Tornado news

The tornadoes passed about 20 miles to the south of us so we had no damage at all. We got a good ole Florida rain storm with plenty of thunder and lightning but really no wind here. We slept through it all and would not have even known it was happening if one of Nancy’s bridge friends hadn’t called at 5:30AM to check on us. Ironically Nancy and I took a drive last Saturday to a farmer’s market in Leesburg and for lunch at Gator Joe’s in Oklawaha. That took us through Lady Lake, the scene of so much destruction. We drove home across highway 42 through Paisley where most of the deaths occurred. If you would have asked, I would not have guessed 16 people even lived in Paisley – it’s a very tiny community. We’ll wait a few days before venturing into the areas that were hit to really assess the damage for ourselves. We have a favorite restaurant on the St John’s River, the Wharf, which might have sustained some damage since it was very close to, if not right in the path. A couple from my high school graduating class live very close to there and I’m trying to get some information on their situation. They’re close enough that they often take their boat to the Wharf for lunch. So far the only information we have regarding someone fairly close was Nancy’s friend, Susan, in Debary. Debary was just a few miles south of the destructive path, much closer than us. Someone on their street had a tree come through the roof but the big problem was that the next day was trash pickup for recycle stuff and everyone had material on the side of the road. I guess the area looked like a trash landfill the next morning. Get a mental image of Budweiser cans flying at 100mph. Other places we’ll be checking out will be the Deland Bridge Club – big loss for Nancy if it craters; Beef O’Brady’s, our wing spot; and Mi Mexico our favorite Mexican restaurant. All would appear to have been very close to the crossing path.

Tom and Tina live about 30 miles south of the path so they too got some rain but no wind damage. Joey’s in the Bahamas with his boat so of course he made out fine. . The storm more or less missed Brevard County where all of his property is. My sister is also in Brevard County and reported a little rain, thunder and lightning. All of the destruction took place in a narrow swath so you are either in the path or not.

We appreciate all the calls and emails we got expressing concern.

New at the Lake

You remember that scruffy old trailer on Purdom Cemetery Road? Well it’s finally going away. I walked up there today and there’s an old time guy, 75, taking it apart for scrap value. He’s doing it piece by piece, screw by screw, so it’s not something that’s going to happen tomorrow but I’m guessing by the end of Feb it will be down to almost nothing. He’s getting the aluminum siding, the copper plumbing and wiring, windows, and great looking 2×4’s. All of that material has good scrap value these days. As I understand it, the people trying to sell property on the road raised hell with the owner saying the trailer was killing their hope of selling. I’m sure that’s the case. George managed to talk the guy out of the hot water heater so he’ll have a “spare”.

Spec’s are biting fairly well. At least for George. I went out with him yesterday for a couple hours and this morning for about an hour. Yesterday he caught 6 very nice specs and a couple of small bass using live minnows. I tried that Sabiki bait rig which I knew would be a killer – I got skunked. Today we were only out for a while and he caught a small bass and a large bream but no spec’s. I got skunked again. Perhaps I’m wrong about the Sabiki but it sure looks good to me so I’m going to keep on it for just a few more days.

The freeze forecast for Monday and Tuesday didn’t happen. I think it got close Monday morning but didn’t get there. If we can hang in for another 2-3 weeks, we’re probably home free for this year. I really didn’t care since my fruit trees have not blossomed yet. Once that happens, the last thing we want is a freeze. I’d like them to hold off until March but I have zero control over it. We ended up with really great grapefruit this year including two Ruby Red’s off that scruffy tree I moved two years ago. Assuming they don’t get nailed this month, we should really have a great crop next year. I think the Satsuma orange is still too young but between the tangerine and the two grapefruit trees, we have plenty.

Had a real shock the other day. Our VHS tape recorders are a little old and acting up now and again. They generally work but don’t always rewind, fast forward, and sometimes randomly eject the tape. Time to replace. We were in Daytona Monday and went into Sam’s. No VHS recorders. Went to Best Buy – when I asked where they were, they looked at me like I was from Venus or something. I could get a unit that was combined with a DVD player which I don’t need, but no plain old go to hell VHS recorder. Now I’m starting to panic. We still had Circuit City and Wal-mart on the road ahead. At Circuit City they had two on clearance which I quickly scooped up. I guess because the networks will be broadcasting only digital in two years, the market for VHS is drying up. My hope is that I’ll be able to buy some kind of D/A converter when the switch happens so I don’t have to change anything behind that box. We really, really, really don’t need all the hassle and complexity that comes with a jillion channels and remote controls with 100’s of buttons. Old eyes and fat fingers just don’t do well with tiny buttons and cryptic codes that come with multi-function remote controllers.

post op review etc

Today marks exactly one week since the colon surgery and I feel pretty good. A little soreness when I move certain ways and general tiredness but all in all quite satisfied. I go back to have stitches removed and for a post-op consult on Thursday but from everything I read and am told by people who should know, I am way ahead of what is normally expected. And a silver lining – I lost 10 pounds and no longer wake up with an achy shoulder. I normally am a side sleeper but the surgery forced me to sleep on my back and I guess the way I was sleeping was messing up my shoulder.

One of those visually surprised by my progress was the Oncologist I visited today to discuss my prostate cancer. He couldn’t believe I had a colectomy a week ago and was up and about. His nurse immediately called over to Florida Hospital Deland and requested a copy of the pathology report from the colon polyp removed and I learned that not only was it totally clean but that they had also removed some lymph nodes in the general vicinity and those too were clean. He went through all the material with respect to my particular case and confirmed that it was very early, not an aggressive form, and that it was very likely 100% contained in a small area of the prostate. He said that if it were more aggressive they would start with a hormonal treatment but no sense in going there based on the information to date. The treatment I elected and he felt was the best choice was the Image Guided Radiation Therapy. With this treatment, the next step is to have 4 pure gold pellets imbedded in the prostate at the locations they planned to nail. They looked to me like cylinders less than 1/10” long and a few mils in diameter. Due to the recent surgery, he put off having the targets implanted until Feb 22. That’s an out-patient job similar to the origiinal biopsy – uncomfortable but not painful. A week after those are in place, I get a CT scan and temporary external target points applied -like 4 small ink dots – in my pelvic area. These are used to optically line up the radiation equipment. At the first treatment, the temporary targets are replaced with permanent tattoo’s. From the CT information, they create a radiation plan which shapes the radiation pattern to be used. This shaping is done with small motors that move rods in and out different lengths so that the radiation is actually patterned to my specific internal positioning. So they have control of both the source position and intensity and can create virtually any kind of radiation pattern. With the machine grossly positioned by lasers on the tattoos, it does a fine adjustment using the internal gold pellet targets. All of this is to make sure the beams go directly where they want them and kill as few good cells as possible. That lessens side effects and makes the process more complete and effective. The treatments start a week later – so that puts me into the second week of March. The treatments will be 5 days a week for 8 weeks. A treatment lasts about 15 minutes, start to finish. No pain, just like a chest x-ray. He said some people have side affects after a couple of weeks – all very treatable – but with the patterned radiation and Image tracking, the effects are much less than even 2 years ago.

The equipment is Varian state of the art equipment. There are only 3 such pieces installed in Fla right now so it’s great that I have good access to it in Daytona. As a side note, John Richardson, Tina’s dad, was a chief engineer kind of guy at Varian who designed and developed the tubes for this type equipment. I know that means it technically perfect so, how come he elected surgery for his prostate treatment? It’s a 40 minute drive from the house to the treatment center or they have a shuttle that will pick me up in Deland about 15 minutes from the house. Nancy talked to the driver and there are usually 4 passengers so it means having to wait around the treatment center. I’ll play that by ear but the place is nice – big screen flat panel TV in the waiting area, coffee, tea, pastries etc. It was interesting to see the interaction of the other patients waiting for their turn in the equipment. Like a club – they all knew each other and seemed to be enjoying the time. Nobody moaning around or doing regular doctor office things. I can see catching up on my reading, big time.

just trying………….

Nancy and I love the smell and feel of clothes that have been dried on the line, the old fashioned way. As long as weather permits, we hang out instead of using the drier. A while back, Nancy was having an ache or a pain that made it difficult for her carry out the loaded wash basket so I took over that job. Every now and again I’d take off the dry clothes and put them in the basket. I was told that my method lacked a bit of sophistication and that the way I put things in the basket made her work more than if she removed them herself. I could have dropped it right then having been given an official exit path but I accepted the (corrective) criticsm and learned to fold the items as I took them off. I eventually graduated to where I was occasionally hanging out the wet clothes. It all seemed to me to be a no brainer – hang them up, the wind blows, they dry, remove them from the line. And it went along just fine until this weekend.

We always change out the linens when we are having house guests and this weekend Joanne and Edna were coming over. Nancy washed the clothes and loaded the basket; I took it out and started hanging the stuff. I knew she was busy inside scrubbing floors and stuff like that. I was just about finished when she came out and started taking down all the stuff I had hung and rehung it. I asked what that was all about and she said she couldn’t have Joanne and Edna see clothes hung the way I did it. Then to make it even nicer, she said it was ok if I hung the socks. So right on the spot I’m demoted from general clothes hanger one to junior sock hanger.

Somehow the clothes dried and to me they seemed just as dry with my method as with hers but ………………. We had a great weekend of doing nothing – a few vodka and grapefruits, some great food, and a big, big bass.

Pre-op Conference

On Tuesday I have surgery to remove a benign polyp from my colon. The procedure is called a transversal colectomy. I went today for a pre-op session which involved getting bloodwork, a general physical with an EKG, and a debriefing on what to expect. Glad I did this since I learned quite a bit. I check in at 6AM on Tuesday the 16th. The operation will take 2-2.5 hours, most of which is prep and cleanup. The plan is to try to remove the polyp laproscopically but there’s a reasonable chance that I’ll have to be opened up. The polyp was marked during the earlier colonoscopy and the location given to the surgeon but he said sometimes they can’t pinpoint the location too accurately and it requires a “search”. We’re talking a few centimeters. After the operation I go to a recovery area for a couple of hours and then to the ICU. I’ll be in ICU for one or two nights and then moved to a regular room. Total hospital stay 3-5 days is normal.

When I come out of the operation I’ll have several tubes including a catheter to drain my bladder, a regular arm kind of intravenous setup, a tube down my throat and one coming out of my nose. So no doubt it will look scary. The reason for the throat and nose is for drainage. Anything that goes into the stomach, even normal stomach acid needs to come out because they don’t want you to cough, retch or anything for a bit to protect the stitches. So it will look like something is wrong but it’s standard procedure. The catheter is so they keep track of my output exactly. They know what’s going in from the intravenous tube and what’s coming out from the catheter. We also went over pain management stuff so I’m guessing it will hurt a bit. They use a 0-10 scale and relate each number to a graphic facial expression. With a 0 the face is smiling; with a 5 the face is straight, no emotion showing; with a 10 the face is crying with tears. I’m a 4 kind of guy.

This was all good information since my expectation was to go in at 6AM and be home later that day. We told John Bachmann that we might hook up with him at Brian’s Barbecue for ribs on Wednesday so I might have felt a little panic if I woke up with all those tubes and being moved to ICU. As it is, I know that’s exactly what’s going to happen and it’s normal. I was told that I am very healthy (this procedure notwithstanding) – good lungs, heart etc – and my surgeon is the best there is. And I can forget about the ribs on Wednesday. I’m thinking the worst part of this whole thing is going to be the lousy food at Florida Hospital.

Interesting day

Yesterday was an interesting day. I was not looking forward to it because I had an important, potentially unpleasant, appointment scheduled with the doctor and I was starting to fall for the Ohio State hype. As it so happens, the day started on a strange, down note. My normal schedule is to walk up to get the papers, ours and May’s, about 8 AM. On Monday the trip includes bringing the trash barrel back to the house. I came back with the barrel and the papers, stopped across from May’s and walked to her porch where I drop off the paper. She came out and we chatted for a minute or two about how nice her Camellia’s were this year. I started back to the road when I saw billows of smoke pouring out from behind my shed. As I looked for the source of the smoke, our pump burst into flames. I mean flames that leaped maybe 2′ in the air. I rushed over and beat the fire down with the newspaper. The box that held the pressure switch and relay contacts was totally melted down to a charred mess. I ran to the breaker box to confirm that the well breaker had popped. We made a call to the closest well service and they were on site within an hour. The whole mess had to be replaced and totally rewired – about 3 hours of labor and parts – totaling $265. This was not the start for the day I was hoping for. I’m guessing somewhere in the charred ruins is a piece of characoal in the shape of a lizard or frog. And I know bad things happen in threes. That’s common knowledge isn’t it? So now I’m really not looking forward to the rest of the day.

The appointment with the doc was at 4 PM; the Gator game at 8. The appointment involved the doctor having a “look” at my bladder (you can imagine how that’s accomplished) and discussing the results of the blood work from before Christmas. The news was good. The bladder was clean and the blood showed that the cancer was not aggressive. He is quite confident that we caught it very early and that it’s treatable without extraordinary means and multiple therapies. We discussed treatments and more or less settled on a radiation technique called Intensity Modulated Radiation Treatment (IMRT). That’s an external beam treatment with short bursts of high intensity radiation. With the brand new equipment it’s further identified as Image Guided Radiation Treatment (IGRT). With this new equipment, they can narrow the beam and increase the dosage intensity because of the accuracy of the aiming. They get the image guiding by inserting pure gold “targets” directly in the prostate which the equipment locks onto before zapping. With the prior external beam technology, they put marks on your body and/or built up a mold that you wore during the treatment. But even then your prostate could move a few centimeters from treatment to treatment so it wasn’t possible to hit the spot exactly every time. With the guided tracking, that problem is eliminated. The course of treatments is 5 days a week for 7 weeks. It’s about the same as getting an x-ray at the dentist – totally painless and lasting a few seconds. The equipment is in Daytona so I either go there or to the office in Deland where they run shuttles back and forth to Daytona. I’m thinking that on days Nancy is playing bridge or at quilting, I’ll just do the shuttle. When she’s available we’ll go over and do lunch at one of our beach hangouts. At this time, we haven’t got a start date due to the surgery I have scheduled for the 16th. I’m hoping to get a meeting with the radiation people maybe still this week or the week following the surgery. So other than having the gold targets inserted, the rest of it should be a piece of cake. No doubt I’ll catch up on my reading while waiting for treatments every day. If you have more interest, http://www.atlanticurology.com has information on the Southeast Regional Prostate Cancer Treatment Center.

The game started on a down note for sure – the Gators down 7 points with less than a minute gone. The rest is history as the Gators took control and systematically destroyed Ohio State’s highly touted offense. The final of 41-14 was not really representative of the game since that opening kickoff return accounted for half Ohio State’s points and the Gator’s had another score bagged at the end but mercifully ran out the clock. So the Gators become the first NCAA team to win National Championships in both football and basketball in the same year. And for those who think Big 10 football is so great – note that both Michigan and Ohio State got whupped up on in the bowl games and Notre Dame was beat up badly by LSU. Speed wins. In all those cases the defenses were just too fast for the offenses and the bigger, slower team was just not able to deal with the speed of the game. That wasn’t a big surprise to me but how bad the Big 10 defense was, did surprise me. If Florida had a weakness all season, it was their offense. They only eked out small margins over their SEC opponents but completely dominated Ohio State. Ditto LSU – Notre Dame; ditto USC – Michigan. The receivers were just not covered at all. I’m guessing Keilbasa comes off the training table menu in the mid west.

otter update

raingauge checker

Went down to the lake and just as I approached the dock, there was a big plop-splash. Then I’m hearing what sounds halfway between a sneeze and a grunt. I knew it was the otter so I backed off so he couldn’t see me. Sure enough it came out from under the dock to the shoreline and climbed up on a palmetto trunk. But I noticed it seemed quite a bit smaller than I remember. I left it undisturbed and went back to the house to tell George. I’ve seen the otter many times but he’s never seen it and was doubting my sightings. A few minutes later he knocks at the door and said there wasn’t an otter – but rather 4 otters. I went down and sure enough there were 3 or 4 in sight including the one very large one and two small ones. They hung around for a while playing just off the dock and didn’t seem the least bit afraid of us watching. So I’m guessing we have a family thing now. Wonder how long before I hook one? Wonder if that will screw up the fishing? Will I have to pop a few with the pellet gun to preserve my realm? I just know things are not the same!

The picture is my new Mexican friend checking out my new rain gauge that Nancy got me for Christmas. He’s just a little guy so he was impressed by such a gigantic rain gauge. I can now sit in the living room and tell the rainfall instantly.

In case anybody was wondering, the tornadoes that struck Volusia County on Christmas day were about 10 miles from here. Coming north on 17 about 1/4 miles past WalMart is a Hess Station. That station was damaged but a couple of trailer parks within a few hundred yards of there were torn apart. The parks were old and full of very old, 50’s vintage trailers and I was always amazed that they came through all those hurricanes totally unscathed. I felt sorry for the folks living there because you know they are not well off yankees retired here but mostlypeople of limited means. At our place, not a twig out of place.

lake update

For the second time in a week we lost power. The first loss came midmorning when a trash pickup truck took the first corner too fast and knocked over the power pole. We were out for maybe 2 hours and it was interesting watching the Progress Energy guys quickly install a new pole. George got the broken pole and it’s now part of his estate. Late yesterday afternoon it went out again. This time it turned out to be a tree fell down over the same lines – maybe 200′ from the earlier event. We’ve lost power half a dozen times since we’ve lived here, excluding storm related outages, and all have happened in that exact same location. This time we were out nearly 4 hours.

So I decided it was a good time to do a dummy run on the generator. It worked like a world champ and we operated more or less normally until the power was restored about 8 PM. It was a bit marginal when Nancy decided to take a bath. That cranked up the well pump and dimmed the house a bit. I hadn’t anticipated that but the well is really out there. The circuit distance from the generator to the well is probably 350′ and I guess the voltage drop is a bit of a load. My plan now is to run another 12 gauge circuit from the generator to the house in parallel with the first. No rush but something I’ll do before next summer – that assumes I can get Mark back up in the attic for the last 50′.

Also new at the lake – started picking and squeezing the grapefruit. Really nice, sweet juice. I may be slightly prejudice but it seems to me to be the best I’ve ever had. I think the tree is the Marsh variety and nearly seedless. I’m guessing that this year we will have picked maybe 50 fruit from that tree – not bad for it’s first year. The two fruits on the Ruby Red are still looking greenish so I’ll wait a while for those to ripen.

Fishing has been pretty good off the dock. Over the past few weeks I’ve caught two or three over 5 pounds and quite a few smaller than that. Lost one quite a bit bigger but didn’t get to see him. Yesterday I caught one that I’d previously landed. How do I know that? Well this guy had swallowed the bait and had the hook way down his throat. So rather than kill it, I just cut the line off. I wasn’t sure exactly how that would end but when I caught him yesterday there was no sign of the hook but the line was still hanging out his mouth. I clipped it off much shorter and hopefully, he’ll deal with it. For sure it hadn’t curbed his appetite and he certainly looked and acted healthy. I started comparing my fishing success with the posted minors and majors (fish activity levels) in the paper and, believe it or not, I have seen a reasonable correlation. I never really paid much attention to those periods since the times I fished were nominally decided by things like the weather and work schedule and not moon phases or whatever drives those charts.

To add to the fishing lore, we were down the dock with the Sheroniks. I had cast a small bream on a bobber into a promising area but after 20 minutes or so, nothing. I had to leave to grill some wings for lunch and left Ali “in charge” with instructions just to crank the handle if and when the bobber went under. An hour later we were sitting around the table gnawing on wings and Ali told us that he had left the bait in the water but was sure nothing would bite it since it had been in there so long with no action. I kidded him about some monster gobbling it and running off with my rig. Aaron and I went down to the lake and sure enough there was no float in sight and the line led off into the tall grass. I tried to pull it through the weeds but it was hopelessly tangled up. About that time a nice bass splashed out about a 150′ away inside a weed patch. It had the float attached so we knew it was our fish. Aaron quickly stripped down to his boxers, hopped in a kayak, took the net and headed to the fish. Believe it or not, he managed to land it! An ownership discussion ensued. I had baited the hook and cast the line so clearly I had some piece of the prize. Aaron had risked life and limb to make the final capture so no doubt he was entitled to another piece. But Ali, who had actually not touched the rod, seemed to think he should share in the glory based on the fact that he was the one who had watched it for so long when nothing was happening and had made the management decision to leave it in the water rather than reel it back in. Once again, being chairman of the rules committee paid off. Aaron and I split the honors and Ali is up for disbarment based on dereliction of duty.

On the wildlife side, still seeing the otter occasionally. I’m fairly well convinced there’s only one but he sure is a giant. If I hadn’t seen it up close and personal, it could be easily mistaken for a seal. And a family of Grebes have moved in. I love to watch them dive for fish and a couple of times have reeled in my bait when they got too close. Between them and the anhingas, I’m seeing more fishing birds than ever before. I just know that one of these days my float is going to take a dive and end up flying away. No gator sightings so I’m nominally convinced now that it’s history.

New at the lake

Some interesting changes at the lake.

We now have a resident otter, that is if sightings three days in a row makes it a resident. I caught a fleeting glance of it a few days back and was surprised at how close and how large it was. It split as soon as it spotted me and I never got another look at it. The next day I saw it swimming casually about 20′ off George’s dock and heading my way. It just liesurely swam towards me, right in front of our dock and looked me square in the eyes as he went off into the weeds off to the side of the dock. No rush, no sign of fear. I saw him poke his head up today in the weeds underneath that tree off to the right side of the dock. It’s possible I’ve seen more than one but my guess is it’s the same one each time. I saw otters in the lake maybe 4 years ago but this is the first time since.

The giant woodpeckers are back too. They must be migratory since it’s been quite a while since the last sighting and now they’re back. They really make a loud, raucous sound so there’s no mistaking when they’re here. When they attack a tree, bark just flies off and you can hear it hitting the bushes.

And the shiners are back at the dock. Last week and for the past year, none. Today for the first time when I threw out the feed, there they were again. I caught one that must have weighed a pound. Way too big for bait. Not sure what the deal is with them. We always had quite a large number around and then none. The fact that they are back means they actually never left but went somewhere else to hang. The water levels are way down as is the water temp so maybe that combination brings them back to the shoreline. I wonder if there’s a hook between the return of the shiners and the appearance of the otter. I would guess that a big fat shiner would he high up the list of otter favorites.

And the big surprise, my Ruby Red grapefruits arn’t. I’ve been watching the skin gradually ripen from green to yellow and mentally picturing the bright red flesh inside. Visions of Greyhounds and Salty Dogs for my drinking friends. Wrong, they’re white. I still have the original tag on the tree and it sure says Ruby Red. So either that was a mistake or they don’t turn red until wait later or maybe, since this is the first crop, it takes a couple of years. My guess is that it was tagged wrong. Actually we have two grapefruit trees which I purchased as a red and a white and I confess that I moved both of these trees from their original location. So it’s not impossible that somehow I got them mixed up. I mean how can you screw up two trees. There are two grapefruit on the other one so I’ll know soon enough. And the Greyhounds and Salty dogs couldn’t care less.

And for the record, no gator sightings since that one months ago. Either that little fellow went on back to Cain Lake or he’s been converted into a wallet and Gator Tenders.

And my last observation – it takes about 5 seconds for a big bass to grab my bait, run under the dock to the second piling, hang a left and get to the brush on the right side of the dock. I have broken off 3 rigs in the past week but it’s just impossible to stop them before they have me totally wrapped up around the ladder or the pilings or both.

Happy birthday Nancy

Saturday was another great day. We went to Cocoa to celebrate Nancy’s birthday. Joey and Mark had given us show tickets to a live performance of the Christmas Carol followed by dinner. I wasn’t all that thrilled about seeing a bunch of local Cocoa kids doing there rendition of a show I’d seem maybe 8 million times before. To be honest, I wouldn’t have been too thrilled to see the Christmas Carol by a full Broadway cast. But Nancy was hyped and of course it was her birthday present. I also wasn’t too excited about the choice for a restaurant. It was one of those dress-up kind of places where the waiters wear black and have white towels over their arms; speak with an accent (not southern); and have names like Andre’. I know they won’t have mac and cheese as a side for the meatloaf, blackened grouper, or buffalo shrimp sandwiches – instead there will be micro portions of who knows what covered with sauce.

I admit it, I was wrong all around. While we were waiting outside the theatre I was struck by the fact that the last time I had been in this theatre was very close to 50 years ago. Not sure if I was a junior or a senior in High School but most likely it was in 1956. Standing in line I wondered if we had seats in the balcony. We weren’t allowed in the balcony in 1956 – that was reserved for blacks – and all of us white teenagers wanted badly to sit in the balcony. The theatre was restored very nicely. I remember it being a bit seedy but now it was almost “elegant” and had that old classic theatre look. Certainly not as nice as the Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake but for sure a nice facility. It turned out that the production was a musical and I prefer musicals in general so that was an uptick. It wasn’t Broadway but it was well above high school level and enjoyable. The sets and costumes were surprisingly good with people flying overhead in one scene. I was also surprised that it had a small, live orchestra. Most small time musicals use a recording setup for the music but this was the real thing. All in all, an enjoyable production.

We were about a half hour away from our dinner reservations so we squeezed in a wine tasting at Murdock’s new gourmet shop. Joey plans to use this shop to cater his new dinner cruises so we had to pass judgement on that and it was thoughtful of him to arrange a wine tasting. Nancy and I picked up a basket load of sauces, pastas, and condiments that sounded exotic. One I remember was a spicy, chipolte barbecue sauce. It was all on the pricey side but specialty stuff that you just wanted to try. Off to the restaurant.

The restaurant was as elegant as I expected. Most impressive was the 10 page wine list which Joey scrutinized with due diligence and the right murmers. When the wine waiter came by, they had a small discussion about which side of the vinyard in a particular field in a certain valley produced the perfect grape and the somnelier agreed with Joey’s selection as pure genius. Fred, move over. Oh, the wine guy’s name was Andre’ and he had the required south Bronx French accent. Another waitress brought the main menu and described the specials. Joey and I opted for the special which was a “melange” of fish – blackened grouper, Salmon, and Mahi mahi – each with a different sauce. Nancy went for the Long Island Duckling; Mark had filet tips over pasta. We started with a tomato bisque soup which turned out to be the best tomato bisque soup I’ve ever had. Even if it was the only tomato bisque I’ve ever had, it ranked high as one of the best soups I’ve ever had. It was brought to us, as was the salad, by another waiter. I think the entree was brought by yet another. I was wrong, wrong, wrong about the portions. It was a struggle to finish all the food, a very small dab of mashed potatos, and three really nice size pieces of fish. We managed to finish but honestly I couldn’t have handled one more bite and Nancy actually left some of the duck. They brought around great looking desserts but we couldn’t have even split one four ways.

We had a great day.