Author: Paul

Monica stopped by early in the morning. I hadn’t even finished my first cup of coffee. She sat down and we chatted for awhile while Peggi attended to last minute details. We discussed the options for the quickest route downtown. There’s been all this traffic on Culver because of the construction on 104 so we decided to take 104 to Clinton. We got off the expressway at Clinton and the bridge was closed so got back on, went over the river and down Lake Avenue. It was jammed so Monica went back across the river and up Saint Paul, past the brewery to the train station. We were ten minutes late for the train to NYC and kind of upset at ourselves for not leaving earlier. But as luck would have the train was ten minutes late and still in the station.

We had tickets to the city but decided to get off in Tarrytown since that was going to be our destination for dinner anyway. We hung around the cute little town four hours, most of the time in a coffee shop, and then took a taxi up into the hills where “Blue Hill at Stone Barn” was located. Our nephew had graduated from Columbia Law School earlier in the day and his brother, a sous chef at NoMad, picked this spot. We started with a few rounds of amuse bouche and a horchata cocktail and then so many small courses I lost count. The birds were singing by the time we had settled in at Duane’s place in Brooklyn.

Before dinner at Jeff and Mary Kaye’s the other night we took a tour of the grounds. Jeff had offered us a redbud tree and we were planning on digging it up ourselves but Jeff already had our tree in a pot. Redbud trees drop seedlings and they are all over their yard. The flowers grow close to the branches in the early Spring and the trees skeletal winter profile becomes outlined in hot pink/red before the leaves come out.

Jeff and Mary Kaye live in the Genesee River valley between the river and the greenway and their soil is as rich as can be. Water in the basement rich. Our little redbud’s were drooping when we got it home but it has bounced back. We’re watering it like there is no tomorrow.

We were to late to buy figs at the European Cheese Shop last week so made a point to get to the market earlier this week but first Peggi had to go to her yoga class. We stood in line for twenty minutes before scoring two bags. Next mandatory stop is Flour City Bakery where bought their last cranberry oatmeal cookie, a loaf of artisan bread and a giant sticky bun to split in the morning.

It was a beautiful Spring day, perfect for garage sailing, but all I wanted to do was get down to the basement and work on my drawings. We passed this scene on the way downtown and just had to stop on the way back to take a photo, a crazy garage sale featuring this goofy bed, a professional punching bag, a bay carrier and a chrome wheel.

I was so happy to find it raining this morning. It was so dark we had to turn the lights on to read the paper. We were planning to meet the neighbors down at the pool to take down a dead tree and the rain would put that off. I really grew to like rainy days when I was working construction. The days off were so cozy.

Ah, but the sun was out by eleven and we headed down there with our work gloves on. Rick came down with his video camera and Phil climbed a ladder and tied a rope around the tree about fifteen feet up and then Jared pulled the rope taught with his tractor in the direction that we wanted the tree to fall. We cut the wedge with a chainsaw in a perpendicular orientation to the direction of the rope and on the same side of the tree as the direction we want it to fall in. The wedge is cut approximately a third of the way through. On the other side of the tree we cut straight in, again perpendicular to the direction we want it to fall but six inches higher up than the wedge was. The tree is only held up by a wedge in the center and a gentle tug on the rope encouraged it to fall into the open wedge and land right where we wanted it.

Margaret Explosion tonight. Here’s a song from last Wednesday. Pete LaBonne plays piano.

We met my mom and about half of my immediate family down at Vic & Irv’s for Mother’s Day. My mom likes their milkshakes and their onion rings are the best but the rest of the food is a little rough. My dad ordered fried bologna with onions and cheese.

I had some ginger tea to settle my stomach. A few slivers of ginger root in the bottom of the cup is the way to go but we didn’t have any ginger so I used a Yogi tea bag. My fortune read, “Happiness comes when you overcome the most difficult obstacle.” I thought it was the journey that mattered.