The Other Don Kelly

Greetings from Rochester, NY! We’re up here to celebrate our nephew Greg’s graduation, which is tomorrow. We drove up today, got into town maybe an hour or so ago, and immediately went out to Nick Tahou Hots for “garbage plates.” They lived up to their name, being basically everything the place makes (hot dogs or sausage, with potatoes, macaroni salad, etc) all scumbled together on one plate and covered with meat sauce. Not HUGE huge, but plenty of food and very filling. We are both stuffed now, and sitting in our hotel room trying to digest — we expect to have to go to dinner at Sticky Lips BBQ when the rest of the gang arrives…

This week has been fun, but a bit on the busy side:

Tuesday night we hosted a “meet & greet” with City Council hopefuls Will Carpenter and Paige van Wirt. Some friends and neighbors, cheese and crackers, and some insight into who the candidates are, why they are running, and where they stand on local issues. Democracy!

Wednesday night was Anne’s ukulele night, and we hosted, and Thursday night Anne had some friends over to play flute/violin quartets, and Friday morning was cello duets for me with Donna H.

Today I’m doing a cello recital at the place I take lessons, then we’re helping with Bike Day at the Easton YMCA, and tomorrow is a birthday lunch for Anne’s mom.

Continuing my themes of Death and photography, here is a photo of some flowers on the service berry bush in front of our house. This was a from a few weeks ago, at the tail end of its bloom — glorious blossoms, white as snow on the ground when they fell. Most years we could expect berries in a few weeks, ones that taste like cranberries (only sweeter and more delicate), great in pancakes and a favorite of birds, but as of today the tree is no more: it had always been small and spindly, and it started to lean over the past few years, and the lean began to accelerate this fall; the tree guy, showing us that it had been improperly planted, pushed and almost knocked it over. That was probably in December, and today was the day they came to take it out. (They also pruned the persimmon trees out back.)

We have plans for another tree, but we don’t yet know what kind we want. Maybe another service berry, maybe an oak…

Happy birthday to me! That was last week, but I did manage to milk it all the way through the weekend: Anne and I went out for drinks at The Mint on my actual birthday, then on Friday night we went out again, to Lehigh Pizza and Bonn Place, with John & Donna.

On Saturday night we saw Dar Williams at the Sellersville Theater, with Kathy and Jordan and a friend of theirs, and I got more birthday greetings but I think the bloom was finally fading from that rose. We had a great time at the concert: I knew the name “Dar Williams,” but I knew none of her music (Anne swears that she’s on the radio all the time) and so she was an awesome discovery, at least for me. I am currently in the process of putting her music, ripped from the CD’s we bought after the show, into our system.

Earlier in the week I got in a great ride at Sals, with John E and his friend Dan. I rode really well and felt good, but when I got home I found that my GPS had died somewhere on the ride. Permanent malfunction: I lost the data for my awesome ride, and I also need a new GPS. Oh well…

There was no concert tonight to go to, but except for that the last few days have been extraordinarily full: I got in a ride on Saturday and today (and did a “practice event” for BikeSmart Lehigh Valley on Saturday), got in some pretty decent practice sessions with the cello, and went to local concerts on Saturday and Sunday. I’d consider those days seized…

It’s not the “medically-induced” kind of munchies, but I have been hungry and eating all day. Bacon and eggs for breakfast, some leftover beef & beans & rice for lunch, chicken soup for dinner, and slices from a blueberry tart all day, plus candy. I just finished dinner, and I am hungry right now…

I basically ate a slice of cake and a bratwurst yesterday, so maybe it’s just that I am running on empty. Yesterday was the big CAT 25th Anniversary celebration, and in the morning we were busy helping to put it together: Anne made the giant cake and some iced tea, we took things over to the Library around 1:00, spent some time setting things up, and the event itself started, with the cutting of the cake and the obligatory speeches, at 3:00. (Since this was also CAT’s annual meeting, there were also things like treasurer’s reports and such.) We even got to see a short film, made about CAT maybe 10-15 years ago. There were volunteer awards, and more speeches and more cake, and then it was time to clean up and go. A few of us got a little party going afterward, outside at the Sun Inn: Main Street was bustling, the day was cooling but still warm, and it was really pleasant to sit outside with friends at a beer garden — that was where I got that brat. A pleasant day, and it felt good to see all the evidence of CAT doing as well as it is has been lately.

Today was colder again, and rainy in the morning, and we’ve just been hanging out. I’ve been kneading my “trail amenities” database, trying to get it into a more professional, normalized form, and (now that I got through the log-jam that was The War of the Gods) I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Foundryside.