Halloween Night 2024

We had a wonderful but exhausting time tonight handing out treats to the many trick or treaters that came to our door this evening. We were not sure what to expect tonight because there were many reports of rain coming between 5 pm and 8 pm but none of that happened. The weather turned out to be perfect and it was 72 degrees on our porch.

We sat in our chairs when not going up and down the steps handing out candy. I was wearing a t-shirt. We had my Bluetooth speaker playing my Halloween mixes. The neighborhood was jumping with lots of folks giving out treats. It was like a block party.

The kids were great this year and the all had costumes. They were polite and said thank you along with the Happy Halloween. The parents were great too. Lots of wonderful costumes this year... even the parents.

The crowd was really large and early on. I think maybe because of the threat of rain but also because it was so warm. Nobody needed coats. We ran out of candy around 7:30 pm. So we had to turn off the lights even though there was still a crowd going up and down the street.

Becky's Baguette Pizza

Becky's home made baguette pizza is a treat we never get tired of. It's also something that last for awhile. The leftovers are wonderful.

Chili and Cornbread Time

It's Fall and time for Becky's chili and home made cornbread. This is the first chili of the season and there will be more... lots more.

Eye Doctor Today

Today I went to Ross Eye Clinic for a post-op and annual checkup with Dr. McGraw. Everything went very smoothly although it did take a long time. I saw three different people. The first two were technicians conducting tests and then I saw the doctor. I had to wait about fifteen to twenty minutes between each office.

I did learn that my eyes continue to have 20/20 distance vision without glasses. 

Frost & Fall

Woke up this morning to 35 degrees and frost on the ground. Fall has really arrived. Soon it will be time to put up the bird feeders. Over the past week or so I just about finished raking up the leaves in the backyard. Our black walnut trees are always the first ones to drop their leaves in the fall and the first to grow them back in the spring.

This year was a very lean year for black walnuts dropping in our yard. I actually had no bags of nuts this year. Most of the few that came down I tossed into the wayback of the yard for the squirrels to get. I only had about 16 bags of leaves and nuts this year. Last year was a banner year with 74 bags. Before last year the largest number of bags in a year was 60. Usually there are about 20 to 30 bags.

Yesterday I took down the clothes line... another sure sign of fall. No more hanging laundry in the backyard for awhile. And of course our burning bush is bright red.

More Chicken & Potatoes

We had another wonderful dinner of chicken cutlets and some home fried potatoes. Some nice salad along with some of our favorite bread from the co-op. 

This is one of our favorite dinners. A staple in our home.

At the PM with Dave

Last night Dave and I went down to the Parkside Meadow for some time out together and enjoy some brews while in conversation. He came by the house first to drop off an art catalog book for Becky and I took him up on the third floor to see Becky working in her studio. Dave was impressed with her space and the amount of room she had for storage and getting work done. Then we walked over to the PM.

We got there a little before 7 pm and stayed until about 9:30. We had a good time and talked a lot about all kinds of things. It was a busy Friday night but we were able to get a couple of seats at the bar with no problem.

Our new neighbors down the street were at the restaurant and were sitting at the bar. Had a nice conversation with them too.

I had a new beer. They don't usually have anything different on tap but this time they had a local beer... Lovejoy Lager from Buffalo Olde Brewery located in the Lovejoy neighborhood. It was a decent lager.

Phil Lesh RIP

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. He died yesterday at the age of 84. He was one of the great bass players of rock music.

I had written up another Album Challenge that I posted here the other day and this time it was on the 1970 albums of the Grateful Dead. I was going to put it up on FB last night but I had to take some time to reflect on Phil Lesh's contributions to the Grateful Dead which were significant both as an instrumentalist and a song writer.

Furnace Repair

"Today our furnace blower part was installed by your service technician and now our three year old furnace is running again. The previous tech on Friday stated that the parts were covered by our warranty but we would be charged for the service call. Since we are members of the service maintenance program and have been since we contracted with Central Heating when we had the furnace installed in September 2021. The rep today was very good and installed and tested the furnace blower in 20 minutes. However, when I asked about payment for the labor cost he said the bill was for over $600 although I was too surprised to remember the exact amount. Therefore, please send me an email copy of the detailed bill describing the labor cost as the maintenance program discount. I assume that was some kind of error in the bill the service tech quoted me today. I will send a check to Reimer for the cost of installing the blower when the bill is clarified." This is what I sent to the heating company in an email yesterday. We will see what happens.

Update: Well, they never clarified the bill or sent me any bill whatsoever. I think they realized that someone made a stupid mistake about that $600 labor cost.

Tortellini and Gemelli Pasta

This evening we had a very nice past dinner with a mix of pastas... some cheese tortellini and some spiral gemelli pasta along with a wonderful sauce with pesto. We also had our favorite bread from the co-op that is perfect with a pasta dinner.

Album Challenge - 1967 pt. 2 - Covered with Vanilla Fudge

Another Album Challenge and I'm going back to 1967 to get covered by Vanilla Fudge.I sorta kinda always was a big fan of Vanilla Fudge and their slow heavy extended cover versions of popular songs. When I heard their crazy take on the Supremes song You Keep Me Hangin' On playing on the radio in 1967 I went out and bought the album and it has been an influence in my taste of music ever since. I was very thrilled back in the day that when I bought the album the hit song was actually a much longer version on the LP. I also liked that the album cover reminded me of Goldfinger. I have always liked a good cover version of a song and Vanilla Fudge had plenty of them.

In October of 1968 I saw the Vanilla Fudge at the 1st Quaker City Rock Festival along with Janis Joplin, Chambers Brothers, Moby Grape and the Buddy Guy Blues Band. That was my only time seeing the Fudge. 

Over the next couple of years I got all five Vanilla Fudge albums. And many years later I would use many of their songs on my cover version mixes.

I always liked a good cover version of a good song but most of the time they were similar to the original versions. The Beatles were a good example of a band that did some covers early in their careers that didn't venture too far from the originals which was what a lot of the British Invasion bands did. The early rock and roll acts often copied earlier R&B songs in a sort of white-washing of the music. Popular music in general has always been about people doing the music of other people and rock in particular would take quite a few years for the singer songwriters to take hold and become part of the mainstream. The Vanilla Fudge was different. They radically changed the song to fit their heavy rock style and I liked that.

Vanilla Fudge in my collection:

• Vanilla Fudge, 1967
• The Beat Goes On, 1968
• Renaissance, 1968
• Near the Beginning, 1969
• Rock and Roll, 1969
• Psychedelic Sundae: The Best of Vanilla Fudge, 1993
• Out Through The In Door, 2007
• Box of Fudge, 2010

Dinner @ Coles

We decided to go out for dinner this evening and we wanted something familiar and close by. Coles on Elmwood. When we got there we saw that they had their Oktoberfest specials on the menu and I had a hard time deciding which one to get. I got the German Meatballs with potato pancakes and a special mushroom sauce. I loved it. Becky had her usual Buffalo Wrap. 

I had a Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest Brauerei Gutmann Festbier. I followed that up with a Ludwig Von Crispy Marzen Oktoberfest from Deschutes Brewery in Oregon. That was a very tasty brew with just a hint of caramel. 

We had a very nice time there and had a nice conversation with our server who is a Buff State student.

Before dinner we did take a walk around the Elmwood neighborhood. We parked in our usual spot on Byrd and walked down to Bidwell. Then we went on to the restaurant.

Album Challenge - 1970 pt. 4 - Dead Heads

Another Album Challenge from 1970 and this time it's the Grateful Dead. They released two albums in 1970 and they both influenced my taste in music. There really was something special about Workingman's Dead and American Beauty. Their previous three albums were pure psychedelia experimentation but these two were an amazing introduction to country flavored Americana. They sounded great and I heard those albums a lot while cruising around the world. So many wonderful classic songs. I would buy both vinyl albums shortly after getting out of the Navy. Then a little later I would get Skull & Roses, The Wake of the Flood and Blues for Allah but that would be it for many years.

The first time I saw the Grateful Dead perform was at the Electric Factory in 1968 along with the Amboy Dukes. Later that year I saw the Dead again at the Quaker City Rock Festival along with Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Sly & The Family Stone. I saw them one more time at the Electric Factory in 1969 in a San Francisco Jam along with Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Moby Grape. Then in a park concert in Chicago in 1970. I would not see them again until 1973 along with The Allman Brothers and The Band at Watkins Glen. 

I was always weirdly fascinated by folks considered "deadheads". The people who traveled along with the band and attended so many of their shows. I didn't think it was particularly strange in the 70's but later on into the 1980's and beyond it was definitely odd in my perspective. Now I've always loved going to see live music and see different bands perform but to be so obsessed about one particular band who spent so many hours noodling long seemingly incoherent jams was very strange. I saw them a bunch of times in their early years but never understood the "deadhead" thing including the whole sub-culture of collecting fan recordings of the band. Then there were the bars in the 80's that specialized on playing Grateful Dead music and especially those fan concert tapes. There was that bar on Main Street near the UB South Campus that had a lot of Dead nights. All Dead all the time. 

When I worked spinning records at the Pastime Lounge on Grant Street near Buff State during the 80's I was often approached by deadheads wanting to have Grateful Dead music nights at the bar. They wanted to play all of the live music tapes they had collected. I would only play songs in the bar from these two 1970 albums and maybe occasionally from one or two other 70's albums. I never played any of their long live jams.

Much later in my music collecting days I did begin to get some of the live Dead albums that were coming out on CD including the Dick's Picks series. It did make for some nice background music around the house. 

I was reading up on some info about "deadheads" and came across a list of famous people who were deadheads in their youth. The list included Tucker Carlson, Ann Coulter, Steve Bannon, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Steve Jobs, Andy Cohen, Al Gore, Tipper Gore, Al Franken, John Belushi, Harry Reid, Bill Walton and many many more.

Grateful Dead albums in my collection:

• Grateful Dead, 1967
• Anthem of the Sun, 1968
• Aoxomoxoa, 1969
• Live/Dead, 1969
• Workingman's Dead, 1970
• American Beauty, 1970
• Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses), 1971
• Europe '72, 1972
• Wake of the Flood, 1973
• Blues For Allah, 1973
• What A Long Strange Trip It's Been, 1977
• Grayfolded - Transitive Axis, 1995
• Dick's Picks Vol. 4 - Live at the Fillmore East 1970, 1996
• Dick's Picks Vol. 8 - Live at Harpur College NY 1970, 1997
• Grayfolded - Mirror Ashes, 2007
• Dick's Picks Vol. 28 - Live in Nebraska & Utah 1973, 2009
• Dick's Picks Vol. 30 - Live in NYC 1972, 2009
• Spring 1990 - So Glad You Made It, 2012
• Sunshine Daydream - Live in Oregon 1972, 2013
• 30 Trips Around The Sun: The Definitive Story 1965-1995, 2015
• Live at Cornell 1977, 2017

A Walk in the Zoo

Today Becky and I walked over to the zoo instead of walking around the neighborhood. We then spent nearly an hour in the zoo enjoying the spectacular warm sunny October afternoon. One of the highlights of our day was sitting on a park bench watching the three giraffes also enjoying the afternoon. One of them was munching on the leaves of an overhanging pine tree. I guess that's an acquired taste. We sat on that bench for awhile enjoying those giraffes which we often see our regular neighborhood walks that we take into Delaware Park and around the outside of the zoo. Usually we walk by the giraffe enclosure so it was nice to be able to just sit there watching them.

The zoo was not very busy despite the nice weather because it was a Tuesday afternoon in the fall. The only kids there were toddlers and babies. We took our time walking around and we actually didn't go into any buildings. We'll save them for our works around the zoo in the winter and especially the Rain Forrest building.

We did stop around the outer wall to the park and looked at the bird house on the wall tower where I took this picture. It was amazing to see all of the little bird houses built into the tower. This was our first time going over to the zoo since we went there at night in August for the light show. We love going to the zoo with our grandkids when they are visiting but we also like just going over there ourselves as part of our routine walks. We're zoo members so we might as well go as often as we can and of course it's only a couple of blocks away.

Rent-A-Record

One of my favorite places in Buffalo that I discovered within weeks of moving here. It was also just a few blocks away on Elmwood Avenue. It would later expand a little and become Home of the Hits but back when I first went there it was Play It Again, Sam's and specialized in used records which were mostly very slightly used. The back of the card was a discount coupon.

They also had new albums that they rented out. I did that a lot and made tape copies of the records I rented. Can't remember how much it cost to rent but it was cheap. When I look through my vinyl album collection I see a lot of them with the red dots on the top right corner of the album cover which means I got it here at this store.

I found this Rent-A-Record card in that box of "stuff" we found on the third floor while cleaning out space for moving Becky's studio.

Chicken Noodle Soup

We had some leftover chicken cutlets that Becky made a couple of days ago and this evening she made some of her wonderful chicken noodle soup. This soup is always wonderful and it is particularly good on a cool day. 

I'll probably have the rest of that leftover chicken in a sandwich tomorrow.

A Room With A View

Another photo recently found in a box of "stuff" on the third floor while clearing space for Becky's studio.

This is a photo taken from my bedroom of the house on Seymour Street that I bought from my Great-Aunt's estate when I got out of the Navy and wanted to live back in my old Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia while attending Temple University on the GI Bill. I took this picture sometime around 1974-1975.

We see St. Francis of Assissi Church tower in the background. It was my parish church when I was growing up and next to it on the left where we can't see here is the school I went to between 1957 - 1965. Then I went to North Catholic High School from 1965 through 1968 when we moved to Harleysville PA. I didn't like it there and enlisted in the Navy in December 1969.

Our house growing up cannot be seen in this photo but it was located just to the left of the green tree in the center of the photo. We were in the middle of the block. Right in front us in this picture is a protestant church. When I was growing up my best friend Juddy Lamos lived in the house next to the church where is father was the pastor. Their house was the building with the large chimney. I played in the yard all the time and occasionally we would actually play in the church. I thought it might be a sin to be in that church building.

Our family lived in the middle of the block on Greene Street between Logan and Seymour streets. My father's family had lived in the house on the corner of Greene and Logan across from the church. My parents met across the street from that house at the corner store there. When my grandfather died in 1950 and a few years later the house was sold to the Gillespie Funeral Home while the family moved down the street near Logan Park. That was the house I remember although there is a photo of me as a baby on the porch of the Logan Street house.

Years later when I was living across the street from that church it had evolved into a African-American congregation. We would often sit on the porch listening to Phillies baseball games and drinking some beer while the church gospel choir practiced in the evening. The sound of their singing added something to our nightly porch sittings.

The house was purchased by my Great-Grandfather Thomas Keegan and Great-Grandmother Bridget McDevitt Keegan in 1909. Becky and I still use the chest of drawers that belonged to them. My mother and my grandmother both grew up in the house along with a couple of Great Aunts and an Uncle. 

Becky and I lived there until May of 1979 when we moved to Buffalo NY. 

Album Challenge - 1970 pt. 3 - Miles

The Album Challenge continues... another important album released in 1970 that influenced my taste in music was Bitches Brew from Miles Davis. I saw him and his band perform this music on his 1970 tour at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. It was an incredible experience and that record and performance deeply influenced my taste in jazz rock and fusion music over the next several years. 

I would buy that vinyl album that year when home on leave and a little over a decade later I would also get the CD.  Then eventually I got the Complete Bitches Brew Sessions 4 CD box set.

A lot of my favorite jazz rock musicians played on that album including Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, John McLaughlan, Dave Holland, Joe Zawinul, Larry Young, Jack DeJohnette and so many more.

I read the Miles Davis autobiography back in 1995 and he was highly entertaining describing his life and music. He had some very choice words to say about opening up for the Steve Miller Band on that 1970 tour. I was so blown away by Miles that for years I had forgotten who the other two bands were that played that show. I did see many concerts in Chicago during the time I was stationed near Chicago. 

Chicken Cutlets and a Baked Potato

Tonight Becky made us a delicious dinner of chicken cutlets from the market and some baked potatoes. Some nice tomato and cucumber salad too. 

This made for a very nice meal. We had some chicken leftover that will probably go into a soup later this week.

System Fault - Blower Lockout

On Friday our furnace started malfunctioning. It would not come on and then a saw an error message on the thermostat screen stating... system fault - blower lockout. I also got an automatic email from the system stating... "This email was sent automatically because your "366Crescent" system issued the following URGENT message: 15-BLOWER LOCKOUT (Code: 15)". I looked up the error message online and saw that the blower lockout meant it would automatically turn off when it detected a problem with the blower as a safety issue.

So our contacted our furnace service company Reimer Heating & Cooling and they sent a service person over right away to check out our system. I called about 4:30 and they scheduled the service call for that evening. The service rep, Ivica Majdandzic, arrived at around 7 pm. He has serviced our furnace last year.

It turns out we need a new blower for the furnace which by the way is only three years old. The parts are covered by the warranty but we will need to pay for the labor which will be several hundred dollars. It will take a couple of days at least to get the parts in and then schedule the repair. Ivica said that the parts will need to be ordered on Monday so we at least need to get through the weekend and probably a little into next week with the furnace problem. Right now it does not want to stay on and I need to keep resetting it which includes going down to the basement and actually turning the furnace off and on manually to get it running again. Fortunately the weather is cooperating and we are to have relatively warm weather over the next few days and no deep cold.

Sid Vicious Halloween 1978

For our annual Halloween party in 1978 I was costumed as the punk musician Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols. Becky provided the makeup. He was in the news a lot because of the recent death of his girlfriend so I thought he would make a good costume. Then he tried to kill himself a week or so before Halloween so I had to adjust my costume. He cut both his wrists and I added bandages with ketchup which I'm sorry we can't see in this photo.

I recently found this picture in a box of "stuff" in Becky's studio. I hadn't seen this photo in a very long time.

Another thing about this costume was that prior to Halloween I had a large beard and a lot more hair. I had the bushy beard since 1974 so there was a lot of people at that party at our house on Seymour Street that had never seen me without a beard. A lot of folks didn't know who I was at the beginning of the party. 

I remember wearing that red shirt with the star on it a lot. I was also wearing an old work jumpsuit that I had worn years ago on my job at the machine shop. After Becky and I got down "decorating" it I think it went in the trash. It was old and worn out anyway.

Album Challenge - 1970 pt. 2 - Eric Clapton

I was very much into Eric Clapton in 1970. His songs and playing had been influencing my taste in music for several years but now he was going solo and doing his own thing. I had added Cream and Blind Faith albums to my collection in the late 60's but had never seen those bands perform live. I wouldn't see Clapton play in concert until 1974.

His first solo album Eric Clapton released in 1970 was amazing. This was actually the first commercial cassette tape version of an album I had ever bought and at that time I got it at the base Navy Exchange store. I would get the vinyl version a few years later. Let It Rain and After Midnight were two of my favorite songs at the time. The song Easy Now became a staple on some of my later mix tapes and CDs. 

1970 was also the year that Eric Clapton released the Derek & The Dominos album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs that came out towards the end of the year. This would also become one of my favorite albums but it would take a couple more years before I bought a copy of it because of all the time I was spending overseas. I did hear it a lot on my ship because a friend had a cassette copy of the album which we played whenever we had a chance. 

I got the Layla vinyl album in late 1973 and played it a lot with friends in our house on Seymour Street that I bought when I got out of the Navy. I also got the Derek & The Dominos Live album around that time. In 1974 I got a couple of the Clapton double LP compilation albums... The History of Eric Clapton and Eric Clapton At His Best that were both released in 1972 and covered his career up to that point.

I was very sad to hear of the death of Duane Allman in 1971 at the age of 24. I had first heard the Allman Brothers Band from some of my Southern shipmates. 

I gave that first solo album a spin today upstairs and then later gave the Layla CD a listen in the backyard sunroom.

I have a lot of Clapton in my collection. I have a couple of his Yardbirds albums, all of his Cream albums, Blind Faith, Derek & The Dominos,  8 solo albums, 4 live albums that include a couple of box sets, three albums he collaborated with other people, and four compilation albums including the Crossroads Box Set.

Album Challenge - 1970 pt. 1 - Deja Vu

I'm back to that Album Challenge and on to 1970. Deja Vu by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is the album I'm starting off with and that was after some thought because there are so many albums from 1970 that have influenced my taste in music but this one was important to me because of that time and place. This album was my taste in music and I played it constantly in the barracks after getting the cassette from the Navy Exchange store on the Great Lakes Naval Base and then got to see them perform in Chicago that summer.

I had seen all of these guys several times over the years in various bands... Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds in 1968 and Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1969. So I knew these musicians and this new album was amazing. I loved these songs that covered the full range of music and songwriting of all four band members. They were all playing such great music during that time period. I had the 1969 album Crosby, Stills & Nash and the Neil Young album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere which I previously wrote about for this Album Challenge. I could just as easily write about Neil Young's 1970 album After The Gold Rush which was also one of my favorite albums of that year.

1970 was an important year in music for me but I was not buying albums at the furious pace I had been over the previous couple of years. I was preparing to go to sea. I would not buy very many albums until towards the end of 1973. At that point I would start to catch up with getting albums in my collection that were released between 1970 and 1973. It would take a few years to get all that I wanted from that period. However, this is one of the albums I got in 1970 and loved.
In 1971 they would release their live album 4 Way Street. The show I saw that summer was one of the ones that were used for the recording. I would see them again in early 1974 at the Academy of Music in Philly. It was a strange show and felt like a bunch of solo acts taking turns to do their songs.

Yesterday I listened to this album on the turntable and today I played the CD. They both sounded great and I don't think I've listened to this album start to finish in a long time. I have used all of these songs on mixes over the years.

This was also one of the few albums that I had in cassette, vinyl and CD. I never did have an 8-track player. Later on I did get the CSNY box set.

Books, Bites & Banter

This evening I went to the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Happy Hour at Big Ditch Brewing. The cost of attending the event included two beers and some food. I already had dinner but I did enjoy a couple of their brews. First a Natural Blonde Belgium-Style Blonde Ale and then an Excavator Rye Brown Ale. Both were delicious.

I met several librarians I had worked with thirty some years ago. We had a great time talking about old times and also about the current conditions at the library.  One of the strangest and funniest moments happened when I first arrived there and was checking in and buying my ticket. The person at the desk, a current BECPL librarian, asked if I was a retired BECPL librarian. I replied no and that I was a retired librarian from Canisius College but had worked at the BECPL in the early to mid 90's. I had found some of my BECPL work cards recently while going through some old boxes upstairs and pulled one out of my pocket. She read my name and exclaimed that she knew who I was and that I was a legend. I was the person who started technology in the library for the librarians and the patrons. 

I spend an hour and a half with these folks and had a wonderful time. There is another 60th building anniversary at the library on Friday at 3 pm and several people asked if I was going to be there. They all wanted me to come. There were also a couple of people who were running the event that took my picture. I wonder where they will turn up. 

Shopping for Spiced Wafers

Becky and I went down to the Acme Market on Germantown Avenue on Monday to get some Spiced Wafers to bring home. We were getting a few other things too but the main thing was those cookies which we can't get in Buffalo.

We had a few things in our cart but couldn't find the spiced wafers ginger snaps anywhere in the cookie aisle. I had to ask a couple of people working there before I got pointed in the right direction. The only place in the store they were located at was in the very front hallway display. I grabbed two boxes.

Katie knows how much I love ginger snaps in the Fall which is really the only time they are usually available and she had a box of Sweetzils Spiced Wafers which I ate half of them over the weekend. 

I'm going to be enjoying these two boxes of Ivins Spiced Wafers for the next couple of months.

Clara's Leaves

Clara is so sweet. While on a walk she collected some leaves that she liked. Then when she got home she went to the dining room table and got out some art supplies. She then wrote a message on the leaves for Becky and me. Clara loves Grammie and Poppa.

Here is mine. I took a picture of the leaf sitting on my pant leg while sitting in the living room. We each have one.

Dinner @ Toska Restaurant & Brewery

Becky and I walked down to Germantown Avenue with Dan for a nice dinner at Toska Restaurant & Brewery on a Sunday evening.

This was our first time in this restaurant since the new owners took over from the previous restaurant that we loved... Earth, Bread & Brewery which sadly closed towards the end of the pandemic. 

The new restaurant is Armenian but is also a brewery, sandwich and pizza place. They do have a lot of food with Armenian sausage. 

Over the years since Katie and Todd moved to Mt. Airy we had made several visits to the original incarnation of this restaurant. We had heard that it was still good and we looked forward to going down there again. The food was delicious and the service was very good. We had dinner up on the second floor as we had so many times before. Me and Dan both had the Blackened Chicken Caesar Sandwich and Becky had a Grilled Chicken Sandwich. The sandwiches were served with some very good fries. I had a Toska Hazy IPA and Dan had a Toska Roaring Flames Stout. Becky had an NA. I followed that with a Toska Lager and Dan had another stout.

It was not very crowded but it was a Sunday evening. We would definitely go there again. 

Sunday Pancakes

Todd made some Sunday Pancakes this morning. He does this every Sunday. They are small and he makes a lot of different kinds including apple, blueberry, strawberry, plain and whatever is around. He makes lots of them and they get eaten by the kids throughout the week.

I enjoyed a few of them on Sunday morning.

These Sunday morning pancakes reminded me of growing up in our house on Greene Street and having my father make us kids pancakes every Sunday morning. Of course this was after everyone had gone to mass at St. Francis of Assissi Church down the street from our home a half block from the church. We would all always be hungry because of course we fasted before going to church. We would go to either the nine o'clock or ten fifteen mass. Tom and I were choir boys so we sometimes had to sing at the later high mass.  Well, whenever we got home Dad made us pancakes. They were always regular pancakes and not anything special with different ingredients like Todd's. They were also big with lots of butter and syrup. We loved them.

I sometimes can't think about growing up with Dad without tasting those Sunday pancakes.

Scarecrows at the Morris Arboretum

We spent some time with the kids at the Morris Arboretum today. Katie and Todd are members and they regularly visit the gardens. We've been with them over the years and really enjoy it too.

This visit was special because it was Halloween season and they had their annual ArBooretum 17th annual scarecrow walk. So on Sunday we all drove over the the Arboretum with Becky and I squeezed into the back seat that we jokingly refer to as squish the fish. Henry especially loves when we bring that joke up. The regular parking lot was full so we had to park at the lower level and take the shuttle cart up the hill to the main area. The kids liked being in the cart.  

There are lots of garden areas and activities for the kids throughout the year but this time was special because of the scarecrow walk which we followed along the path throughout the arboretum. There were dozens of scarecrows throughout the gardens. I took several pictures but really thought that all of the scarecrows could be seen on their website as there was a contest for people to vote for their favorite scarecrow. I thought they would be here at the ArBooretum page. There's lots of info about the event but not a collection of all the scarecrows. 

Overall the kids really enjoyed the scarecrow walk.

A Spooky Walk & the Big Backyard

We went for a walk around the neighborhood late Saturday morning with Todd, Henry and Violet. Katie took Clara to a classmate's birthday party. So we took a nice long walk that eventually took us to the kid's Big Backyard daycare center's playground where Henry and Violet played for awhile. 

The walk was a lot of fun and there were some amazing home Halloween decorations throughout the neighborhood but especially right near their house on Boyer Street. Lots of serious decorations mixed with political displays too. 

Isidore String Quartet

Tonight we attended our first Chamber Music concert of the season. We sat in our same general area seats after parking in our same spot down the street from Kleinhans Music Hall.

The Isidore String Quartet played tonight and they were amazingly good. They were also young players. They started off the evening with the Mozart Quartet in C Major "Dissonance" which it was at some parts of the piece. The second selection also had some "dissonance" throughout the piece. After the intermission the Quartet ended the night with a Mendelssohn String Quartet  in E-flat Major. 

The playing was spectacular throughout all of the selections. I just felt that at times it was a little over the top for the first concert of the season. Sometimes it's nice to slowly get into the "dissonance", to get there after a concert or two of nice traditional melodic music. That didn't happen tonight. It was like they jumped right into some really intense all over the place string quartet extravagance. It sounded great but I think I just wasn't ready for it on the first night of the season.

Then there was a strange situation where someone near the front of the auditorium had there phone set for some kind of sleep inducing sounds from nature that drifted across the room. The musicians must have heard it on the stage because they looked around in that direction with funny expressions on their faces. Then they just continued to play. 

10/8 Tuesday

Becky's Chicken Noodle Soup

Becky came home from running some errands with one of those cooked chickens from Wegmans. BBQ flavored. I cut up the chicken and she took some of it and made a chicken noodle soup. This was perfect food for a cool Fall day.

The soup was delicious and she had some flat bread in the freezer which was perfect with the soup. 

Then we had a lot of chicken that wasn't used for the soup that I placed in a container for future use. This would make some nice chicken sandwiches.

There was also plenty of the soup leftover for another meal. 

The soup cooking in the pot.