Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

We stayed over at my friend Melissa's new condo at the beach. This was over the summer after our friend Suzanne's big party, so call this post a NaBloPoMo sandbag. I kept it at the ready for four months just lying in wait for this NaBloPoMo moment.  So we stayed over at Melissa's new beach condo. Unfortunately, Melissa had an early flight to Florida at the crack of dawn the next morning, so she was gone by the time we woke up. Tom and I arose after the sun had fully risen; it was a late night in our defense. Melissa texted and asked how it was going. I sent her this photo and said I love your new bedside tables with the little pull outs! So handy! Little pull out shelf so convenient for coffee cups! I thought Melissa would take this as a compliment on her decor choices. Not so much. She replied something about whether I noticed the white carpet right underneath that big old cup of unfettered black stain-my-new-white-condo perched there on that little pull-out. Oops. Stick t...

Ok well this Poster Museum is idk less than 10 blocks from my apartment I've been living in for decades. I never knew it existed prior to two weeks ago when Bruce stumbled on an exhibit of Italians for Fascism posters and decided we definitely needed to go.  I for sure walked by this Poster Museum who knows how many times without noticing it. This is a really striking exhibit, the Italian Fascist posters: This red is not your usual museum beige. Huge Props. gotta love a skull. ...and no more posters after this. We went down in the basement past this hallway of music posters: Pretty cool. Then there was this really nifty design your own poster interactive thing. We poked away at for probably way too long. It might have been for children, but yeah. I make no excuses. you pick different styles and themes and it makes you a poster. Oh, here's some more posters: I mentioned to my book club that I went to the Poster Museum, and said something like, who knew there was a Poster Museum!...

I don't know why I just didn't take a video. I went with a series of live action photos instead. But yeah. Here's our ensuite while we were on vacation in Banff. We had a nook for a bathroom. No door. It went down like this: Walking toward the bathroom nook. No door, mind you, just change of flooring. Rounding the corner into the bathroom nook. Yup! It's a full bathroom in this nook around the corner! In the nook. Exiting the bathroom nook. Kent said that the builder probably saved tens of thousands of dollars not having to pay for doors on every bathroom in this condo complex. Meanwhile... idk. It was fine.  A little fresh air never hurt anybody... in the bathroom. Anybody in the next room, however... no comment. I say all this to say, in sum, it was a weird choice.

So when Eric stayed overnight at our place a couple weeks ago, he needed to go to a hospital on the Upper East Side the following morning to visit his wife, aka the patient. Tom and I took a pulse on his subway skills as the first step in our "giving directions" process. We've learned this is vital. Eric said flat out he wanted the simplest route, so we didn't need to ask casual subway knowledge level assessment questions such as, "Define Uptown" or "If a train car is empty would you go in?" ( answer: hell no ) We told Eric to just take the F. He could walk over to the 14th street stop and get off less than 5 blocks from his destination, so. Not the fastest route for sure, but we were confident he wouldn't wind up in the Bronx by mistake. The morning of Eric's "commute" he took the elevator downstairs and said hi to Nachi the doorman. Naturally, Nachi takes the opportunity to ask Eric where he's headed.  Eric says Upper East. ...

Was talking to Mom & Dad the other day and Pop starts talking about how, one time long ago, they were in Ireland. Pop chatted up a farmer and asked the guy to teach him something in Irish. The farmer said, well you should learn   Póg mo thóin which means "Kiss my Ass." And sure, you could see how that would come in handy. Fast forward and it's raining. So Mom & Dad go to a pub to dry off. Pop sits down at the bar and tells the bartender he's learned a couple words in Irish. The bartender is game. He says, what'd you learn? Pop says, " Póg mo thóin" The bartender says, "oh yes, that means Thank you."

A long long time ago, in 2013 to be exact, Tom and I babysat my 6-yo twin nephew and niece for an entire day. I wrote about it here:  https://waitingtogetthere.blogspot.com/2013/06/uncle-tom-and-aunt-stacey-best.html One of our activities that day was to rehearse a skit and then perform it for my brother and Mary when they returned home. Our inspiration was a dramatic rendition of this scene: It's from the movie Rushmore. The kids have, apparently, no recollection of their theatrical debut but I remember laughing so hard I could barely say my lines. "I like your nurses uniform, guy." Today is a big day because we are hosting a Rushmore watch party. Tom will make spaghetti and meatballs, we'll have popcorn and left over halloween candy. We'll all watch the movie and then. If all goes according to my nefarious plan, we'll perform an encore version of the skit in question. Call it a 12 year anniversary redux.  I'll let you know how it goes.