Musing, blogging, reflecting, affirming, complaining, documenting
Our lovely friend, Anna, is in rehab after a serious operation, and she loves U.S. mail, so I’m sending her a card a day until she’s able to go home. Today’s card:
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John’s:
Courtland Drive abode Many additions |
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John’s:
Bicycles await Waiting for a ride |
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John’s:
Daffodils not still Bob’s: Early spring flowers |
Our lovely friend, Anna, is in rehab after a serious operation, and she loves U.S. mail, so I’m sending her a card a day until she’s able to go home. Today’s card:
Our lovely friend, Anna, is in rehab after a serious operation, and she loves U.S. mail, so I’m sending her a card a day until she’s able to go home. Today’s card:
Our lovely friend, Anna, is in rehab after a serious operation, and she loves U.S. mail, so I’m sending her a card a day until she’s able to go home. Today’s card:
Our lovely friend, Anna, is in rehab after a serious operation, and she loves U.S. mail, so I’m sending her a card a day until she’s able to go home. Today’s card:
Our lovely friend, Anna, is in rehab after a serious operation, and she loves U.S. mail, so I’m sending her a card a day until she’s able to go home. Today’s card:
Our lovely friend, Anna, is in rehab after a serious operation, and she loves U.S. mail, so I’m sending her a card a day until she’s able to go home. Today’s card:
Our lovely friend, Anna, is in rehab after a serious operation, and she loves U.S. mail, so I’m sending her a card a day until she’s able to go home. Today’s card:
Letter from Prose & Post:
My letter to Prose & Post:
I’m a big fan of recognizing “implicit affirmations,” which come in many forms. Here are a few examples of them:
After these 11 recent implicit affirmations that Bob and I recognized, read nine 50-word stories I wrote about implicit affirmations in general and have happened to me in the past.
Some recent implicit affirmations Bob have recognized and appreciated:
Thanks to all of you for affirming us!
Here are nine 50-word stories about how implicit affirmations have manifested themselves for me in the past:
| You’re hello worthy | You’re good company | You’ve done good |
| I recognized it as an implicit affirmation when someone walked by me without my seeing them but still said, “Hello, John.” It would’ve been easier for them to just slip by without a greeting, but they made the effort in spite of that, so I must be important to them. | I recognized it as an implicit affirmation when I asked a colleague if they wanted to take a walk to the nearby café for a cup of coffee and they said yes without an apparent thought of—or as much as a glance at—the cup already on their desk. | I recognized it as an implicit affirmation when a young colleague asked me if I’d be willing to have lunch with him one day to “pick my brain.” He wanted me to share with him as many things I could think of that have contributed to my apparent financial security. |
| Thinking of you | Let’s do lunch | Influenced by your writing |
| I recognized it as an implicit affirmation when a colleague messaged me: “John Martin! Was just peeling an orange with the Tupperware tool you gave me 400 years ago and thought about you.” It would have been easier not to message me, and I wouldn’t have had my day made. | I recognized it as an implicit affirmation when, a few months ago we’d left it at “Let’s get together as soon as it’s safe to,” and that friend followed up now that it is safe with an invitation to lunch. It would have been easier to just let it ride. | I recognized it as an implicit affirmation of having read my 50-word stories when a friend direct messaged me during the Q&A part of a virtual work meeting: “Are we on the same meeting? Thanks to you, I’m listening for how moderators tweak the Q&As. Hope you are doing well! |
| Proximity | Greeting | Participation |
| I recognized it as an implicit affirmation when, in the spreadsheet to reserve a workstation to use in the office now, a colleague chose one next to mine. Only 2 of our 11 floors in the building are being used, and the desks are spaced apart in a checkerboard pattern. | I recognized it as an implicit affirmation when a colleague working in a different area took time to come to my workstation to say hello. We’d both worked last week and had seen each other then, so it would have been natural to not make the extra effort this time. | I recognized it as an implicit affirmation when a colleague came to my desk last week for a short bourbon outfitters™ gathering at my workstation when he didn’t even want any bourbon. The easier response would have been to pass with a, “No thanks; I’m not going to drink today.” |
Do you recognize any recent implicit affirmations in your life?
Our friend, Tracy Bailey, “knows her audience” when she gives gifts. Last year, she made us a cookbook with recipes that related to places we visited during the year.
This is her gift for 2025’s Christmas:
The first delivery contained a story inside a card with this cover:
And this storied letter was inside:
It also included these 2 cards:
And, finally, this decal, a bookmark, and a ribbon:
It’s a very cool gift for a reader and a writer, and I look forward to the other 2 deliveries! Thanks, Tracy! 😍
We received this thank-you card in our mailbox from a couple we met recently at an event at our local bottle shop, Pelagic and invited them to our Pelagic Run Club Runners’ Happy Hour when they start back up after the time change in the spring.
To which I responded:
“Oh, the lost art of a hand-written thank you note! Bob and I are huge fans of them and send them regularly. (In fact, it takes everything in us not to send you a thank-you card for your thank-you card! 😂)
“Thank you for your very kind words, and we look forward to partying with y’all in 2026!”
Coincidentally, we are on our last thank-you card, so I just ordered a box of 100 of them — 25 of each of these:
We had our 2nd annual neighborhood New Year’s Eve progressive cocktail party, with this year’s theme being “Pours and Passports”:
In a countdown to midnight, 4 Mordecai neighbors opened their homes for an hour each and offered drinks and snacks related to their stop’s country. We had ~50 people attending this year’s event, up from 28 in our inaugural year in 2024.
The house, for Italian Indulgence
Our host, Marianne
Featured Italian cocktails:
• Aperol Spritz: Aperol, Prosecco, sparkling water, orange slice
• Negroni: gin, sweet vermouth, Campari, orange wedge
Featured Italian snacks:
• Two antipasto platters of cured meats, olives, cheeses, grapes
• Crackers & bread slices to complement the platters
• A variety of biscotti
• Marcona almonds
• Tiramisu (in honor of a guest’s birthday)
At this first stop, we asked everyone to create a name tag comprising their name and how long they’ve lived in Mordecai.
I pulled an Emeril Lagasse on Bob’s and my name tags and kicked them up a notch (Bam!) with a picture of our house on it.
Also at this stop, people made good use of the selfie station provided by Marianne & Jen!
Click on first image to bring up the gallery to flip through.
The house, for French Fusion
Our hosts, Brian & Jeff
Featured French cocktails:
• Cognac French 75: cognac, champagne, simple syrup, lemon juice
• Minuit a Paris: vodka, St-Germain, cranberry juice, simple syrup, lemon slice
Featured French snacks:
• Spinach & cheddar quiche
• Baguette slices with ham, Gruyère cheese, French butter, & cornichon
• Gougère cheese puffs with Parmesan and Pecorino cheeses
• Macarons
Some people shots at this stop:
The house, for Irish Imbibements
Our hosts, John & Mary Beth
Featured Irish beverages:
• Irish coffee with a jigger of Jameson Irish Whiskey and Nana Casey’s secret recipe for sweetness, topped with a dollop of whipped cream
• Guinness beer
• Black Bush Irish Whiskey
• Writers’ Tears Irish Whiskey
Featured Irish snacks and artifacts:
Snacks
• Scones
• Guinness Glazed Meatballs
• Bleu and cheddar cheeses from Ireland
Artifacts
• Statue of St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland
• A piece of crochet from Mary Beth’s grandma
• Photos in remembrance of family now gone: both sets of parents; John’s brother, Tom; John’s great-grandmother, Nana Casey (of the secret-Irish-Coffee-sweetness-recipe fame)
• Books related to Ireland, among other items
Some people shots at this stop:
The house, for Mexican Mixers
Our host, Amy
Amy’s co-host, Neal, provided the food
Featured Mexican cocktails:
• Palomas: tequila, grapefruit juice, sparking water, lime juice, coarse sea salt
• Champagne for the midnight toast (full disclosure: not Mexican)
Featured Mexican snacks:
• Crema de garbanzo con cilantro y jalapeños asado acompañado de zanahorias, apio y pimientos morrones
• Rugelach de chocolate mexicano y nuez pacana & Rugelach de queso fresco ahumado y jalapeño asado
• Pastel de tres leches
Sheets of paper were available to write on with “Sh*t you don’t want to take into 2026” and burn in the fire pit before midnight. Some example sh*t people wanted to jettison:
The accumulation of liquid courage across 4 hours and 4 homes brought the socializing to a peak during this final hour of 2025!
Ending up with the countdown on TV and a champagne toast at midnight.
And if there was any doubt that fun was had by all, a look at Amy’s kitchen at the end of the night!
Thanks to all who hosted our four stops this year and your enthusiastic and generous hospitality!
After this second one of these neighborhood progressive cocktail parties, it’s obvious it’s a great way to spend New Year’s Eve. In fact, I recently wrote three 50-word stories about some advantages of spending New Year’s Eve this way:
Yesterday was World Kindness Day, and I did my part to “bring joy” to someone with “a random act of kindness.”
My friend, who occasionally bartends while pursuing her dream of being a comedian, recently made the above post about an incident.
I made a greeting card with that quote on the outside and added the “World Kindness Day!” heading to it, and on the inside, I included:
I found out where she was working last night, and I went to that bar and had a couple of drinks while I caught up with her. I added a 50% tip to that bill, and said my goodbyes.
Before I left the bar, though, I watched her go in the back for something, and I gave the card to one of her co-workers to give to her once I was gone.
A little bit later, I got this text from her:
My work here is done. And my heart is full.
Book #107 |
Book: Tattoos on the Heart | Author: Gregory Boyle | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Print |
Pages: 217 | Duration: 11/08/25 – 11/08/25 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: nonfiction, memoir, Christian, religion, spirituality, faith, gangs | ||
| 📕10-word summary: What true compassion looks like — from a gang-intervention program’s perspective. 🖌6-word review: Educational, thought-provoking stories about compelling people. |
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| 💭A favorite quote: “Forget Kleenex. Forget handkerchief. Soledad is sobbing into a huge bath towel. And the few of us there found our arms too short to wrap around this kind of pain.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: pyrrhic, recalcitrant, braggadocio, tertianship, Garpian dread, salvific | |||
| Description:* For 20 years, Father Gregory Boyle has run Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles — also known as the gang capital of the world. In Tattoos on the Heart, he has distilled his experience working in the ghetto into a breathtaking series of parables inspired by faith. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JC Penney fresh out of prison, we learn how to feel worthy of God’s love. From 10-year-old Pipi, we learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Lula, we understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the dark — as Father Boyle phrases it, we can only shine a flashlight on a light switch in a darkened room.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This book was enthusiastically and highly recommended by a friend. The message in this book is unequivocally a “5-star” one — even to an atheist reader in spite of it being completely steeped in Christian values and beliefs. I wish my rating scale had ½ stars, so I could have given it 4½ stars instead of 4. The “½-star struggle” I had with it was that there are a lot of slang terms in it (many left to decipher by context), and there are a lot of (untranslated) Spanish words/phrases/sentences in it. (Full disclosure: I speak pretty much zero Spanish.) Complicating that, many of the slang terms were in Spanish. While reading this book, I thought a lot about my friend Hugh, who gave his heart to people experiencing homelessness in his Loves Wins Ministry work in the Raleigh, NC area. This seems like the kind of book he could write from the compelling stories and insights he used to share about that work when he was doing it. I’d only recommend this book with some caveats, the main one being with regards to non-religious people. They’d have to be someone who I believe would open their hearts to the message despite the deeply religious wrapper it’s in. With all that said, I’m glad I read it. I found the education about gang-intervention approaches alone worth the price of admission. I also think Gregory Boyle should be made a saint whenever “the rules” (which are quite rigorous) allow it. | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.
Happy Hollow Weenie!
With Bob as the Invisible Man, and I wearing my Dancing Pumpkin Man shirt and mask that Bob made us last year, we enjoyed cocktails and pizza while greeting trick-or-treaters on our friend Sam and Neal’s front porch.
Bob, inspired by the 1933 movie, The Invisible Man.
John, inspired by the Dancing Pumpkin Man.
Our friends Dana and Finley have been hosting zombie-themed Halloween parties for almost 2 decades! Their invitation said: “If you don’t have a zombie costume, it’s easy to ‘zombify’ a costume you do have.”
Bob and I did just that with costumes we bought for a nautical-themed party on our recent New England & Canada BearCruise.
From:
to:
That’s “Peg” with us — a $5 find at the Dollar Tree — and the inspiration for our make-up.
And two fun foods at the party:
Epilogue: FTR, this stuff was an absolute bitch to remove:
With the white and black smearing together into a bluish-gray color during removal, we’d’ve been a hit joining other blue hairs at K&W for a 4:30 dinner. A lot of this, with a multiple applications, was involved in the removal:
We’ve decided to use the imminent time change on Sunday, November 2, 2025, to suspend our Monday happy hours for the winter. Shallowness alert: Because what’s the point of cheering on shirtless runners if you can’t even see them?
To that end, we were going to make Monday, 10/27, our last happy hour, but the runners are participating in a special Halloween run route through nearby Oakwood Cemetery, which means they won’t be coming by our house.
So, our 10/20/25 happy hour was our big hurrah for 2025.
We wanted to let the runners know about this, which we did with this week’s signs:
Our friends and neighbors:
And the stars of the show, the runners:
Here they come!
And finally:
capturing the playlist for 2025:
This might rank as the best birthday I’ve had in my entire 68 years on the planet.
On Saturday (10/11/25), Bob and I felt like local celebrities when we wore our specially made t-shirts to the Pelagic block party:
and many of the people there were members of the Pelagic Run Club, which runs by our house every Monday around 6:15, and whom we cheer on while having a front-yard happy hour with friends and neighbors.
We’ve been cheering them on for a little over a year now, and it was so great to meet many of them at the party.
So 2 days later, on Monday, 10/13/25, which just happened to be my birthday, there I was just going through our usual preparation and set-up for our weekly happy hour and cheering event, with no knowledge of this message the run club’s esteemed leader and organizer, Jay, had sent to their runners’ email list.
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So, it’s Monday run club and our front-yard happy hour now… and as the runners approached they started yelling, “Happy Birthday, John!” (perhaps goaded on by this sign on a car up ahead of me that they could see but I couldn’t):
The were waving greeting cards and signs for me, which they either handed to me or put on a nearby table as they passed by.
The gallery of runners bearing cards and other birthday greetings. (You can click on first picture and flip through the gallery, if you’re interested in enlarged versions.)
This is a different gallery, click on the first pic to flip through.
Here’s the table, which my friends who had helped plan all this had conveniently placed by the road to facilitate the runners dropping off their greetings.
A few of the runners whom we’d met on Saturday at the block party stopped for a bit to wish me a happy birthday.
And here I am giving their leader, Jay, a huge hug of thanks!
In the end, my friends set everything out on my car to capture the overwhelming stash of greetings!
Including signs made with love…
And as a sign of our times, a special THC-infused drink delivery from one of the runners. Thanks, Cyndi!
This was by far our largest happy hour gathering with around 65 people comprising friends and neighbors!
More than once, I was overcome by all of the love — between the entire group in the yard singing happy birthday to me, one friend playing happy birthday to me on his trumpet, and by all of the cards and greetings coming in, particularly when gratefully realizing of all the work that so many people put into making this happen.
Thanks to all of our friends and neighbors for being there and for your best wishes, whether in greetings or gifts — or both.
A special thanks to a group of Mordecai friends and neighbors (Beth, Ella, Guy, Sam, Claire, Jen, & Michael Ann) who:
And a huge thank you to Jay and all of the runners of the Pelagic Run Club who have my heart!
And finally, you saw that pile of birthday cards on the car above. I received 25 of them from the runners with a total of 94 good wishes inside them. Who’s counting???
Here are pictures of 8 of the cards. And in between them are the sentiments from most of the other cards — all of which I’m capturing here for posterity.
Thank you for cheering us on at the point of the run when we are questioning the run! Maggie
Awesome John! Thank you so much for making our Mondays so fun and special! Happy birthday! From Iza & Devin (your new friends!)
Happy freaking birthday!! Derick
You’re the BEST! Liz & Alex
Happy bday John!! – From the guy that yells and twirls his shirt in the air.
Happy birthday, John! We appreciate y’all!
John! Happy birthday. Your cheers and smiles motivate us each Monday. Thank you for being a ray of sunshine. Love, Tori (Pelagic Run Club)
Happy birthday, John! Thank you so much for supporting us on these Monday night endeavors. Alex H.
So awesome to wish you a Happy!!! Birthday!!!! Hope you are having a great one and have a lot of people to wish you a good day! Thanks for all you do!!!
John! You’re amazing! Happy birthday! Eliza
Happy birthday to the captain of the very best cheer crew! We appreciate you so much! The Chiodos
Thank you for all the encouragement! Now it’s our turn to cheer you on! Happy birthday, John!!!
Love your house dearly. – Derick
Feliz cumpleaños! Ari P
Happy happy birthday! We appreciate you so much. Makes my day every Monday! Callan
John, thanks for making Mordecai such a lovely and welcoming neighborhood. Little act of kindness (such as cheering on runners every week) make a wonderful difference. Y’all rock!!! Love, Alex, Michael, Craig, Anna, & Liz
Happy birthday, John!!! If I wasn’t running, I would absolutely want to be invited to your house to party. Today we cheer for you! Charlotte
Happy birthday! Thanks for all the joy you bring to our runs. – emily
Happy birthday, John. Thanks for all the cheers and support. Mike.
Happy birthday, John! Thanks for all the good cheer! Loren, Rusty, Krebs, Chip, and Tom
Happy birthday, John! Hope it’s a great one and the drinks are extra strong at the Big Red House today! – Mike
Happy birthday, John!!! Thank you for always cheering on our run club every week. 🙂 Reb
Happy birthday! Thanks for spreading so much joy! – Lucy
The highlight of every Monday! Happy birthday! Jen
Happy birthday, John! Thank you for all of your support. You keep our spirits high! Diana, Ryan, Carly, Nathalia, Michael
Happy birthday, John! Thanks for the cheers every week! – Jesus 🙂
HBD! Thank you so much for the amazing energy every Monday. – Deanna
You make Monday great! Philip
Happy birthday! You are the best! Thank you for showing up for us every week! We so appreciate you! Drink up and enjoy! – Kristyn
We love your vibe!
Happy birthday ya legend!!!! Rock on. Dave
And a huge, huge thanks to my husband and partner in crime for all of these happy hours we’ve had over the year. He does a tremendous amount of work:
He truly is the wind beneath my wings!
Pelagic Beer & Wine is a bottle shop on the edge of our neighborhood, and they have a run club whose runners run by our house every Monday between 6:15 and 6:30.
We’ve been cheering them on with a happy hour in our front yard for just a little over a year now, and our crowd of neighbors and friends has grown exponentially — from 4 or 5 people at the beginning, to over 40 last week. I’ve blogged about some of the more recent ones.
This past weekend (on 10/11/25) Pelagic had a block party, and I had these shirts made, which we wore to the party.
It was so much fun watching people glance at our shirts and see their faces light up when they realized what it was.
We met and chatted with many of the runners attending the party, and everyone was so appreciative. It was an incredibly affirming afternoon.
Not that it’s a competition, but our previous attendance record for happy hour in our front yard to cheer on a local run club was 32 people. Today, we had 40!
This week’s signs:
Special guests this week were my sister, Vivian, and her husband, Jeff, who helped us set up.
Yard, house, and revelers!
And those who make it all possible.
Insta post on @pelagicbeer:
If you’re not a bourbon drinker, you may not be familiar with Buffalo Trace. In most places — even at their distillery in Frankfort, KY, which we visited in August of 2023 — there is a limit on the number of bottles (2) you can purchase.
In North Cackalacky, we have to purchase liquor (Liquor! You liquor, you brought ‘er!) in what are called ABC Stores, and there is a one-bottle limit on purchasing Buffalo Trace. Also, you pretty much have to be at the particular store when the shipment comes in, because it just flies off the shelf — which in this case is a metaphor, because they actually keep it behind the counter and you have to ask for it.
That’s the backstory that a friend of ours didn’t know, but he knows we’re bourbon drinkers, and one afternoon he texted us from an ABC store at Carolina Beach with this picture asking, “Is this any good?”
Once I finished squealing, I gave him the lowdown about only being able to buy one bottle, etc., and he said, “I’m sitting here looking at 3 cases. Would you like me to pick you up a bottle or 2?” To which I couldn’t answer fast enough, “Please get us 5!”
I thanked him profusely for thinking of us, and a few minutes later, he confirmed the purchase saying, “I figured it was something important, as they literally went through 4 or 5 cases as we were standing in line to purchase these. Crazy.”
Talk about being in the right place at the right time and being thoughtful about your friends! We appreciate both you and Patrick, John, for thinking of us!
Next weekend, we embark on the New England & Canada BearCruise:
and Bob and I hosted a meet and greet for the Raleigh guys going on the trip.
(from l-r): Bob, Steve, Chad, Ben, Al, John, Brent, Ken, & Cronin. We also invited our neighbors Jeff & Brian (not pictured) who are considering a future BearCruise.
Bob decorated the walls for the event!
Brent bought everyone a door magnet that says, “Warning. We bought the drink package,” and Bob and I bought a bear paw with our names on it — before we learned that NCL doesn’t allow door decorations per item 36.
Long-time friends:
And the meet and greet hosts (yours trulies):
I wish my eyes squinted even more when I smile or laugh. NOT.
The potluck food:
Food included: 7-layer taco dip w/Tostito Scoops, pasta salad, chicken wings, ham-delight sandwiches, deviled eggs, castrated church brownies (no nuts & no weed), and chocolate chip walnut cookies.
Complete, but important aside: See that little line of tinfoil toward the front end of the taco dip? The portion closest to the camera is for me. It’s actually a 6-layer taco salad that Bob makes for me, because I don’t like beans! (Can you say, “Princess?” I know I’m spoiled!)
The open bar flowed and after dinner, all of us sat out on our deck to continue our cocktails and conversations while enjoying the beautiful weather.
This week’s signs:
Friends & neighbors:
And the folks who make it all possible:
We broke another record with the number of friends and neighbors — 32! — who joined our happy hour to cheer on the Pelagic Run Club runners. We used to call it a front-porch happy hour, but it has spilled over into a front-yard happy hour!
The weather was absolutely fantastic today, and our sign was a message of gratitude to the runners! 😂 😂 😂
Our tools of cacophony, along with our whooping and hollering, to cheer on the runners:
And this is how we sound:
More whoopin’ and hollerin’:
Front-porch revelers:
I sent a message to Pelagic to let them know we had this new blog entry posted, and their heartwarming response was:
Thanks to all our friends and neighbors who came out to enjoy this glorious day! Cheers!
Many thanks to our good friend Dana for the photos and videos!
Another successful, well-attended front-yard happy hour to cheer on the Pelagic Run Club runners!
I was up by the road taking pictures at one point, and one of the runners came close by for a high five as he ran by, which was a first — and cool. Some shots of the runners, who were a big crowd today, because the weather was gorgeous (i.e., in the low 80s instead of the recent mid- to high-90s):
First of all, I love a divided plate. The “Pick 3 Platter”:
Cabbage salad, chicken salad, and quinoa salad
For posterity, the quinoa salad ingredients: quinoa, spinach, celery, onion, chickpeas, walnuts, cranberries, oranges, olives, olive oil, vinegar, black pepper and salt. (V + GF)
It’s always great to have lunch and catch up with my friend Jen!
Our dear (and generous) friend got us a gift card to Sullivan’s Steakhouse for Christmas, and we used it tonight for cocktails and appetizers at their bar. [Click photos to enlarge.]
Their shoutout on their Instagram page:
A couple of Instagram stories posted by runners:
Today was great fun hosting our biggest happy hour to date (~25 people) to cheer on the Pelagic Run Club runners — and arguably our best signage yet.
Close-up signs, including the one with the special athletic supporter “guests” — jock straps & sports bras:
Neighbors enjoying the event:
A shoutout to us on the Pelagic Instagram account!
And two Instagram “stories” posted by runners as they passed our house:
We host a neighborhood happy hour on Mondays to cheer on the runners of Pelagic’s run club. Pelagic Beer & Wine is a bottle shop about a mile from our house, and our neighborhood is on their run club’s route.
Click images to enlarge.
We open our bar at 5:30 and neighbors begin to gather on our front porch and sometimes they spill over into the yard. The runners usually pass by between 6:20 and 6:30. It’s kind of like the Kentucky Derby in that it’s over in just a few minutes, but that doesn’t stop us from continuing to drink once all the runners have passed by.
The activity has evolved over the almost-a-year we’ve been doing it, starting off with just screaming and yelling encouragement. Over time, though, we’ve kicked it up a notch with various visuals and noisemakers:
A couple of previous yard signs:
And other accoutrement:
Here’s an Instagram “story” they posted about this week’s happy hour:
And, of course, some of the people who make it all worthwhile!
What fun! Thanks to all our friends and neighbors who participate!
The day after we had our fun, fun, fun dinner with Daniel and Michael, Michael sent a text asking if we’d noticed the quote on last night’s dinner menu.
Virginia who??? 😂
We hadn’t noticed that. And then he sent:
Our kinda yuma!
Here he is with Yuliana, one of the bartenders extraordinaire on the riverboat!
Bob is someone who likes to try new things, while I prefer things I already know — especially with regards to food and drink. It’s mid-morning here, and we’re sitting in the lounge and bar where I’m catching up this blog.
Bob to Yuliana: I want to try a drink I’ve never had before.
Yuliana: What kind of liquor would you like in it?
Bob: Vodka.
Fast forward a few minutes, and she delivered my third Bloody Mary along with Bob’s “surprise drink.”
Her: Don’t ever ask me to do this again. It makes me very nervous when someone asks me to surprise them or to “be creative” with a drink.
I said, “I’m the same way!
Laughs all around.
I told my once-grad-school professor and now friend, Susan, about this Danube riverboat cruise and she said she’d always wanted to go on one.
I knew she had a gay grandson, and since the group I’m going with is a gay group, I said, “I said, “You should come on this one, and you should ask Peyton to go with you.” And she did!
Susan and I are both avid readers, and we are each in a book club, but not the same one. I said, “We should both read a (fiction) book involving a Danube riverboat cruise and discuss it on the cruise!”
She thought it was a great idea, so we did. Turns out neither one of us was impressed with the book, and I said, “Sometimes in a book club, the worst books can have the best discussion.” We both said, “Yeah, yeah. Let’s go with that.”
We met today and discussed it.
Afterward, we added a note to the inside front cover and donated the book to the riverboat’s share-a-book collection.
This morning, relax on board as we sail to Bratislava. An ancient landscape awaits, where remarkable towers add to a skyline that perfectly encapsulates the history of the city, and preserved medieval fortifications tell tales of a turbulent past.
Today’s program:
Excursions at this port:
Coffee and cake with the locals: You will be invited into the home of a local family to learn more about their traditions and culture over coffee and cake.
Bratislava city tour: Your local guide will take you through the heart of the city, as you soak in the sights of the lavish Episcopal Summer Palace and the neo-Renaissance façade of the Slovak National Theatre.
In what undoubtedly will be the most memorable part of this trip, we visited a Bratislava’s home and connected on a intimate, human level.
Matthew (hysterical) was our tour guide. Ondrus (extremely knowledgeable) was the local expert who told us about the country and what we were seeing on the 45-minute ride to the village where Andre (the homeowner) lived.
Andre was adorable which doesn’t really matter — (but, my goodness, doesn’t it help?) — and he welcomed seven of us (Kayo, Ken, Al, Daniel, Michael, Bob, and me) into his home.
He was an interesting and personable guy who told us about his life here and answered a bunch of questions from us. He likes to make homemade spirits, and even though this program is billed as “coffee and cake,” he offered us, and we took him up on, some of his homemade spirits with the cake.
Some pics of his house and hospitality:
And yes, that’s Bob playing the Steirische harmonika! After his third or fourth glass of spirits, the spirit moved him to ask Andre if he could try it.
We returned to the riverboat for lunch and enjoyed a salad bar and fish and chips!
After lunch, we set out for the city walking tour, and one of the guides was Matej from this morning’s home visit, so we got in his group, because we knew how good and funny he is!
A few pics of the tour:
Matej told two stories regarding these two sites:
About the “Man at Work” sculpture, he said the locals laugh at the tourists whenever they see them squat down next to it for photos and rub its head (which apparently many do “for good luck”), because what they know is that dogs relieve themselves on that statue all day long.
And about the “creeper man,” he said that that guy was a real person, and in fact his grandmother knew him, but he got spurned by a woman and went a little crazy (as in with mental illness) over it. And after that, he started staring and making goo-goo eyes and comments at women and became “creepy,” which today would probably consider what he was doing as harassment.
And tonight’s dinner:
Tonight’s activity was “An Evening with the Stars,” where video or audio clips of movies were played and we had to guess the name of the actors or movies. Our dinner companions from last night (who also do their weekly dinner menus) are in the front of the middle table: Daniel in the blue & black flowered shirt, with Michael to the right of him in the black polo shirt.
The crowd participating in the movie trivia game — the 2 front tables are members of our group.
Mystery Voice
1 – Celine Dion
2 – Nicole Kidman
3 – David Attenborough
4 – Stevie Wonder
5 – Jim Carey
6 – Heath Ledger
7 – Rowan Atkinson
8 – Oprah Winfrey
9 – Hugh Grant
10 – Bjork
Missing Title
1 – Pretty Woman
2 – Finding Nemo
3 – Rocky
4 – Green Mile
5 – Fight Club
6 – Shrek
7 – Shawshank
8 – Lion King
9 – The Matrix
10 – Titanic
Music From Movies
1 – The Breakfast Club
2 – Skyfall
3 – Mission Impossible
4 – The Naked Gun
5 – Rocky Horror Picture Show
6 – Star Wars
7 – Austin Powers
8 – Breakfast at Tiffany’s
9 – Ghostbusters
10 – The Blues Brothers
Today’s program:
Excursion description: Architecture from across the centuries shines a light on the history of the Hungarian capital. Originally two separate cities, Buda to the west and Pest to the east offer incredibly different views on the culture of one of the liveliest cities in Eastern Europe. Today, you’ll have the opportunity to explore the city during a guided tour, including Heroes’ Square and the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Andrássy Avenue and Buda Castle District.
These brilliant devices were provided in our cabins, which you use during the walking tours to be able to hear your guides without everyone having to crowd around them.
We loved our tour guide — “You can call me Charlotte,” she said. She’s in the purple dress in the last picture in this set. A few of my favorite things of this outing:
A few amusing things on the tour:
Late afternoon, we had a “Captain’s Reception” and then our “Port Talk,” which is when they tell you about the next port and everything going on there.
During the captain’s reception, we enjoyed champagne with an amuse bouche, and I treated myself with a change from bourbon and sodas to a treat from the Vodka Cocktail Collection. We had the most expensive, so all-inclusive drink package, so why not?
We had a most delightful dinner, sharing a table with new friends, Daniel & Michael. They’re from Seattle and they’re the first people we’ve met who create a list of dinner menus for the week like we do.
Each night for dinner, there is the full menu, along with a “chef’s recommendation” menu:
Bob and I both chose the chef’s recommendation this evening:
After dinner there was a “Name That Tune” game that I didn’t participate in, but Bob did. There were 3 parts to the game with the emcee playing a clip of music each time.
First round: You had to identify the song title and the artist (or band).
Second round: You had to identify a song that was being played backward.
Third round: You had to say if the song played sold more or fewer than 10 million records.
Bob’s team won, and they were presented a free bottle of spirits and some chocolate.
While walking around the aforementioned Corvin Square, Bob and I got tickled when we saw this sign:
Whenever “people of our age” get together and start talking about all of their knee and hip replacements, etc. — which Bob hates — I’ll eventually announce, “Okay, the organ recital is over.”
7 of us from Raleigh — Al, Ken, Susan, Peyton, Kayo, Bob and I — met for happy hour at a nearby pub called Belgian Brasseire,
which had an incredible (meaning pages and pages) of beer selections.
We had 3 or 4 (or 5 or 6) rounds of spirits. Bob and I drank Maker’s Mark on the rocks, and the rest of the group had beer.
We went our separate ways for dinner, and Bob and I ate at a place called Corvin Gastropub, which we thoroughly enjoyed
and we had the Corvin burger, which came with fries, and which was delicious.
If you’ve traveled in Europe you probably know how hard it is to get some ice in drinks without asking for it, and asking for a lot of it. So imagine our surprise when this cute little bucket of ice with giant-sized ice cubes was delivered with our high balls!
In my defense, I did say to our server (who was great) that, “We’re Americans so you know we like a lot of ice.” Bless her.
As we ate, I noticed that the businesses around the gastropub all had Corvin in their names, and I asked our server if one person (named Corvin?) owned all of these businesses, to which she laughed and said, “No it’s the name of the square here and he was a king.”
Me: “Oh, did you know him?”
She, laughing more: “No he was around in the 1400s.”
After dinner, we stopped in the Mini ABC, which was right across the street and treated ourselves to dessert.
At the Monastery Boutique Hotel in Budapest, where we’re staying for two nights before we board the Emerald Star for our Danube riverboat cruise, we grabbed an hour-or-so nap upon arrival, and then we had a most delicious dinner in Umo, one of the two restaurants associated with the hotel.
Carlos, who was just adorable, was our server, and when we asked him where he was from he said, “A small city near Mexico City.”
And when we asked him what brought him from Mexico to Budapest, he said, “I came over with a person.” Since any straight guy would have said something like, “I followed my girlfriend here,” we assumed he was on “our team.” And then he added, “But we’re no longer together,” which drew a collective, “Awww” from all of us.
This place had fantastic food.
The menu:
Bob’s and my choices:
And our comeuppance:
My friend sent me this image saying, “7’s for me. Is it 12 or 13 for you?”
She’s not wrong:
This reminds me, Bob knows me so well that one time when I was still working, I wanted a banana for lunch, but he knew the ones we had weren’t ripe enough for me, so he doctored one up with a Sharpie and packed it in my lunch.
Book #47 |
Book: Diamonds on the Danube | Author: Cheryl Dougan | |
| Source: Borrowed from a friend Format: Print |
Pages: 103 | Duration: 06/19/25 – 06/19/25 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★☆☆☆ | Genres: fiction, cozy mystery, travel | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Tour guide on Danube riverboat cruise uncovers diamond theft shenanigans. 🖌6-word review: All-around mediocre writing, characters, and plot. |
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| 💭Favorite quote: “Temptations are a reminder that I have a choice.” | |||
| 🎓A new-to-me word: Lipizzan | |||
| Description:* She never expected to be cruising down the Danube trying to catch a diamond thief red-handed. Adelle didn’t expect her 60s to be boring. So when her travel-agent friend asks her to guide a cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam, the born people-pleaser jumps at the chance to help four women have an unforgettable vacation. But when expensive jewelry goes missing, she fears one of her happy travelers could be the culprit. Will Adelle unmask the crook before her adventure sinks into muddy waters?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I bought this book as a gift for a friend who is also a reader and a book club member (although we’re not in the same book club) and with whom I’m going on a “Danube Delights Riverboat Cruise” soon. We thought it would be fun to read a book related to cruising the Danube — but not a nonfiction book about it — and then get together one day on the cruise and discuss it; you know, sort of like a book club meeting but while enjoying our unlimited drink package and taking in the scenery along the way from Budapest to Regensburg, Germany. With all that said — and I have a lot more to say that I’m not including here but have outlined for our discussion on the cruise — this book wasn’t very good. It was more a travelogue (which is what we didn’t want to read) than it was a mystery. At the end of chapter 7 (out of 13), there was still no mention of diamonds or a crime. We’re hoping that “sometimes the worst books make for the best discussion” will come into play with this one. I definitely would not recommend this book, nor would I read any other books in this series, which is part of the “River Cruise Cozies.” | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.
We had hired someone to help us with our ambitious “Lotsaversary Gathering” — with 92 attending of 200 invited, but he had to cancel due to not feeling well.
We were going to have him barback, not bartend, but as it turned out our friend Fadia comfortably slipped behind the bar and actually took on bartending of her own volition!
She had a lot to juggle but did it beautifully.
Midway into the evening I was checking in with her, and she told me she was having so much fun, asking people drinking highballs if they wanted singles or doubles, and many took her up on doubles.
It was then that I noticed that the jigger she was using was actually for a double, so she’d really been pouring doubles and “quadruples” — and into 10 oz. cups, no less!” We have little doubt that that greatly contributed to the success of the party!
Our thank-you note to her:
Back in March of 2024, two lots behind our house went on the market, and we nabbed them! And since January of this year, we’ve been planning a 5/31/25 party to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the closing on that property.
At the beginning of May, we got the notion to replace our outdoor standalone deck bar and decided to have one built into the deck instead of getting another standalone one. Roman, our builder, finished it 2 days before the event!
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We did a test set-up to think about where to put the alcohol, mixers, sodas, and ice to accommodate the best flow as people got drinks.
We invited 200 of our closest friends, and 92 of them attended the party. The weather was precarious, with it raining within 30 minutes of the 6 p.m. start time, but then it cleared up and ended up being perfect outdoor party weather the rest of the evening.
We had mostly catered food, all finger foods to preclude needing utensils. We loved “breaking in” our new bar and the flow of people moving about our backyard and into the lots behind it, and in which Bob has done a tremendous amount of work “cleaning up” over the year we’ve owned them.
Because Bob clears out things regularly and donates them to Cause for Paws, we didn’t have that many things to sell at a yard sale, so Bob joined forces with our across-the-street neighbor to be on the map for our neighborhood day of yard sales.
My friend’s sister died on Thursday, and on Saturday I made the 600-mile drive from Raleigh, NC to Conneautville, PA to attend her funeral on Sunday.
It was a 9.5-hour drive, and I decided to stop every 2 to 2.5 hours for a break, since I was driving alone and wanted to keep alert. My first stop was about 2.5 hours into the trip — at the first rest area in Virginia — and I assessed the snacks and lunch my husband had packed for me, which included 2 homemade sausage biscuits that were fantastic.
I arrived at the Quality Inn I’d reserved the day before, ate a quick Fish and Chips meal (would you look at the size of that fish, and those 2 paltry hush puppies, which I paired with the two free cheddar biscuits) at Red Lobster, and hit the sack early.
The visitation and short funeral mass — both at the funeral home — were the next day, and after lunch at my friend’s family’s house I drove 3 hours of the return trip before just walking into a Hampton Inn in Fairmont, WV and asking if they had any rooms available. I’m pretty sure this is the first time in my life I’ve ever gotten a hotel room without having a reservation. That’s out of my comfort zone.
I left at 9 the next morning and got home at around 3.
| The Michaelses | The birthday boy | The Thompsons & Stoimenoffs |
| We had dinner with our friends Sherry and Fred at Baby Kay’s Cajun Kitchen in Mesa, AZ. John and Sherry met on an ambassadorial trip in October of 2008 to Beijing, Guilin, and Shanghai. We don’t see each other #IRL often, but like this time, it’s always a great visit. | My husband’s brother, Tommy, celebrated his 75th birthday, and we flew in to attend a surprise party for him. His brother Jimmy and his wife Cindy hosted the gala, and I met a nephew for the first time who also flew in for the occasion. Bob made the birthday cake. | We met grade-school friends of my husband for lunch one day. I was Facebook friends with one of them, so it was great to meet her in person. Bob and I enjoyed a bruschetta board, which was fantastic — second only to the company we enjoyed dining al fresco at Postino’s. |
Bob adopted Vincent, whose full name was Vincent St. Patrick McVeigh, on St. Patrick’s Day.
Here’s a pic we took of him one St. Patrick’s Day and one we took yesterday as Bob wore Vincent’s bow tie for our front-porch happy hour with the theme from Rocky blasting by the street while we cheered on the Pelagic Run Club runners as they passed by our house.
Our neighborhood has an annual chili party that’s been going on for more than 25 years. It has a theme each year, and medals are awarded for 1st, 2nd, & 3rd place in each category of meat and vegetarian. They also added a category for cornbread this year!
This year’s theme was Dune: The Spice Must Flow, and Bob made an Irish chili, and named it “Howya Dune?” And he won 3rd place in the meat category!
This is his third 3rd place medal in 15 years:
Capturing for posterity:
I’m proud of what a great and dedicated cook Bob is, and I’m thrilled when he’s recognized by others for his efforts. Congratulations, Bob!
I attended the Friday, March 7 noon performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto #2 with my friend Wayne.
We had proper brunch cocktails, mimosas, before Bob dropped us off at the performing arts center downtown. We had seats on both sides of a couple, and they were very civil, agreeing to move over one seat so we could sit together.
Thoughts on Timepiece
On introducing the first piece, Cindy McTee‘s Timepiece, the conductor, Leonard Slatkin, called it something like, “a great piece of music, by a great composer, with a great and renowned career — and who just happens to be my wife.”
That reminded me of when I was in the closet and every time I introduced myself when public speaking, I’d be sure to mention my wife so that it was clear to everyone that I was straight. I’m not suggesting this man is gay. He is, after all, on his fourth wife. 🐱 Surely he would have switched teams by now.
After that announcement, and once I cleared my head of words and phrases like “nepotism,” “conflict of interest,” and “you got some cojones, bro,” I opened my mind to the music.
It was a rather short piece, I think he said it was going to be 6 minutes. Words like, “choppiness,” “syncopation,” and “cacophony” came to mind while listening, and I thought, “I wonder if this is Eastern European music.” (As it turned out, the composer studied at the Academy of Music in Kraków and one of her teachers was Krzysztof Penderecki.)
A lot of — and unusual — percussion instrumentation is going on here. I wonder what that instrument is called that sounds like a zipper. Wayne used the word “ratchet” for it, and I thought he was kidding. I mentioned that it reminded me of those washboards on Hee Haw. Turns out we were both onto something — internet to the rescue: here is the list of percussion instrumentation in the piece:
That clopping sound, which I now know comes from “wood blocks,” reminds me of the Sleigh Ride song.
Thoughts on Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto #2
I had initially thought, “I’m surprised the piano is way in the back of the orchestra when it’s going to be so prominent in the piano concerto,” but in the short break between the first and second piece, they rolled out a gorgeous Steinway front and center.
That dress! The soloist, Olga Kern, had on this dress (not the blue one in that ad glossy above) that reminded me of tiers on wedding cakes or something. It looked something like this but all white and without the picnic basket:
She slouches, is hunched over, actually, when she plays — which made me think of Schroeder’s playing.
When Olga’s fingers were flying over the keys at one point, I thought about how piano playing has an end game, specifically with regards to arthritis of the hands and fingers.
In the middle of the second movement, I thought, “I can’t believe I did not pee after those 3 mimosas and before this performance started. Oh, boy.”
Wayne and I mused over what the actual performer titles were, specifically with regards to the best players in the string section — was it “first chair,” or “principal chair,” or “principal violinist (or viola or cellist, etc.)” or something else. The internet to the rescue again: looks like: principal, associate principal, and assistant principal, which sounds similar to the hierarchy of college professors.
That conductor looks like Andy Rooney — or Leslie Jordan — and like he has kyphosis.
That cymbal player just stood up, buttoned the bottom button of his jacket, picked up his cymbals, and waited. Then, without playing them, he put them down and picked up a slightly larger pair, which he did crash together one time before putting them down, unbuttoning his coat, and sitting back down.
It made me think that if he got paid by the note, he’d be broke. And that reminded me of Barbra’s classic spiel in her backyard concert for which the tickets were $5000 a piece, and during which she mused for 25 seconds about how much that was per note:
Wayne and I had a delightful walk home after a quick stop at Sir Walter Coffee to ostensibly have a cup of coffee but to furtively use the restroom, avoiding the long restroom lines at the venue after the concert. Lots of bladders needed to be emptied before getting on the vans back to the retirement homes and assisted living facilities.
We felt blessed with beautiful weather and to be able to make the 2-mile walk back to our house. Thanks for a swell time, Wayne.
Coda
If you’ve never seen this 2.5-minute scene from The Seven Year Itch, which Bob just introduced me to and is an homage to Piano Concerto #2, enjoy “Good Old Rachmaninoff“: