More food for thought

Years ago we were quite impressed when a restaurant had open air dining. That’s because we were treated to beautiful views of forests, mountains, lakes, golf course fairways and other sights making our lunch or dinner a pleasurable experience.  Unfortunately it was rare for us to experience these patio pleasures locally.  More than likely we enjoyed these on vacation trips to more exotic places.

Boy has this changed.  We can now dine with spectacular views of traffic on Queen street in Southington and many other urban venues.  If that doesn’t rock your boat why not try dining at Wood N’ Tap and view the cars parked in Friendly's and the Price Chopper’s parking lot.  Oh, and there’s another Queen street restaurant on a corner that tops that with views of not only Queen street, but a street that directs traffic to Home Depot.  This way you get an even greater thrill seeing all those trucks going up the hill for supplies.  I could go on and on describing all these newly constructed walled in patios bedecked with trees and flowers, both real and fake.

Since New England offers scant weeks to enjoy this new found phenomenon, some have even provided portable heaters to stretch the season, and perhaps marvel at the Fall foliage on the “Charlie Brown” type trees along these city streets.  Who in the world started this ridiculous trend?  I guess if one does it the rest must follow suit to avoid losing all that business created by outdoor dining….lol.  I for one am going to continue dining inside and relax in air- conditioned comfort away from the flies and bees that always seem to locate me.

Food for thought

"The entire institution of gift giving makes no sense. Let's say that I go out and I spend 50 dollars on you. It's a laborious activity because I have to imagine what you need whereas you know what you need. Now I could simplify things, just give you the 50 dollars directly and then you could give me 50 dollars on my birthday and so on until one of us dies leaving the other one old and 50 dollars richer. And I ask you, is it worth it?  A quote from Dr. Sheldon Cooper of the Big Bang Theory”

This quote came to mind when October rolled around. Birthdays and Anniversaries abound for our family in the month of October, four birthdays and two anniversaries  Years ago we decided that we couldn’t handle all those celebrations.  The solution: one big family Octoberfest to take care of them all.  I think we’ve even included the stragglers celebrating November events. This year’s Octoberfest will feature a Sunday brunch and is being hosted by my son.  The celebrations are taken care of, but now the tough stuff.  What do you buy for everyone? Grandchildren are no longer a problem since most of them covet that green stuff or gift certificates to their favorite store, but the grownups are the real headaches. 

I say we go with the “Sheldon Cooper Solution”

We’re taking a little ride up to Southern Vermont today.  Hey, how about jugs of Maple Syrup or Cheese?

It's about time - an October blog

I’m frightened.  This is day three of my attempt to enter a Blog which I haven’t done since May.

 Day one:  Not having written since May, I had loads of catching up to do. We had a great deal of work done at the house, much to write about.  We also went on two trips, one out west to visit Mount Rushmore, Salt Lake City, Jackson Hole Wyoming and other sites.  Trip two was a five day cruise to Bermuda with all eighteen family members.  Kept rambling on and wrote a whole page.  Decided to rest my brain and pick up the stories the next day. 

Day two:  Went to my documents and could not locate the Blog.  The idiot author forgot to save it.  Back to the drawing board.  Did my best to remember what I wrote on day one and created another full page.

Day three:  Will review my masterpiece, add some, correct some and send it out into the world.  Guess what?  Couldn’t find it again.  The idiot did it again.  How the hell did this happen?

During my lifetime:  I have to admit that I rarely have any tolerance for the stupidity displayed by most of the world’s populous.  A character flaw I’m not particularly proud of, but one I now have to live with since I’ve joined that segment of the population.  Excuse me for a minute; I’m going to save this now.  Twice is enough and I can’t handle anymore stupidity on my part.  Actually the whole thing surprised and scared the hell out of me. I promised myself that it will never happen again “save again”.  I’ve decided that I will not attempt to recreate those lost pages. 

Next big project:  After reaching a point of almost beating the computer with a hammer I decide to check and see when I bought this contraption. Bought it in 2005.  Can you just imagine how much crap is sitting on my hard drive?  No wonder it is constantly freezing up, not allowing me out of programs and just about anything else that can go wrong, making me spend hours just looking at my emails and checking up on my kids in facebook.  Heaven forbid I try to download anything. Eight years has seen a great deal of changes in computer technology, so much so that I’ve become a Cyber Virgin.

What should I buy:   The other day we were talking about some of the negative effects of advancing age? During my lifetime I’ve learned how to do many things, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, painting, landscaping, bartending, you name it.  Unfortunately my body now has decided that it can’t or doesn’t want to do any of these things anymore.  We recently created a personal phone book with sections such as doctors, service people, friends etc.  In case you’re curious Marge and I have one whole page for doctors and have now matched it with a whole page of “our guys”.  These are the guys we call on to do all the stuff Bill no longer does.  I recently added another guy.  This my computer guru guy, one I am engaging so that I don’t make any stupid purchases in my attempt to modernize my technology.