The Great Pie Debate

There are many important issues in “Our World”

We drove out to Holland (MI). Some thought the reason was to help MomJudy move into her condo. Some believed the reason was to drop off our Wegman (print) to be reframed at the incredible Uptown Gallery. Others may have believed we were going there to get a sneak peek at the infamous “Tulip Time” blooms or to visit the historic lighthouse at sunset. I am here to come clean. We were there to settle the debate going on in my head (and elsewhere).

Which pizza is better Skiles Tavern or Fricano’s?

Both places are highly appreciated. Both have their followers. And both have qualities that make them contenders. I happened to have married into a family of Fricano’s-Fanatics and have ONLY been there, until recently that is.

We had an hour to spare before we met MomJudy and niece Audrey for dinner at, yes, Fricano’s. I suggested that we pop into Skiles for a quick beer and sample a pie (Skiles‘ entry pictured above). Then later we’d order similar toppings down the street and settle (in MY mind, Skiles fans) which pizza I preferred.

We ordered. We tasted. We became judgmental.

Skiles’ creation WAS less oily than it’s competition. I had heard this from followers. I noticed a prevailing flavor of mozzarella, which, being a cheese lover, I enjoyed. But I couldn’t taste the sausage, which at Fricano’s can over power a car, house or refrigerator. The oily-less quality also caused the crust to be a bit brittle.

We finished, drank up, and got to Fricano’s just in time for our companions arrival. 

B ordered the Sausage. We tasted. We thought hard. Our companions discussed weighty issues. We tried to listen. We did have a race to witness. (Fricano’s at right)

OUR DECISION

Skiles was good. The speed, pleasent staff, and speedy service couldn’t sway us though.

Fricano’s still gets our vote. But maybe trying to sway true RABID fanatics is hopeless anyway.

- - - David

Highly Extraordinary Events

He laughed at the idea of little miracles,

until he learned to accept them

Shortly after our dad died in 2005, my mother started seeing things. Not imagining apparitions but interpreting happenstance as miraculous. Frequently it was the rainbows.

Mom has little dangling glass crystals hanging in various windows which inevitably disperse sunshine, creating many dancing multicolored points of light in her house. If the optical phenomenon happens to hit a photo or a certain object, she is convinced dad is sending a message from the great beyond.

“Definitely a miracle, mom,” we usually say, “light would NEVER do that naturally.”

We giggle lightly, chuckle inwardly or guffaw together, not polite I admit but you have to be there AND be related, you’d understand. Especially since she sees the divine in other events; a broken wafer, an incidental thought, a sudden storm. We’ve have come to expect, accept, and even encourage her peculiar perceptions. But not believe in them.

Recently mom had serious heart surgery. “Serious” because I believe all medical heart manipulations are precarious. Not only did I get to watch her recovery at the hospital but I got to spend a lot of time with her at her house. Frankly, she not only needed our help but we were frightened at the idea of an 85 year old heart patient living alone and doing the right thing when it came to meds, frequent healthy eating and sporadic home care visits. Along with my saintly sister, nurse B and my bro-in-law, I became a care giver. We watched her travel from death’s door through a walk in the park to supervised self care.

In between meal planning and prep, med dispersion and light housekeeping I would wander around the house cleaning drawers cabinets and closets, grouping years of mementos and thinking. One frequent subject of thought was my mom’s speedy recovery. I had read and listened to many reports about how quickly people bounced back from having their chests spread opened, their veins ripped out of the legs and patched onto their heart, even having a pig’s heart valve sacrificed and transplanted onto a human. It’s another thing to witness the change in someone you love. It is extra-ordinary.

As I wandered and wondered I would often see little points of springtime sunlight refracted into small spectrums. I started to imagine my father telling me that he would take care of things, that everything was going to be OK. I took comfort. I began to rely on these other worldly reassurances. I started to think of the comforting spots of color as hugs from my dead father, as teeny miracles. It became a way of understanding my mother.

So maybe she takes comfort thinking my dad is still with her sometimes. So she truly believes he’s silently com

municating with her, continuing to take care of her, to watch out for her.

So what? 

And who’s to say he isn’t.

Miracles happen.

- - - David

The Lady in the Kitchen

This old house Spirit, imagination, farce, you decide. I’m not taking any chances.

Years ago, we had just moved into our current home, an 1850 fix up. My parents were visiting the house for the first time. My dad, who was already exhibiting the earlier signs of Alzheimer’s (bless his heart) was wandering around the new house a bit.

“There you are.” I said to him as he joined the room, “I was wondering where you were.’

“I was just talking to the nice lady in the kitchen.” he said to us.

As far as I knew the only ones is the house were now all together. We shrugged it off but I was a little excited at the idea of moving in with a ghost.

Ages have since past without any truly mysterious voices, knockings or gauzy sightings but she’s become our excuse for anything odd that occurs, especially in the kitchen (burned dinners included).

This morning I placed my coffee cup down on the island. Brian and I were both in the room, our backs happened to be turned to the cup.

“CLUNK”.

We turned, the mug was laying on its side in a little puddle of leftover coffee.

“What happened,” I asked, “I wasn’t anywhere near it.”

“Neither was I” answered B.

There she goes again. Nice AND naughty. We call her “Sassy”.

- - - David

Travel

It may seem that our travels are all about food

but there’s so much more.

But eating IS necessary

so we might as well eat local

We just returned from diving out to California with the grrrrls.

It started with the Saint Louis Arch (big!) and a homo slur written by some one (small) on our “do not disturb” sign in the same town.

We crossed Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and on to Palm Springs, California. We stayed at the Coral Sands for a few days and then we started back. Arizona, New Mexico, back through Texas, then Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and ... HOME.

During the week there, the week back and the week in Palm Springs we were fully occupied with driving, site seeing, snap shot snapping and .... well ... snacking. We saw a lot and yes we ate, only succumbing to the ease of “Fast-Food” very few times. We posted most snaps on face book, and a lot of that was food.

To see our entire California Road trip “Roadfood©“ collection.

Please go to our Apple blog (the 3rd)

http://web.me.com/brockowskiofmichigan/Site/Blog/Blog.html

- - - - David

On the road trip again ... but

Going West

We're about to take off. Brian is jobless but interviewing, I'm, of course, free and the grrls, both young and old, have yet to disagree with the idea. But this time it's a little different. It's all been B's idea.

I'm prying myself off the sofa and just going along.

Yes, I am helping with the planning. I am charting and fine-tuning stop overs, searching for motels that take dogs, alerting far flung friends in our path and piping in with my excellent, if unneeded. opinions but the trip was all Brian's idea. We're taking the dogs and three weeks and crossing to CA and back. But it was his idea. I've just been self-centeredly thinking of my recovering self. Taken down by a simple belly-button-octomy, embarrassing.

Presently we've planned stops in St. Louis, Wichita, Tucumcari, Santa Fe, Monument Valley and Escalante on the way out. A few days with Ruby at the Coral Sands in Palm Springs. The way back is still a work in progress but we know we're seeing family in Phoenix and friends in Albuquerque and Cincinatti.

We're confident that both old Sophie and oozing stroke boy will make it. Cross your fingers, Justin Case.

It all starts this Saturday!

Lets go on with the show

I DO (like London)

Topping off the vacation with a picnic of Neal's Yard Cheddar,

fresh bread and very garlicy cornichon on a bench in Green Park on a sunny December day

There are coffee shops everywhere! (There is also a lot of tea and ale, but never mind). The parks have huge WELL tended plantings of flowers in Mid-December. The museums are also everywhere, spectacular AND FREE (the churches are NOT but just ignore that). The Royal presence is quite subtle. The BBC is live. People here are nice (there are a few loud drunks at night but they're walking [or attempting to] NOT driving). There are all kinds of people, all sorts, different colors, and ALL with English accents.

They all seem to really enjoy Christmas.

I Like London.

- - - David (reporting from the United Kingdom)

A Londony Christmas at last

The preparations continue. We are leaving tomorrow for Jolly Ol' London, the weeks of getting ready are about to crescendo. The suitcase is on the bed and there's actually something in it! Do you think B will notice that I've packed his Cashmere jacket?

Besides tour books, essential toiletries and that jacket, I'm packing light. I will just head straight to Harrod's for anything else I need. I am happy to live in the jeans in which I'm flying and to live on English shortbread.

I wouldn't mind a bit of Dickens. A little Oliver, a touch of Scrooge. We Americans grow up (and grow old) living in London a bit each Christmas. It may be through someone else's imagination and the accents may be staged but somehow Christmas wouldn't the same without a teeny Tiny Tim and coal on the fire.

Seeing London for ourselves (at last) should put us right in the mood for a bit of flaming pudding in Adrian.

---David

How I lived since my Summer Vacation

On SOME plane going SOMEwhere

I think I may be neglecting the blog.

Do you miss me? Probably not. You must think that I am so busy. Truth is I stay at home, tag along with Brian on trips (which tends not to be as often as I'd like), take a LONG time to do anything "normal" and practice my A.D.D. whenever possible.

Want to do a load of laundry? First I end up doing 100 other extraneous and often unnoticeable chores and somehow the clock has gone from 7 AM to 7PM, I'm exhausted and the laundry is still dirty. FML as the kids would write.

Let's see, since the trip to get the 100 year old mounted Caribou head (still not on the wall) we've
visited friends in Seattle and Chicago,
done the Equality March in DC (visiting friends there too)
had a Birthday (as have many of you)
celebrated Halloween and honored Dios de los Muertos
been on facebook so many times I think I may have an issue

I attempted to go through all the photos and update the iWeb blog but the "Genius" at the Apple store that had the iMac for 2 days (the 1st time) and charged Brian $65 (the 1st time) not only disabled the blog access (along with all sorts of other things including all my flagged email) and screwed up my iTunes, STILL didn't fix my iCal and now I can't Sync my phone. GRRRR as GinGin would "say"
So I was too frustrated and infuriated to be creative. This entry is the result.

Let's just say there are a LOT of great photos and memories of the past few months and let me know if you want more details.

- - - David

Ruffing It with the Grrls

Our room, however temporary, with a view

Tent: Origin Middle English: from Old French tente, based on Latin tent- ‘stretched,’ from the verb tendere. Which looks like tender, as in “showing gentleness and concern or sympathy” HAH I say HAH . . . HAH.

It all began gently enough. Ann had invited us for the weekend to camp in her woods in the Adirondacks. Brian had bought the tent, almost a year ago, in hopes of camping out on the way to our wedding. (It had yet to leave the backyard.) We drove out and in clear PERFECT woodsy weather had pitched the tent on the leafy pine needle ground of the Arcadian, historic, pastoral countryside.

We had dinner, talked and laughed with our gentle hostess and climbed into the spacious accommodations with our two fur coated roommates. The moonlight shone through the diaphanous ceiling, the loons called from the lake, everyone was snug. Then the rain began.

It was gentle enough, some would say sympathetic even. We remembered not to touch the walls lest it encourage a leak, though bug chasing dog noses didn’t heed that rule. The bugs and the noses would “entertain” us for 2 nights.

I kept slipping off the air mattress too. This would be fun for you normal folk. For a dizzy headed do nothing like me, reclining itself is a bit of a challenge. Laying on the ground in the too dim night light of the Coleman lantern was enough. Laying on the ground in a tent in the woods in the rain AND swoon-slipping off the damn thing was a bit much for stroke-boy. But I simply smiled a clenched toothed smirk and threw the f**king thing out of the tent and went to powder my nose in the trees . . . in the rain. This is when the low animalistic growls greeted me mid-powder. Intellectually I knew this was, probably, merely Ann’s aging, cautious Pug snugly calling from her nearby tent. Nonetheless, I reacted like it was a voracious hostile Yogi looking for my picnic basket. Mid-powder I dove into the tent. B diplomatically swallowed any amusement.

We spent the next day in bright sunshine. Touring the grounds, visiting town, brunching at one of the jaw dropping clubhouses, and enjoying a club-wide picnic dinner top off by a pancake dessert. I never knew the rich could be so entertaining. I never knew you could put melted butter, maple syrup AND brown sugar on a pancake.

That night, like clockwork, the rain began the moment we bedded down in the tent. This time we were entertained by bug chasing, nose pokes AND supernatural uninhibited rolling thunder. (We thought the loons had been loud.) And I refrained, despite my engaging needs, from taking a powder.

Monday dawned pastorally and B packed up the tent, loaded the Caribou onto the roof while I busied myself snapping pics on my iPhone (someone has to attend to the art) . . . and off we went.

Happy, grateful, still full of pancakes, and ecstatic that we have a tent in the storm.

- - - David

A Little About the Camp at Little Moose Lake

Looking-out for the Little Moose

So, we drive all the way to the mid-Upstate NY with two dogs mainly to pick up a 100 year old Caribou head but that’s not the whole story. What is a nice girl from Graaaand Rapids doing in the Adirondacks, and inviting people such as us to visit? Let me give you a brief history.

Ann and I moved to NYC in 1979 after graduating from the U of M (I did live in LA for half a year then I graduated, I changed my mind about locations, she graduated and we went). We lived on the upper East Side in a nice “garden” apartment, actually I lived there twice. After I met Michael there and moved out, about ’84, Ann met and married Milo Williams in ’89. He was a descendant of one of the founders of Sherwin-Williams, which was started by Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams in 1866. The Adirondeck League Club was founded as a hunting and fishing camp and became a get-away for many. I don’t know when the venerable Williams clan built their “camp” at the ALC but I think it was right around then.

I was at Ann and Milo’s wedding in 1989 at the “boathouse” of the “Summer Lodge” at the ALC. I was shot in the heart by the rustic beauty of the “camp”, the lodge and the 50,000+ acres of American history. If you’ve ever been enchanted by the beauty of an Adirondack chair or the magic of the Adirondack “style”, imagine being surrounded by the real thing. Back when it was founded the privileged families (at first the men only) took trains up to Saratoga (where the tracks stopped) and then barged, boated, horsed and hiked to these elaborate compounds (at first just the lodges) in their victorian versions of L.L.Bean.

The architecture is mainly brown with green highlights, wooden and timbered. The furniture is twiggy, rustic, Stickley, Mission, with a smattering of refined period but not purist. The people are upper crusty and very nice and extremely friendly. What’s a Polish boy from Motown, HIS husband and their Non-hunting-hunting dogs doing at a place like this? They’re guests, just visiting, and extremely lucky.

Back to the story. Milo and his siblings inherit the camp, and the dues. Life and League revelry continue, Ann and Milo have a child, buy their own smaller house at the Club. Milo suddenly dies. Morgan, Ann’s son, inherits property, Ann gets the membership, and the dues. Years later, Ann and Morgan are fixtures at the League. This year, Ann & Son decide to sell property, finance Morgan’s college, store a lot of the furniture, boats and accumulated hunting trophies, leave the Caribou to us, and keep the Club membership, all for now.

What will the future bring to our friends, to the property and it’s artifacts, indeed to the bucolic environment? Can we ever know the future?

I do know that we were very fortunate to be able to visit that long weekend in August, to have such friends, to meet such people, to be able to experience those places.

The Caribou? An amazing souvenir

- - - David

Coming soon: Camping it up