7 + 4 = 11

Happy Independence Day!  I didn't do too much of anything today, and it felt rather good.  I even started the day off by sleeping late, and since I didn't get in 'til around 3 AM from the party Jon and Karin threw yesterday, I felt mostly justified.

It's been a busy several weeks.  I've attended a music festival with Jenn and Rhonda, done a bit of catsitting for Barbara, gone to Sally and Matt's party (where Matt learned enough of "That's Just What I Am" to accompany me on guitar - thanks!), filmed some scenes for Rick Ford's latest venture, "Hassel Unbound" (would you believe I have an entry at IMDB?), played some of my songs in Duane Park for Make Music New York 2011, with Barbara as my roadie, visited New York's Central Park and Greenwich Village with Laura before going back to the park the next day for rollerblading with Dawn (followed by Rosa Mexicano's outstanding guacamole and pomegranate margaritas), had Peruvian ceviche with Yesika's family and Rhonda, attended a managers' meeting at Shadow Lake in Franklin Lakes which eventually turned into a company-wide barbecue/party, and visited Jon and the very-pregnant Karin for the above-mentioned party yesterday.  And of course I had that job thing going on the whole time, too.

I've also visited my parents more often than usual during the past five weeks, understandable under the circumstances.  After my dad finally agreed to see a doctor, he was hospitalized for nearly a week with renal failure and anemia (as well as high calcium and blood pressure readings).  Those symptoms have been addressed, but the cause was eventually determined to be Waldenström's macroglobulinemia, a rare form of cancer in the white blood cells known as lymphocytes.  This, too, is being addressed, with chemotherapy, and while the prognosis is good and my dad is in better spirits than he was a month ago, it's still been stressful on him and the rest of us, and there are several chemo sessions ahead.  He's already losing his hair, and as he and I have both managed to hang on to our full heads of hair with minimal greying, I can relate to the trauma; still, he's mostly holding up pretty well, although of course he has better days (when he can eat and sleep) and worse ones.

With all that's been going on, I've been pretty good about playing guitar every day.  I'm determined not to lose these calluses again!  In addition to performing at MMNY, I dragged my guitar along to Sally and Matt's party (because they wanted people to bring instruments), to Microwize's barbecue last Friday (because my colleague and fellow southpaw guitarist Nicole was bringing hers and asked me to bring mine, too), and to Jon and Karin's party yesterday (because Jon figured he and I could jam a bit if people left early).  I'm still learning to play, and sing, "Burning in the Sun," but I'll get it soon enough.  I'm also planning to write another new song or two in the very near future.

Pam is coming back to see me next month, and one of the events we have planned is a New York outing with my parents to see the new Cirque du Soleil show "Zarkana" and then have dinner at the Hallo Berlin beer hall.  We're all looking forward to it!  A trip to the Jersey shore, a performance of Zach Braff's off-Broadway play "All New People," and dinner at the amazing Cafe Matisse are also on tap for Pam's visit.  :-)

So, yes, there's been a lot going on, and this month will see a get-together or two with some old classmates, more romping around in NYC, and possibly a venture shoreward... and who knows what else?  Can you blame me for parking it on the couch for a few hours this evening to watch "Hearts in Atlantis" and "Flatliners?"  Well, it's back to work tomorrow, and it's just about midnight now, so I should probably park it in bed.  Good night, all...

Visiting is pretty, visiting is good...

OK, OK, I've slacked off a bit on the 'blog posts...  I've been busy.  Today, though, you'll get three posts for the price of one!


One of the things that had me busy for a bit was a visit by my girlfriend, Pam.  Because we're in a long-distance relationship and don't get to see each other all that often, we usually end up trying to pack too many plans into not enough time, but I think we managed to have fun regardless.  As has become a tradition of sorts, her first night here, we picked up some wonderful Turkish food from Sultan Gyro and ate it at home.


Pam and I finally had sushi together on Thursday the 19th in Hoboken at Teak on the Hudson, where I also enjoyed a lychee saketini.  (A martini made with sake?  What's not to like?)  We decided to visit Queens for a change, since we're forever wandering Manhattan, but I misjudged the subway stop and so it took us longer to get to Astoria Park than I'd intended.  No matter: we eventually escaped from the squirrels (even the black one) and found our way back to Stand4 in the Village and cooled off with some tasty shakes and sweet potato fries, before heading back home to watch "The King's Speech."  What an inspirational film...


We met Pam's Flickr friends Kasia and Elizabeth in New Brunswick on Friday, and while it poured on the ride down, the rain let up shortly thereafter, and the four of us walked around the Rutgers College Avenue campus, and Easton Avenue and George Street.  Ice cream at Thomas' Sweet was a must (mmm, raspberry ice cream with Kit-Kats blended in...), and I got a picture of the three young ladies trying to elicit a whistle from William the Silent, to no avail.

We four (no, Silent Willy wasn't invited after impugning their honor) then had dinner at Old Man Rafferty's, where my martini (pomegranate!) proved a lot less difficult for the bartender to pour than Kasia's.


Speaking of pomegranate, Pam and I paid our usual respects to Rosa Mexicano on Saturday, dining at the Lincoln Center location after a quick early bite at Nanoosh, visiting some indoor and outdoor fairs around Manhattan, coming across the Dance Parade (a few times), stopping for beers, and checking out the Manhattan Mall.  Freshly-made spicy guacamole and a few frozen pomegranate margaritas really hit the spot, and I didn't even mind (too much) that we'd just missed the train back to Lyndhurst and had to head to Rutherford instead and take a cab home from there.  We'd done too much walking already...


After breakfast at the Lyndhurst Diner on Sunday, Pam and I attended Susan and Brett's wedding at Mayfair Farms (in the 'good' Orange) and had a blast!  It was Pam's first time at a Jewish wedding, and her first (and very possibly last) time seeing me in a yarmulke.  The bride was beautiful, the groom was dashing, and we looked pretty damned good ourselves.  Stephanie (Susan's sister), Nicol, and Barbara were at table 6 with Pam and me, and we all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

You know you want some of this...

Pam asked me to drive her car on the way back from the wedding, and we took the long way home, heading west on Eagle Rock Avenue and traveling through Roseland and the Caldwells before moving eastward again and on to Lyndhurst.  It was nice to think that she trusted me to drive her car, and the night drive and the company and the music made it all feel very special.


I pressed Pam to come up with a place for lunch on Monday, since we'd been eating at a lot of the places we'd been before and I wanted to do something different.  She surprised me by picking Ruthie's, a barbecue and pizza (!) place in Montclair, and then Ruthie's surprised me by having an amazing barbecue chopped brisket sandwich and thick, tasty fries.  We'd hoped to do some walking around Montclair after the meal, but it was just rainy enough that it wouldn't have been worth it, so we headed back to finish up the laundry instead.  Dinner was a margherita pizza from Chris', and some garlic knots.  I'd intended to finally show Pam "Spaceballs" (no, it's not a condition I got during my visit to the moons of Saturn), but while I found the DVD case easily enough, the disc itself appears to have gone missing.  We ended up watching a few episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" instead, which seems to be a really funny show.


Pam left on Tuesday morning, but she left something behind, too.  In fact, we'd exchanged albums that had had a profound impact on each of us.  I lent her Tori Amos' "Little Earthquakes," which I've played so many times since a friend turned me on to it back in '92 (almost two decades and eleven albums later, it's still my favorite by Tori), and Pam lent me Ben Lee's "Awake Is the New Sleep."  I'll write another post about the two albums later, once I've been able to give Ben Lee's work a little more attention, but I will say that I already love "Get Gotten" and "Ache for You."


Needless to say, I miss her (and I think she misses me, too), but we've already got plans to see each other again in August for her birthday.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder... but visiting is pretty, and visiting is good.  In the meantime, there is of course a pictorial documentary known as the Gallery... of Death!  Go peruse the photos.  :-)