Meetings with Friends

Kay's pizza

A bit of color

Our neighbor's scarecrow

fungus in a yard

More neighbor decoration

scene along the dyke

Sometimes October days are chilly cold; sometimes they are crisp.
The difference has nothing to do with Nature, and everything to do with us.

Perhaps because I was born on a cold October day, I have generally celebrated Autumn air, Autumn foliage, Autumn sunsets.

However, this year the Fall air seemed to chill me right to the bones of my being.
In the day I resisted going outdoors.
The rowboat seems icy.
At night, tucked in bed under heavier covers and wearing some long sleeved insulator, I would still feel chilled to a shiver. I'd call Elizabeth over to hold my back to stop my shivering against the night.

Last night when Elizabeth rolled over to me, her feet and legs were like living ice cubes, but my old response to Autumn had replaced my shivers and I was the space heater, radiating enough warm energy to comfort both of us.

It is so much nicer to slide off to sleep full of Autumn than shivering against the Fall.

Perhaps the interaction with friends this weekend helps that adjustment.

Friday, Chuckmonk rode up to Turning Stone with me and played his first true rounds of live Hold 'em. He was nervous. He played great and came back ahead.

Turning Stone trip

There was no Yankee Trails bus to Turning Stone on Friday when Elizabeth was off dancing. I decided to give myself permission to drive. At first, it was going to be an extravagance, but Chuckmonk decided to come along and share gas. That actually brought the cost down to the cost of a Yankee Trails bus.

Since my last Yankee Trails experience when we were put in danger, I have not been anxious to take the bus again. And they have not responded to our letters and complaints in any way except to promise a response that doesn't come. Not so much as an apology for the irresponsible poor choices of their driver has come in the mail or by phone. So on top of having the negative memories of the experience, I have the building resentment of having my complaints, and Slink's, ignored.

Finally, I wanted to be at Turning Stone on a weekend evening and see what the games were like. I knew they would not dry up by ten PM as they did when I stayed overnight.
And I wanted to have a meal at the Savoy Restaurant in Rome.

So when Chuckmonk decided to go, I was very pleased.

He is not new to poker, but is fairly new to Hold em games. He had not played much in a casino before. He felt nervous.

I worried he would exhaust his bankroll in the first few hours and have nothing to occupy his time and force an early exit. I wanted to play a while.

Well, he played better than I did and came home ahead while I lost $78.

Unlike most beginnners, he best liked my favorite limit game, the 3-6. He felt the 2-4 was too loose with too many players just betting and calling beyond when they should call.

Poker details are here:
http://foxwoodspokertr.blogspot.com/2008/10/turning-stone-with-chuckmonk.html#links

We played until midnight and talked all the way home.

On the way up and back we talked poker hands and fishing and told stories. It is odd for me to have a friend who gambles, writes on Vegas discussion boards (that is where I first met him) fishes for stripers and bluefish, and blogs. We have plenty to talk about.

Chuckmonk liked Savoy. We sat next to the piano player. That was fine except that the fellow seemed to like only one song. We both ate haddock rolled with oregano. It was tasty. The place was more crowded than I have experience except perhaps the first time I was there, with Robin and Michael, in the days when the three of us would travel to gamble. I was very happy to be there.

Getting there was a bit of a comedy. Chuck held the GPS while Lori, our imaginary voice guide told us to turn right, turn right, turn right.........and brought us around in a circle. Then I watched the screen while we went around once again in a circle. It was like an old movie I saw on televsion the other night. We kept coming right back to where we had started.
So I just drove straight and let Lori refigure from another direction. Then we found Savoy easily.

Of course, I blame Chuckmonk for the runaround.
Blaming old Charlie is not fair, I know, but is sure is a lot of fun.

Anyway, we had a grand time. Charlie was so busy winning at poker that he failed to take a walk to try his fancy cigars from the new Habana store next to the park and ride on route 4. He even had a new cigar case to enjoy with them and just forgot all about it.


Last night Elizabeth and I met up with another blogger, long time friend Isaac and Mary and their boy John. We all went to supper at Four Seasons in Saratoga and then to Cafe Lena's to hear Mark Tolstrup

http://marktolstrup.com/biography.html

play old time blues at Cafe Lena in Saratoga.
It was really great.!
Mark plays on different instruments, but the most interesting is his

Resonator Guitar

from the 1930's. What a unique sound!

His sidekick Dale Haskell blends some high sounds into the vocals and uses the softest of drum sounds (usually brushes) to accompany Mark. Dale also has written some of his own songs in an old blues style and sings. Elizabeth like his voice better than Mark's, but I best enjoyed Mark. His vocal was simple like his talk with less of the affected accent of blues/folk/country and lyrics that were always clear.

Songs included some old gospel:
"Jesus Make Me My Dying Bed"
"You Gotta Move"

Some traditional blues like
"Come on in My Kitchen"

as well as some original works coming available on a new CD.
Mark wrote one in particular I liked, a lost love song using the sound of tires on rainy city streets to declare successful emotional independence except " Once in a While"
It is one of those songs like "I Get Along Without You Very Well" that says "I'm Fine" but reveals a continuing struggle with loneliness. I would love a collection of songs that explore those mixed feelings that accompany the grief of lost love.

The music was really a treat. And it is always a treat to spend some time with Isaac and family, see some pictures, hear the news, and just enjoy each other. Good company, good jokes, and an easy time. It does not get better.

We were interested to hear how much John is playing in a musical group called Shine and they are getting some gigs in the area. We hope to go hear him sometime, and if I practice perhaps I can play a bit of harmonica with him sometime.

At the concert I saw the parents of a student I taught when Keith was in high school. Jessica Phillips actually wrote a play in my class called, "Work To Rule" while the teachers were out on that job action. The play won a State contest and was produced in the Egg. Frank actually became one of the actors in the play, carrying the old sign I made of a full cut two by two and plywood used to ship home a German clock back when I was in the Air Force. It was fine to see them. They were very active in PTA, part of a group of parents who over a few years pressured the school to be better and helped us to do that too. It was one of my favorite times at Livingston. Jessica and her brother Matt went to Livingston. Mary taught Matt. Jessica acts in New York City. Among other things Matt writes a blog. I don't have the title in my memory, but I think Isaac will remember it.
I did not know Matt very well, but Jessica was close to me. Perhaps she will reconnect and tell me all her life stories.

On the way to Saratoga we stopped off to visit with Courtney, Tico, and Eliza. It was Courtney's birthday so we wished her many more and talked about books and milkweed and Carabou Barbie and all the fine windmill and college ideas of their children.
We got a look at a selection of Eliza's senior pictures, and we saw their new living room complete with a fine woodstove that will supplement their central heat. For years they heated centrally with wood but they recently turned it over to propane. This stove will keep the experience of wood heat but be more flexible when they are away. After their chimney caught fire, they had it all redone with the same stainless steel liner we have in ours.


Tico is reading the new Bill Byson and loving it. I have had such trouble with the one I have been reading, but he tells me Gina read and loved the Bryson and Cory has read him and Chuck liked "a Walk in the Woods" so I guess I better try some of the other books to be ready for Thanksgiving discussion.

Today we go to supper with Robin and Bobbie to celebrate mutual birthdays in October. Robin is a good deal older than I am, having been born three days earlier, but he is still young enough to be entertaining and he does not often take out his dentures, at least in the middle of a meal.

Peter and Jen were over on Thursday for Elizabeth's roast chicken supper and to watch the VP debates. That was a good deal of fun. Casey did not actually pay much attention to the debates, but he certainly was the center of the dinner conversation.

So it has been a wild few days of social visiting.

I went to the doctor this week and he reminded me that although I am pretty healthy I am still overweight. If Doctor Oldendorf was an evangelical preacher, he would have churches the size of a Billy Sunday gathering. He is patient with my repeated failures, and he always has a new radical angle. This time he showed us labels of chicken broth to explain how 99 percent fat free meant 50% fat, and explained how the zero calorie label on spray olive oil cans is just a loophole to allow them to pretend that there are not calories in that oil. He also blasted the milk industry for pretending that milk builds strong bones when actually dairy contributes to osteoporosis in this country. If he had his way I would give up dairy and meat and just concentrate on eating wheel barrows full of greens and eggplant and broccoli and boiled things. And he is right! But it seems a tough and radical decision to me. Still, he left me with a good article and actually feeling better about all of it than I have felt. So we have eaten a bit better these past couple days. A bit better may be enough if we are consistent.

Clearly one thing to work on is to give ourselves permission to celebrate the healthy foods. There is some subconscious trap that draws us to frying and sweets and carbs as the most comforting. But when we indulge huge quantities of healthy plant based foods, we always enjoy the meal just as much. So what is that about?

IN the past we have enjoyed the book

Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy
http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Drink-Be-Healthy-Harvard/dp/0684863375

Recommended by my cardiologist. It has good and bad reviews, but the argument makes sense. What Oldendorf would argue most against perhaps is the idea that eating olive and canola oil is good for us, and given our struggle with weight, that must be right. What I like best, and what I need most to be successful in eating better, is approaches that celebrate food. That seems contradictory, but if we could crave greens and vegetables and plant based food as much as we crave meat, we probably could lose more weight.

I don't know what I will do today, but yesterday we bought a bunch of greens, and at Four Seasons I had roasted vegetables, a good clump of raw greens, a bit of humus, a salad of raw vegetables and it all tasted great. One piece of cornbread was probably the worst choice yesterday. This morning I am going to steam up some green peppers, onions, mushrooms and have them ready for snacking. I can eat these, in fact, I should eat these, in unlimited quantities. Somehow that tricks the body into feeling fully fed.