this guy

I just....

 I mean,

 I can't..quite.....

... I don't... think?.....

wait

high school?

this guy?

Go get 'em, Tiger

Does kitty have a problem?

I'm not sure what to think about lil' Hollywood. Is she just curious? A slightly bad example? Does she simply have excellent taste and fit perfectly into this family? Or, does she have a serious drinking problem?

This little kitty cannot stay away from the beer! Every time I put down a beer, there she is lapping it up.

Ballast Point Sculpin IPA? YUMMY!

Karl Strauss Tower 10 IPA? Yes, I like this too!

Coronado Brewery Islander IPA? Hey, this I'm going to knock right off the desk, lap up the spilled golden goodness...

..then go back to the bottle, just so I don't miss a single drop!

Oh, and yeah, I like pale ales too. This here Stone Pale Ale is delicious!

We've actually had a really hard time coming up with a proper name for her. My girl wanted to call her Cookie, but um, well, that's lame! And this little feline came to us straight from North Hollywood, so we have been calling her Hollywood - Holly for short. But it doesn't seem right either. However, these photos are making me wonder if we shouldn't name her India, in honor of her favorite beverage,  India Pale Ales. We could call her Indie for short. Cute, right?

But maybe we should wait to see what happens when we break out the tequila....

She might just turn out to be a Josephina!

Salud!

A Parallel Universe

I went to the beach last week, and it was the usual wonderfulness: the lighthouse in the distance, the ferries coming and going . . .

Hey wait a minute!

That's not Ledge Light!

And that's not the Mary Ellen!

This isn't New London!

 And who are those peeps in the water?

Hey, that's Mom and Jacquie's Girl!

And that's the Port Jefferson Ferry . . .

. . . and that's the Penfield Reef Lighthouse.

It was a beautiful, typical beach day . . .

. . . a gorgeous lighthouse . . .

. . . lovely friends . . .

. . . beautiful ferries . . .

. . . in a parallel universe.

in the park

Wait, where was I?

Ah, yes. Central Park!

On this most recent trip east, I had the distinct and unusual pleasure of spending two separate nights and days in the C of NY.

The first night was our customary arrival soiree, after landing at no one's favorite airport we cab it to the upper west side and hit High Life for 2-for-1 sushi night, then we walk the kids back to MB's welcoming apartment, then we lock the kids in to said apartment and go back out for a nightcap.

The next day is always our tourist day, last year we tooled around Chinatown, the year before that we cruised to teh top of the Empire State Building. This year we considered a few options before deciding on the High Line.

And this year we did not have to life a finger or wake a single brain cell to navigate our way to the destination, because we had a magnificent tour guide!

MB herself!

We took the subway downtown then meandered along the lovely elevated path, surrounded by greens and flowers and people and art.

I recommend you traverse this path next time you are in the city. It's cool, man.

Afterwards, we popped into a greek geek festival before sitting down for a lovely lunch on a sunny patio in the village where we did not have to Heimlich anyone, then we had our southern hemispheres broadcast on a Times Square jumbo screen. But really, those are stories for another day because this story is about Central Park. Remember?

Skipping forward like this in my story is in no way intended to downplay the glory that was our time in Connecticut. Because there was glory, my friends. Glorious glory.

And on the last night of that glory, I once again joined my biggest sister MB for a night out in the city, but this time we had no children locked up inside her apartment.  We had a great night, then retired to our respective bedchambers for the sleepink.

The next morning, MB had to take her poor self in to work, but I did not. When I had talked to mom about  being at Mar's on that last night then cabbing from her place to JFK, she said: "But you'll be alone in New York all morning!"   Mmmmmm hmmmmmmm. Can you imagine?

And that, my dear friends, is why I wanted to talk about Central Park. Because I had the chance to meander my way through those green streets for hours, all by myself, on an impossibly perfect day in New York.  

Ah, yes. Central Park!

Margarita tree

One summer day when Jacquie and I stretched our beach afternoon into a beach night by heading over to Wonderland for drinks and dinner, we made a few new friends. Duh.

We had lots of laughs about who knows what with Colby and his group of friends.

Aw, Colby wants to give Jackee a pre-fireball kiss!

Actually, I remember most all of the who knows what that we laughed about, and one of those things was the margarita tree in my back yard.

A margarita tree you may ask? What is that, and how do I get one? Well, full disclosure, it's  a simple lime tree, but, seeing as the only proper way to make a margarita is to squeeze lots of fresh limes and then add good Tequila and Cointreau, the tree in the back yard gets you about a third of the way there. And really, what else are you going to do with a tree full of limes?

Out of the 5 fruit trees in my new back yard, I was most excited about the lime tree. (Mostly for the reason sated above.)

Me and my girls and my mom first tried the limes on mother's day. Delicious! The whole family was excited about the margarita tree.

They looked JUST like this on mother's day, only smaller and rounder.

But, um, this is what my margarita tree looks like now:

Uh, hello? What are those yellow fruits?!

Here's a close-up:

So, apparently, I don't have a margarita tree! I have a lemon drop tree. (You win, Jacquie!)

Perhaps not every person would mix up immature lemons for limes, but I did.

Regardless of my agricultural Irish roots, I'm no farmer. I'm not even a gardener. I like the concept of gardening, of growing my own food. I like it a lot. I'd like to garden. I plan to garden. But I've not really got down to the business of actually gardening yet.

So when I got the email below, with the subject line of "summer fruit" from the woman from whom I bought the house last week,

hi .. i hope you are enjoying the plums and figs now.. both of those trees have provided tons of great fruit for the past many years...

I replied with what I thought was a kind and generous offer to come get some of the fruit if she'd like.

Well, she took me up on it, the very next day. And THIS is the email I got back from her:

thanks for the offer beth... we were in the neighborhood this afternoon and drove by the alley... can't see any plums and not many figs (mostly overripe) -- that's sad.... what do you think happened?.. maybe you'll be able to bring them back to health for next summer because they really bear some excellent fruit!

Wtf? Are you bitching at my because the fruit in MY back yard, which I offered to you to be nice, is not up to your standards?

I think what happened, lady, is that you moved out last winter, the house stood empty for months, and then you sold it to the offspring of Irish farmers who does not garden! Who, in fact, does not know the difference between a lemon and a lime tree!!

Her next email, in reply to my reply, which I tried to keep friendly but detached, was this:

would you have any interest in having us remove the planter beds in the back yard and their soil?  (only if you have no interest in using them...)... let me know and if so, john will make arrangements (at your convenience) to do so... If you can use them or expect to, of course they ARE yours!

Well thank you, thank you very much for the kind offer, but I'm planning on keeping them. And you know what the first think I'm going to grow in one those planter beds?? A dwarf lime tree! A teeny tiny lime tree, with delicious teeny tiny limes, for giant margaritas.

Unless, of course, the plum tree goes and dies, then I'll rip it out and plant a proper, full-size margarita tree!

One Of Those Nights

Have you ever had One Of Those Nights? When everything goes just completely . . . right? When life totally doesn't suck?

Yeah, we had one of those recently, too.

It helped, upon arrival, to be greeted by this image:

Smitten? Us? Why, yes. Yes, we are.

The chips-and-salsa, the mozzarella "snack", the olives and lobstah and margies and guac didn't hurt either.

And neither did the presence of my biggest*, baddest* sister.

*She's neither big nor bad. It's an expression. It's poetic license.

 Yes, Mistah has socks-and-no-shoes on. Don't judge . . . 

. . . his peeps love him despite his quirky footwear choices. 

And boy-oh-boy, are they quirky.

We are a lucky people with our doyenne, our matriarch, our Queen, on hand . . .

. . . and our beloved Da Dowd on hand, with his ever-awesome home . . .

. . . and our MB on hand, with her ever-positive spirit and ever-ready prep knife  . . .

. . . and our San Diego girl visiting us -- us! -- on her own.

Yes, she's very cute . . .

 . . . but mostly she's fierce . . .

 . . . fiercely fierce.

It was One Of Those Nights . . .

. . . one of those memorable Summer Nights . . .

. . . when everything was just . . .

. . . Perfect.

letter to corey

At the beginning of this summer, my niece Corey embarked on an awesome adventure to Nicaragua, just to save the world and stuff. Knowing that letters would take ages to make their way to the teeny little village where she was being hosted, I took great pains to time mine exactly so that it would arrive just as she was packing to leave. We were both blissfully unaware of the drama that was about to unfold at the time when I wrote this letter, and it was all safely behind our young heroine by the time she received it. Welcome home, Corey! You rock my socks.

July 15, 2013

Hello, Corey darling!

I am a complete and utter tool for not getting this out sooner, my only excuse is that I’m a complete and utter tool.  Please someday tell me that this arrived at the perfect time (perfect includes any time you are still on Nicaraguan soil). I saw your photo on facebook playing pin the tail on the donkey, and I’ve gotta say, Corey, from where I sit it looks like you NAILED IT. I’m so proud of you! I mean, for the work you’re doing and for taking this brave step on your own and for being so generally smart and cool and awesome, but mostly for pinning the tail on that donkey. 

I hope you are writing and writing and that one day when you’re home we will all have the chance to enjoy a peek into the day to day life you are living this summer. It is so far away, so completely foreign and different, but you look beautiful and proud and happy. I imagine it’s a matter of finding common ground wherever you stand. We all recognize family, love, laughter, faith, service.  So by being where you are and doing what you’re doing, you’ve become familiar to the strangers who by now are your extended family.  I’m so proud of you!

We are getting ready to take a trip back East where we’ll see many of your family members. I am so sad that we won’t get to see YOU, because really, you’re the best one. Don’t tell anyone I said that. But on the bright side, you will be happy not to join your brothers and my son for the return drive to Chicago. I promise that is going to smell really bad and will also be noisy and confusing. 

Things are much less impressive around here. Jimbo finished 8^th grade and is enjoying a really boring, lazy summer that seems to be all he wants in this world. He is nervous/excited about high school but he’ll never admit it. School is a challenge for him and I just hope we’ve found the right place where he can develop a sense of value about his education.  Or at least stay out of juvie, either way is cool.  He likes riding his longboard and walking the dog, he has a couple of good friends that make him happy. He won’t really let me take his photo lately, but here’s a nice one of the back of his head with bonus footage of bill’s head and the westy! And a surfboard that was trying to decapitate me and clara. 

Clara is going into 7^th grade and is just a busy, loud little bee.  She nevereverever stops talking, and she asks a million questions about everything. It’s easy to get annoyed by the sheer energy of this relentless curiosity, but we find pleasure in knowing that she really wants to figure things out, and we try to help her look inside (read: THINK) sometimes before asking for explanations as a default response.  She puts lots of weird stuff on instagram but it otherwise an awfully nice girl.

 

Moki is still fat. She’s really just the best dog, though. Her personality is irresistible and no matter what  drama is waiting for me when I walk into my house, Moki  demands an immediate greeting and is like: “helllLOOOO? I can’t possibly wag any harder! Please acknowledge me before I die of the love.” It’s very good for my self esteem.

Bill is off for the summer, which makes me hate him a tiny bit but mostly I love him very much, which is a good thing since we’re married. We went to a fancy benefit yesterday at this place:

That was pretty awesome. It would be really good to get invited to more fancy stuff.  We’re all so very proud of you, Cor. I hope you are soaking up every second and that even the challenges feel good because you know they are making you stronger and smarter and – if humanly possible – even more awesome. Be safe, be happy. I love you!

Aunt Jacquie