Covid Vaccination Booster

Today Becky and I got our Covid-19 vaccination booster shots from Pfizer at Walgreen's. We made online appointments the day before when we heard the shots were approved and available for people over 65. We also put down that we would like flu shots too.

There was a line at the pharmacy because there were some people who needed help filling out the necessary forms. It makes one feel fortunate that we don't have the struggles that many people our age have completely the tasks of everyday living. 

Once we got to the counter everything moved very quickly. The pharmacist recommended that we not get the flu shot at the same time as the vaccine so we didn't. We quickly filled out our forms, sat for a couple of minutes and then were called in for our shots. The entire process from the time we left our house for the pharmacy until we were back home again took about an hour.

Update: I had no affects from the shot other than a little bit of a sore arm. Becky had some fatigue and headache which lasted a couple of days.

Rock Me on the Water - 1974

Rock Me on the Water - 1974: The Year Los Angeles Transformed Music, Movies, Television and Politics by Ronald Brownstein, 2021.

Another e-book that took me a couple of downloads from the public library to finish but really worth it. 1974 was an important year for me having just left the Navy in December 1973 I was ready to get back to normal life for the first time in four years. I was experiencing all the music, movies, television and politics of 1974 plus going to college at Temple University on the GI Bill. I saw a lot of great movies during this time and also many wonderful rock concerts at arenas and clubs.

So I was really interested in this book and it's perspective on what was coming out of Los Angeles at that time which was a creative peak and exerted a very real transformative influence on popular culture throughout the country. It was also a time when conservatives lost their fight to control popular culture and family values and a brief moment when popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting the direction where America was heading. The film, recording and television studios of LA were reflecting the demographic, social and societal realities and changes brought about by the social changes of the sixties.

The book moves through the year with each month given it's own chapter. There was lots of interesting history in these pages but it is also a New York view of the happenings of LA. It was very entertaining but not to be taken too seriously. 

I also have a lot to say about the music, movies, television shows and politics of that time in the pages of this blog. 

Here is me in 1974 towards the end of the year.

Big Lie's Big Audit

Big news story today was the Big Lie's Big Audit was a Big Joke. The trump backed republican audit in Arizona by the so called cyber ninjas that took so many months with so many security problems finally released a report that states that they found no election voter fraud and discovered that Biden actually won more votes in the state then were originally counted.  Does that mean that any voter fraud in Arizona was actually done by trump supporters against President Biden?

This would all be funny except it is an orchestrated attack on the American election and voting process by a group of people willing to do anything to stay in power including destroying our democracy. There are other states doing these sham big lie audits and Texas just announced another audit. Pathetic. 

I wonder if they consider the possibility that they are making it harder for their political party to win future elections because folks will believe that voting is rigged and won't bother participating in the election process. The republican party will die out and go the way of the Whig Party and the No-Nothing Party into the ashbin of history.

Weather... a novel

Weather by Jenny Offill, 2020

Read this during a week in September 2021.

I was actually very disappointed with this book. I had heard good things but it just didn't engage me. It was well written but the structure and process of telling the story put me off. It was a very short book but I still found myself skipping over some sections and then there were other parts that totally absorbed me for short periods. It read like diary entries but they were all over the place and the story really was a sad drift into despair, fear and a disturbing doomsday sadness.

I like my novels, especially apocalyptic ones, to have a little more meat on them. 

Maya Beiser - Cello Goddess

Maya Beiser has been called the "Cello Godess" and she's also known as the queen of the avant-garde cello. Several years ago in late 2016 I was exploring cello music and in particular solo cello players and of course I came across May Beiser. What really grabbed me about her playing was her interpretations of popular music for the solo cello. Most of the cello players I had been listening to were playing standard classical music but she was different. She was doing that too but also covering Led Zeppelin and Nirvana.

Before I stopped accumulating music for my personal collection I did get two of her albums... TranceClassical from 2016 and Uncovered from 2014. I played both of them a lot. Around that time I was putting together a couple of mega mixes that I called my Evening Series  which were classical music based but explored some quiet New Age music and jazz too that blended together in a comforting mix for early morning or late at night. Maya Beiser's music fit perfectly into the mix.

Later I loved listening to her 2020 album Bowie Cello Symphonic: Blackstar which was consisted of covers of that final David Bowie album. It sounds incredible.

This morning I've been listening to her just released new album that is a collaboration with Philip Glass titled Maya Beiser x Philip Glass. Very moving pieces. I could listen to her music all day and I have.

Paramount Plus Negative

It was time to review our streaming services again. I do this every year or so. Our Sling TV has been OK but not really ideal. It would be nice to really be able to pick and choose which shows or networks to pay for based on what we were watching. We really were paying for a lot of stuff we weren't watching. Sometimes we get a deal that seems to good to pass up.

We've bounced back and forth between Sling Blue and Sling Orange. Blue had recently won because of their access to Premier League and Champions League soccer but recently that has changed as more and more of the former networks are developing their own streaming services. NBC took most of their soccer games to their new Peacock service and CBS got the contract to stream Champions and Europa League soccer games on their CBS All Access which then transformed into Paramount Plus.

Last week our subscription to HBO was done and I let it expire. We really had not been watching much on that network the past few months so we saved about $15 a month letting it go. I looked at our Sling account and we decided to drop the News package because the only channel there we were watching was BBC World. It was nice to have as an option but for news we were mainly watching CNN and MSNBC with a little Fox thrown in for an eye roll. We were paying $10 a month extra for the News pack. So now we were saving $20. 

I was looking at different options out there and settled on giving Paramount Plus a try for the premium service at $10 a month. Lots of soccer available and other live sports. A nice selection of movies. There were also a few original television series that I was interested in checking out including the newer Star Trek shows. There was also the ability to get our local CBS channel 4 which would be a big improvement over the bad reception we've been getting lately on our digital antennae. It was hard to watch the Bills game on that channel. Now we have fixed that problem for Bills games. We can also now watch local news and weather which is something we haven't done in many years.

Now the interface for Paramount Plus really sucks. It's amazing that they would not get it right. It has been improving over the past week or so. Apparently the interface is new and has been getting tweaked. It's really bad and I don't know how long I can put up with it. 

Right now I'm currently watching episodes of The Stand and Star Trek Discovery. 

Our total streaming package...

• Sling TV Blue with the Movie package
• Amazon Prime TV
• Netflix
• Criterion Movie Channel
• Paramount Plus

Canundrum Mixed Pack

Becky came home from the market this week with this 15 mixed pack of beers from Oskar Blues Brewery, TX.

Dale's Pale Ale has been one of my go to beers for years. I first checked it in on Untappd in 2013. Same year with the Mama's Little Yella PIls, First time with a G'Knight was in Philly in 2019 and the One-Y last November. The Can-o-Bliss is a series of different IPAs. I've had several of them but this will be the first time for this particular brew.

Includes:

• Dale's Pale Ale
• Mama's Little Yella Pils Czech pilsner
• One-Y Hazy IPA
• G'Knight Imperial IPA
• Can-o-Bliss 2021 IPA

The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden

The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden: The Biography by Peter Bergen, 2021

It was by coincidence that I was reading this over the 9/11 20th anniversary and finished it today. On September 11 I read this book all day instead of watching the all day line up of memorial programs on television. This is a well written and timely book.

Everything about this book was an eyeopener because so much has been learned about 9/11 and the Iraq War in the past twenty years. I've never read any of Peter Bergen previous books but I've been familiar with his television journalism since the mid 1990's and in particular his work as a national security and terrorism analyst for CNN. When I saw this recently published biography of Osama bin Laden by Bergen I knew I wanted to read it. I requested an e-book copy from the public library almost immediately upon release and was happy to have a copy within a month.

Although there has been a lot of books about bin over the years and a few by this author too but this book clears up a lot of misinformation, lies and other falsehoods made possible by the recent declassification of the thousands of documents found in bin Laden's home at the time of his death including his journals.

During the recent 20th anniversary and the ending of the war in Afghanistan there have been a lot of former administration officials being interviewed or just giving their opinions about what happened twenty years ago and on the current events.  One of the most disgusting characters spouting out nonsense has been Donald Rumsfeld who in particular is revealed in this book to have been knowingly pushing lies and total misinformation about Osama bin Laden and Saddam of Iraq for his own political purposes. He is shown to be one of the main architects of the failure of American Middle East policy of the last twenty years along with Dick Cheney. History is surely being very tough on the two clowns.

Elvis Costello's Spanish Model

I had recently heard some online discussion of a new Elvis Costello project where he was taking his classic 1978 album This Year's Model and putting new Spanish language vocal overdubs using the original Attractions background. The album was released on September 10th. I saw a review of it right away on All Music and went to Spotify and put it in my album collection to give it a listen. Then it took me a week to give it a listen and I was surprised at how much I really liked it.

This Year's Model has always been one of my favorite Elvis Costello albums but I was amazed at what he did here using all these different Latin singers. There were also quite a few non-LP contemporary tracks added to this project. So all of Costello's vocals are replaced by this very wide range of Latin artists that includes Luis Fonsi, Juanes, Draco Rosa, Cami, La Santa Cecilia’s La Marisoul, Jesse & Joy, Morat, Jorge Drexler, Fito Páez, Gian Marco, Vega and others, representing Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Spain, Uruguay, Argentina, Peru, Puerto Rico and even the mainland U.S. I must confess to not knowing any of these artists.

All of these artists were singing in front of one of the best backing bands ever. There are also a few remixes added to the album. I really enjoyed listening to this. So did Becky. I had to listen to it twice back to back.

There is an interesting article in Variety magazine about this project...  

Elvis Costello on the Endurance of ‘This Year’s Model,’ and What’s Gained in Translation With New ‘Spanish Model’

Birthday Dinner @ Roost

We had a wonderful dinner tonight celebrating Becky's birthday. A few days ago we decided to have our dinner at Roost on Niagara Street and I made online reservations for 6:30 pm. We have had this restaurant on our list to checkout for several years. It first opened in 2015 and always had some odd hours. Previously for some occasion we tried but couldn't get reservations there. We made a couple of other attempts and then the pandemic set in and we stopped going out much.

It took us a good twenty minutes to get over there because of the evening traffic. We hadn't been over to Niagara Street for some time and we were surprised at the street renovations. We drove by the restaurant initially because we missed the very tiny sign. We circled back and parked about a block away.

The restaurant was very large and roomy. We had a nice table that overlooking the bar and the open kitchen area. It also had a nice view toward the river and the sunset. We sat at our table for about two and a half hours. We had a great dinner and the staff was wonderful. We had a fantastic time.

The menu was terrific and everything looked good. We started off with a beet and goat cheese terrine with lemon and pistachio. It was amazingly good. Then we had a margherita pizza. It was one of the best pizzas ever and it had a strong pepper taste too. We also liked that it was served at our table already cut up into slices and nicely arranged on the plate. The main dish was a Hot & Sour Shrimp and it was very spicy. Very Tasty too. We loved it.

On our way over to the restaurant a little after six we got a video call from Sean and Ashley and Andrew. We told them we were in the car and on our way to a restaurant for our birthday dinner. They were calling to wish Becky a happy birthday and asked us where we were going. We told the Roost and our reservation was for 6:30. After a few minutes we all said goodbye and about fifteen minutes we were at the restaurant.

As we walked by the windows of the restaurant looking for the door the hostess in the window waved for us to back the way we came to enter the building. We walked back and found the proper door which didn't have a sign. We walked up to her desk and gave our reservation name to which she immediately said Happy Birthday to Becky. She sat us at our table and Becky asked about the birthday greeting and I replied that I did not put that info into the online reservation form. I didn't know how they knew. I speculated that perhaps it was in our reservation system profiles because we've used it many times before on many occasions.

A little while later after we put our food and drink order in our server announced that Sean and Ashley wished us a wonderful time at our birthday dinner and that they were paying for a round of drinks and an appetizer. It turns out they called the restaurant right after our video chat and arranged this birthday surprise and that is how the hostess was able to greet Becky with a happy birthday!

I had a couple of glasses of Malbec red wine and a draft Collective Arts Ransack the Universe IPA.

Three at a time... usually

For many years and especially the last five years since I've retired I have always read multiple books going at one time. My usual pattern has been one novel, one nonfiction and one biography/memoir going at the same time.

I regularly get books out of the library. I like getting books from the Canisius College Library because it is close by and as a retired library staff member I get books checked out for six months which gives me plenty of time. I mostly read the books much sooner than that but occasionally I will have a book around for many months.

I also always have e-books checked out from the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library that I have for two weeks. Often that is enough time but sometimes I don't finish a book and need to renew one. That works fine most of the time but if I have a new book or very popular one then there are often people waiting for the book which means if I don't finish it within the two week loan period then I need to put a hold to get another copy.

Every week I read the New York Times Book Review and I have my tablet with the Libby app by my side and when I see a book I'm interested in I can check it off on my to read list or sometimes put a hold on it right there. I usually have several books on hold at any given time and sometimes two or three books suddenly become available within days of each other. Occasionally I will have a book delivered later.

Overall it's a good system and I always have several books that I'm reading.

Right now... today I'm reading a biography of Winston Churchill that I had checked out twice as an e-book from the public library. It's a huge thousand page book so now I have a copy from the Canisius library and I can take my time with it. I'm also reading a novel Weather by Jenny Offill and The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. I'm also reading The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden by Peter Bergen. Keeping busy.

Broad and Erie

There was a posting today on a Germantown FB page about remembering Broad and Erie that had lots of comments including mine.

This refers to the North Philadelphia intersection of Broad Street, Erie Avenue and Germantown Avenue cutting in from an angle. It was a major transportation hub when I was young. Still is actually. There was also a station there for the Broad Street subway. 

Broad and Erie was where I got the #56 trolley that ran along Erie Avenue and took me to high school at Northeast Catholic located at the weird intersection where Erie, Torresdale and Frankford Avenues came together along with Hunting Park Avenue cutting in nearby. The Frankford Elevated Train ran here along with the Frankford Creek. My high school closed down a few years ago and now the building houses the Marianna Bracetti Academy Charter School where my niece Marissa teaches. 

From my house on Greene Street there were two trolley lines and a bus route within two blocks that could take me to Broad and Erie. The 23 trolley line on Germantown Ave, the 53 trolley line on Wayne Ave and the H bus on Manheim St. All three could get me down to Broad and Erie in less than 15 minutes. Then it was a 30 minute ride on the 56 trolley down Erie Avenue to my school.

I was passing through Broad and Erie twice a day every day for the three years I went to North Catholic. I was there a lot in the summer too for band practices. Then after four years in the Navy I was back living in Germantown and taking that 23 trolley down to Broad and Erie to get the subway down to Temple University for four years.

Also, my grandparents lived above their small grocery store they owned on Tioga St. a few blocks from Broad and Erie through the 1920's, 1930’s and 1940’s. The family sold their business and building after the war and moved to the corner of Greene and Logan streets across from the church. That house later became a funeral home. But that's another story.

The Media Bias Chart

The Media Bias Chart version 8.0 was recently released. The chart is published by Ad Fontes Media which is a media watchdog organization founded in 2012 and based in Colorado. They use a panel of analysts across the political spectrum to evaluate and rate media sources based on political bias and reliability.

This is the first time TV, web and podcast sources have appeared on the same chart. Over a thousand sources are evaluated on the online interactive Media Bias Chart located on the Ad Fontes Media website.

No one person is making the evaluations. There are a lot of people evaluating a lot of articles from a lot of sources to come up with this chart.

It certainly illustrates that one needs to get information from a variety of sources with different perspectives but understanding the potential bias of their sources.

Ashley & Tony... game time

Ashley and her father Tony came by the house last night on their way to the Buffalo Bills home opener. The game is today and they stayed overnight at our house and then left early this morning. They will go home directly from the game.

Sean is staying home with Andrew and he was sending Ashley regular updates on the progress of getting the baby fed, bathed and to bed. We did a couple of video chats during the evening.

So Ashley and Tony stopped on the way to our house and picked up some La Nova goodies for dinner.  A large pepperoni pizza, fries, wings and chicken fingers. Becky made some salad. We had a couple of beers and hung out in the backyard cabana after dinner but of course the night ended early for them because they planned to be on the road and to the stadium by around 7 am. I got up early with them to see them off.

They make it a long day at a Bills game with early morning tailgating. Apparently there are a lot of new rules about parking so if a group wants to tailgate together than they need to be at the parking lot as a group long before the lots actually open at 9 am. They didn't have any breakfast this morning because they will be having their regular Bills Sunday morning game tailgating meal. They will be going into the stadium about an hour before game time because the entry process is much slower now with all the new covid related rules.

Unfortunately it looks like there is going to be rain during the game. I hope they have a good time and of course they always do at their games.

Update: Too bad it turned out to be a rainy afternoon and a crappy losing game. Same old Bills.

Never Forget

Twenty years ago today. 9/11. I would never have expected to be reading a biography of Osama bin Laden on that anniversary day. It does make some sense because to never forget also means to know who made it happen, why it happened and how it happened. 

This book by veteran journalist and Middle East terrorism expert Peter Bergen explains a lot. I'm very early into the book and I'm amazed about how much is discussed here that I didn't know about at all. It 's going to be an interesting reading experience over the next couple of weeks.

Everyone today is thinking about where they were on 9/11  and what they felt on that day. I watched the towers burning on the TV in the Old Main lunch room and lounge at Canisius College surrounded by shocked students. It was very hard to get back to work and I stood there in the crowd of students, faculty and staff staring at the television. Everything was different from that moment on and everyone knew it. I also couldn't help thinking about standing on the observation deck of that tower a couple of weeks previously and was certainly part of the shock of that day.

I wrote about my experience with Sean when we went to the top of the World Trade Center in August of 2001 just before 9/11.

Porch Roof Fixed

A couple of weeks ago we got our porch roof fixed. We had been having a problem the past couple of years with the roof leaking when it rained and the water would come down on to the front steps. It would drip constantly during a rain storm and then continue to drip for many hours after the rain had stopped. It dripped so much that the rain water was messing up the paint on the steps. When the weather got cold the rainwater on the steps would freeze. Winter became a problem last year with all the ice.

I had assumed the problem was that the gutters were leaking and earlier this year I had a couple of gutter companies come in and give me estimates for fixing the problem. Both indicated that the problem was actually the roof itself that was leaking and not the gutters. The water was coming through the roof and around the gutters.

I called a couple of roofing companies including the one that had originally installed that roof back in 2006. Only one company, Rott Roofing, was interested in this small job. They explained the problem and gave a reasonable estimate on the cost to fix it but it would be several months before they could come out and do the work.

It's been hard for people to get work done on homes because of the large demand over the past couple of years. Everywhere you looked in our neighborhood both the summer of 2020 and this past summer there have been contractors working on people's houses. It seems that perhaps because people couldn't travel on vacations they had unspent money they could reallocate to home projects. Lots of people nearby were getting roofs and porches done.

This past summer I tried to get our backyard fence replaced and after calling several fence companies I gave up. I couldn't get anyone to come by the house and give an estimate because they were already booked up for the summer.

So two weeks ago Rott Roofing came out and spent a couple of hours fixing our porch roof. Then we went for two weeks without any rain. Last night and this morning it rained hard and I went out on the porch to check to see if the roof was no longer leaking. I was happy to see that the roof was indeed fixed and there was no water dripping from around the gutters on to our porch steps.

I'll keep checking on it and especially when the temperature freezes. I will repaint the porch steps and put a non-skid strip on the steps.

Feel Flows - The Beach Boys

I was reading an article about The Beach Boys in this past Sunday's New York Times. It caught my attention because I was also just reading about the new Feel Flows: The Sunflower & Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971 5 CD box set compilation on a music website and had marked it on Spotify for My Albums collections. I wanted to give it a listen. So after reading the article I started playing this on Spotify and it's been almost non-stop the past couple of days. I loved those weird quirky albums from the late 60's and early 70's and saw them a few times during those years at the Spectrum in Philly and on Steel Pier in Atlantic City. 

This is a great set of music in this box set. It was a time of experimentation and reinvention for the band. This was a time when Brian Wilson was having one crises after another. The two albums featured in this collection were commercial flops and neither Sunflower or Surf's Up contained any radio hits which of course was how the Beach Boys valued themselves all through the sixties. The 70's were not off to a good start for them or so they thought but they released some wonderful music which is highlighted in this collection.

During the early 70's while I was living onboard a Navy ship I had a close friend from California who was obsessed with the Beach Boys and had all their albums on tape. He had friends send him the new ones as they were. He was especially fond of the two albums focused on here... Sunflower and Surf's Up. He played them all the time and I became very familiar with them. One of the first albums I bought when I got out of the Navy in 1973 was the Beach Boys' Holland and of course I was obsessed with the song Sail On, Sailor. A few years later in the mid to late 70's I collected a group of twofer albums. Double album sets containing two LPs. I had Suflower/Surf's Up, Friends/20/20, Smily Smile/Wild Honey and Today/Summer Days and Summer Nights.

So I played this 5 CD box set for a couple of days straight and loved every minute of it. There were lots of live cuts and plenty of weird quirky songs that didn't make the official albums at the time. They were all interesting but when the really great songs came along within the mix it was sublime.

After I finished this collection I immediately began playing I Can Here Music: The 20/20 Sessions 1968.

Afternoon River Walk

Today after lunch Becky and I drove out to Niawanda Park on the Niagara River in Tonawanda. We walked up and down the riverside for about an hour and then took out a couple of our foldup chairs from the car and sat in the shade under a tree for another hour or so doing some reading or spacing out on the river. It was a perfectly beautiful day to pass the time this way. We loved it.

Actually this was the first time this year that we went up to that park to walk along the river or to sit by the riverside. It's usually something we would do several times throughout the spring, summer and fall each year. Lately we've been just going down to the lake to hangout.

It is always a nice place to be in great weather. Lots of walkers, joggers and cyclists.

Many years ago Becky spent a lot of time at Niawanda Park with our kids during the summers. They both loved going up there during the day when I was at work and Becky was home with them. Going to that park was a regular thing with Becky and the kids.

Traveling Overseas Again

Since 2018 Becky and I had been planning to take an overseas trip each year and the first two years we had fantastic experiences in Europe. London and Paris in 2018 and then Dublin, London and Edinburgh in 2019. We had plans to return to Italy in 2020 and perhaps Spain in 2021. Well, of course that didn't happen pandemically speaking but we are talking about maybe a trip to Barcelona and Paris in 2022.

I spent two weeks in Barcelona in 1972 and would love to return to that amazing city and we saw that there is a high speed train between there and Paris that takes less than an hour. We were reminded of Barcelona recently when we saw a documentary on TV about Antoni Gaudi and Barcelona architecture. Then we also recently met our new neighbors where the husband is a UB professor from Barcelona. One of Katie's friends was over the house while visiting and told the story of her being stuck in a town outside of Barcelona for several months during the pandemic shutdown while on a bicycle trip across Spain. So it looks like Barcelona for us with some time in Paris thrown in.

I have some very fond memories of Barcelona and a few crazy ones too as a twenty year old sailor exploring another city in another country. It would be nice to go there again and share new memories with Becky.

Sunday Wedding Brunch and Going Home

Sunday morning after the wedding we had a wonderful brunch at the hotel in an event room on the ground level. It had been originally scheduled at the home of a friend of Lewie's but needed to be moved after someone in that home contacted covid. They had to scramble on Friday to make the changes but it worked out fine.

We had been originally planning to skip the brunch, find a bite to eat and then get on the road but having it at the hotel changed our plans. We went down to the brunch room at a little after 10 am and there were a lot of people already there eating including Lizzie and Lewie. We got to see a lot of people one more time including our family members who were at the wedding. 

Betsy, Joe, Sara, Erik, Chris and Kim were all at the table with me and Becky. The kids were at the table next to us. We also got to say goodbye to the members of the Zorzanello clan.

Later at around 11 or so Dan showed up with Nick. Both of them looked very hung over. Dan was not wearing shoes and had one of his socks on inside out. Marissa started a clapping chant as they came in the door. It was all very funny. Dan said after they got something to eat and said goodbyes they were going back upstairs and sleep through the afternoon. 

It was a little funny to see Nick in this condition because last night him and I were talking about his father getting drunk as a 16 year old at my wedding and how he spend a good deal of the drive from Buffalo to Philadelphia the next day puking out the door at frequent sick stops. Nick knew all about that story. Now he has his own story of the 16 year old drunk at his sister's wedding.

Becky and I finished up our meal, grabbed a luggage cart and let the valet desk know we were coming down shortly needing our car. Ten minutes later we were checked out of the hotel and on our way home.

It was a very pleasant drive back to Buffalo. Sunny with no rain and very little traffic. Nice. We were home by three.

Cleveland Botanical Gardens & Mexican Lunch

Saturday morning... wedding day. We went downstairs and had some breakfast with Betsy and Joe. The hotel breakfast bistro is open until 10am on weekends so we made it this time.

After breakfast we walked over to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens where we had a wonderful time. It was spectacular there and we loved it. There were a couple of glass houses that were very impressive. One was mostly a very large collection of cactus plants and the other one was based on a Costa Rican rain forest that was full of birds and butterflies.

We spent a lot of time in the gardens and walked from one end to the other. Museum feet again. There really was a lot to look at.

After awhile we came out of the gardens and walked through the Case Western University campus again. We stopped briefly at our hotel and then went out to look for some lunch. We decided to go

back over to Little Italy again and have some sandwiches at that bakery again. When we got to that restaurant we found the Zorzanello clan sitting in the patio having lunch. It was very crowded there so we decided to walk further and check out the other lunch options on the street.

We went into several restaurants looking for a good place with a nice outdoor patio but most of the places were serving large portions of traditional Italian pasta dishes for lunch. We wanted something lighter. One of the places with a menu that looked good to us had a waitress tell us it would probably be an hour before we could eat because the kitchen was so backed up. We walked in and out of five restaurants before we decided to go back to Presti's Bakery where we knew there were sandwich options we liked.

So at Presti's we got a service ticket and saw there were ten customers ahead of us. We were hanging out for awhile and noticed a lot of people waiting were crowding around without masks. We also noticed that several of the staff behind the counter were not wearing masks including the owner. We were waiting a long time and then I saw a man whose number was called walk up to the counter without a mask and the maskless owner made a mocking derogatory joke about people wearing masks. That was it. I said to Becky let's get out of here and we walked out. After we left I told her about the obnoxious owner.

We walked down Mayfield to Euclid where there were a lot of restaurants with lunch options including a couple on my lists. One was a Mexican restaurant where we ended up having a wonderful lunch with great service from a Mexican staff.. Tacologist where we had some traditional Mexican Street Tacos. 

After that we walked across the street to our hotel to have a nap and get ready for the wedding. 

Lizzie & Lewie's Dinosaur Wedding

Saturday afternoon we had some rest, a little sleep and then pulled out the suit and the dress for the big occasion. At about 5:30 pm we went downstairs to the lobby and met up with Betsy and Joe again. Soon more people were milling around waiting for the hotel shuttle bus that would take us to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History which was the wedding venue. The shuttle first took some of the wedding party.

It was a short ride and the shuttle bus

was quickly back and we all got on and then dropped off outside the museum. We were then directed to an outside area where there was seating arranged in front of a fountain where the ceremony was to happen. We sat and it wasn't very long before the procession began and the wedding party arrived on the stage in front of the guests. The ceremony was officiated by Lewie's grandmother and she was wonderful and very funny. A few people spoke but overall the ceremony was relatively short and sweet. Lizzie's Uncle Barry read a list of family and friends that had passed and were missed at the wedding including my parents and brother Tom. Barry was a little confused before hand because he was eulogizing a George and Betty Emery but had met a George and Becky Emery over the weekend. The similar names gave him a brief pause. We had a laugh about it later.

Afterward the guests were led into the hall while the wedding party was getting pictures taken. It was a lot of fun being in the museum and there were dinosaurs everywhere. We were handed glasses of champagne as we entered the hall of dinosaurs. Ava and Courtney were with us and at age 16 and 17 we were all surprised when the staff offered them glasses of champagne too. All they had to say was thank you and accept the glasses but they said they were not old enough. We had a good laugh about it.

We milled around the dinosaurs for awhile enjoying a cocktail hour. We could also wander around the many exhibits. Then people started going to their assigned tables. Becky and I sat with Betsy and Joe, Sara and Erik, and Chris and Kim. The kids were at the table next to us. The dinner was wonderful and what one would expect from a couple of serious foodies.

Soon there was lots of young people dancing and partying. It was a very fun

wedding. We were going to be driving home the next morning and I kept my drinking well under control. No hard liquor. I had that glass of champagne and then three beers were all low % lagers.

There was an incident where Betsy "lost" her cellphone. She was frantic looking all over the museum for it. Somehow it

turned up in Lizzie's wedding dress pocket. It is suspected that Betsy's younger granddaughters were responsible. It certainly ruined a lot of the night for Betsy. If those girls were involved they should be ashamed for pranking their grandmother like that. They've done a lot of obnoxious pranks on Betsy but that is another story.

We left the wedding a little after 11 pm and just before the main crowd which would be lining up for the shuttle by 11:30. When we left Betsy was still frantically looking for her phone.

We had a great time. It was a wonderful wedding.

Friday - Little Italy Again

Friday - Wedding Weekend

Got up the next morning and went downstairs to get some breakfast when we found out the hotel breakfast bistro closed at 9:30 am just as we got there. Betsy and Joe were at a table finishing up their breakfast. We talked a little about our plans for the day. They didn't know what they were going to do but we had our plans to spend most of the day at the Cleveland Museum of Art after we got something to eat.

We decided to go over to Little Italy again because we knew there were some interesting bakeries with breakfast options there. We enjoyed the ten minute walk around the corner and down Mayfield Street. I headed us over to Presti's Bakery which was across the street where we were with Dan last night.

We were lucky that at the moment we walked in there were no one else at the ordering counter. We got some pastries, coffee and tea and sat at a nearby table. While we were sitting there the place filled up and people were taking numbers for service at the counter. 

While we were there first Carolyn Zorzanello and John came by and got some breakfast. Carolyn hung out at our table for a bit and we talked. Soon more of the Z clan showed up and sat outside on the patio.

We had a pleasant breakfast, said our goodbyes to the others and headed down the street towards the museums.

Friday - Cleveland Museum of Art

Friday morning and afternoon was our day dedicated to the Cleveland Museum of Art. We finished our breakfast in Little Italy and walked over to the museum district which was only a few blocks away. As we were walking down the street we ran into Liz and Mary who were on their way to join their sister for breakfast in the same bakery we had just eaten. Liz was supposed to have gotten in the previous night but had problems with her flight from Philadelphia and ended up getting to Cleveland after midnight. It was great to see her.

We stopped briefly at our hotel room and then made our way to the art museum which was less than a ten minute walk. We walked around the area near the museum and came in through the back entrance overlooking a fabulous park. We entered the museum up the long stairway to the second level in the old original building. Amazingly the museum is free to the public.

We had a wonderful time in this museum and it had a spectacular collection. The building was full of eye candy everywhere you turned. Becky loved it. This museum has one of the best collections in the world. We saw many pieces of art that are generally displayed in art history books. There was also an amazing addition to the museum connected by a recently constructed atrium. There was a whole other section with a wonderful collection of Chinese art, other Asian cultures and many ancient cultures.

We took a break from the art to have lunch and the food was very good.

On our way back to the hotel we walked through the campus of Case Western University. It was kind of fun to be back on a college campus with all the students making their way between classes. They were almost all wearing masks.

We ran into Dan back at the hotel. He was frantically preparing for the pre-wedding party that night.

He also told us the Sunday brunch scheduled the morning after the wedding needed to be changed because someone in his friend's house where the brunch was to be held came up with Covid. They were trying to get the brunch moved to an event room at the hotel where most of the out of town guests were staying.

We went back upstairs to take a nap to relieve our museum feet which was interrupted by the sounds of military jets preparing for an air show this weekend.

I also checked to make sure we could take a Lyft ride to the party. The hotel had a valet service for parking. I did not want to get our car and take the ten minute drive to the party. It just so much easier to call a Lyft ride.

Friday Night Pre-Wedding Party

Becky and I took a Lyft ride on Friday night to the pre-wedding party that was about a ten minute drive away just outside the city in Cleveland Heights. It was a very nice woodsy neighborhood with big interesting homes. The home where the party was located was a very nice large house with a great backyard.

They had some wonderfully catered Lebanese food. I'm not sure how many people were at the party but probably 40 or 50. Lots of family and friends.

Our family had a big representation. Me and Becky, Betsy and Joe, Sara, Erik and the two girls, Chris, Kim and their four kids, Dan and Nick, Marissa. Liz and all her siblings were there. I had lots of conversations with many different people. One in particular was with one of Lewie's childhood and school friends.

Lizzie had contacted me previously about playing my Backyard Wedding Party Mix that I had put together for Sean and Ashley's wedding in 2015. It is public on Spotify so of course they could play it. They had a single bluetooth speaker in the backyard playing music. Unfortunately it couldn't be heard by 90 some % of the people in the space. Too bad. It was a good mix. It would have been better to have a couple of speakers near the garage behind the food and drink tables.

It also would have nice to have more pictures of the party taken by the official photographer. Not to be critical but they did run out of beers, wine and water close to the scheduled end of the party so it was probably planned that way to make sure everything ended on time.

We went back to the hotel with Betsy and Joe who had driven. I used my phone to gps navigate us back to the hotel.

Overall a very good night and day.