmidt sharing a scotch and cigars and friendship. We will miss the quirkiness, intellectual play with ideas and words, and off beat humor of the show.

My Top Ten (or so) for 2008

Here is my list of my favorite books that I read in 2008 (just a few more than the target number of 10).

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer

The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family: Duong Van Mai Elliott

Queen of the Road : The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of its Own by Doreen Orion

The Glass Castle: A Memoir, by Jeannette Walls

Jacob's Ladder: A Story of Virginia During the War by Donald McCaig

China, Inc: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World, by Ted C. Fishman

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Darcy's Story by Janet Aylmer

Catfish and Mandala: A Two Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam by Andrew X. Pham

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl

Roar of the Heavens: Surviving Hurricane Camille, Stefan Bechtel

Cross Creek, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Dragonfly in Amber, Diana Gabaldon.

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Thanksgiving photos

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend in the NYC area. Jason and Yaric flew up from Florida. Peg and Jeff came in from Ohio. Mo trained down from Boston. And we drove over from Philly. We stayed at the Hyatt on the Hudson in Jersey City which I'd highly recommend. A good value price wise and it is RIGHT next to the Exchange Place Path station so is just one stop away from the World Trade Center Path station and an easy connection to subways.

We ate dinner at Amanda's in Hoboken...a real delight. Good food. Wonderful cheery table in a converted brown stone with lots of small rooms. Excellent prime rib, turkey and Jason says it was the best salmon he's ever had!. They even sent home turkey leftovers so we'd HAVE leftovers.

We saw Tina Turner on WEdnesday night. Billy Elliott on Friday night. Jerry and I saw Hairspray with Harvey Fierstein on Saturday matinee. Jason and Yaric went out with Ahmad and went to dinner and a jazz club on SAturday night. Did some shopping (on 8th street) and had breakfast with Ahmad and Megan at one our favorites the Edison Hotel Cafe (AKA the Polish Tea Room). Oh and we got up early to stand and watch part of the Macy's Parade and see those really big floats.

Go See Australia

Jerry and I went to see Australia this afternoon. It was fabulous. Don't believe a word those cranky, curmudgeonly critics have been saying. It is NOT too long. It is not too far fetched. They are right...the cinematograpy is great and Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman have great chemistry. Even jerry liked it and his heart does not go pitter pat pitter pat when he looks at Hugh Jackman (like mine). A great date movie. A great movie with the girls. I think I'm going to go off and hum "waltzing matilda" before bed.

Les Bouchees Gourmand

Once upon a time a nice Quebecquois couple owned a chocolate/pastry shop on Rue St. Paul in Old Montreal in a 200 year old building. This couple made beautiful yummy chocolates, the best apple turnovers, tarte taitin, and hot chocolate for miles (and that is saying something in Montreal). On top of that, they couldn't be nicer people...gracious, sweet, and giving (a lot like their chocolates). Then the roof froze, ice jammed the gutters, untimely and unwanted waterfalls sprouted within their store. For reasons not understood the owner wouldn't or couldn't fix the problem and leaks and hi humidity continued into the spring making it impossible to get the chocolate to set properly (it's one thing to be cold and have wet feet, its another thing altogether to be unable to make your chocolates properly). So they sadly hung the closed sign on the door for the last time and left the adorable (but leaky) 200 year building. After 6 long months (seemed long for those of us deprived of their simple yet elegant creations) they have reopened (sound of bugles and crowds cheering) on Rue St. Bernard in the Outremont area of Montreal. Hallelujah! We visited yesterday and feasted on their potage Parisien (leek and potato soup), thick creamy hot chocolate, and the best, flakiest and perhaps biggest sweet apple turnover ever!!! All is right with the world again.

Get Thee to New York City and See Billy Elliott!!!

We saw the new musical (based on the movie of the same name) "Billy Elliott". Music by Elton John. Book/Direction by the same team who did the movie. Set in an English coal mining town during the year long miners strike in 1984...it tells the story about a young boy who discovers he doesn't want to box he wants to dance ballet (imagine the reaction of the coal mining father?) It's a story about hardship, loss, friendship, family, being different, and triumphs. It's empowering and inspiring. Fabulous cast! It is the must see (at least for me) of the season.

We were also lucky to get last minute tickets to see Hairspray (in its final month before closing on the 4th of July) with Harvey Fierstein reprising his original performance as Edna. I'd never seen Hairspray (musical or movie) and loved it. Jerry actually liked it better than Billy Elliott because he loved the music...but trust me...Billy is the ticket.