Our Summer in Cleveland

John's day in the "Man Cave"


Dinner on Sunday night—another reunion get-together—with Candy and her husband, Michael, Dave and Dozie and Spike . Candy and Michael live in a beautiful old subdivision in Cleveland Heights—Amblerside. They bought the childhood home of one of their school mates and have lived there for 31 years. Another grand old Cleveland home. It was a lovely evening…
As we left, Candy gave us a huge package of fresh trout that Michael had just caught. I asked if it was filleted, not wanting to deal with cleaning out fish guts and she assured me that it was. Having never cooked trout, I spent some time finding some wonderful recipes for trout filets. Time to prep for dinner and I had picked a lovely recipe- chopped pecans, bread crumbs, rosemary, parsley—a simple baked trout. I got the pecans chopped and the spices mixed up—then pulled the fish from the refrigerator. I took it out and gasped—it wasn’t lovely trout filets….but 2 huge trout—complete with head and bulging eyes. Never fear, the internet was there with a step-by-step guide to butterflying a trout, complete with photos. After cleaning out the left-over guts (just a bit of blood and gook) and chopping off the head, I was feeling like a pioneer woman. John walked me through the knife cuts. I did so well with the first backbone cuts—and voila, the backbone was removed. (Well, not exactly “voila”—it took me about ½ hour to just get this far). Then, there were still two remaining rows of bones to be removed. We tried to understand the photos and directions—to cleanly cut the bones out- I ended up pulling them out, one at a time, swearing and cursing the damned fish. At this point, I made a vow NEVER to buy a whole fish again- I will pay any amount of money to get them without head, tail, fins and skin!




Dinner with Candy and Michael's house

When we had dinner the other night with Jeff and Booty, her brother-in-law was talking about his hobby-pet portraits.. He casually suggested that I send him a few photos of Chloe....and a few weeks later, he called to present us with this amazing water color/oil (he uses a bit of both, I think). He captured her expression so perfectly--it's eerie!

We went to Sal's house a few times this summer. Her house is stunning. When you walked in, you passed through an entryway and then onto the large open plan kitchen, dining room, living room and huge deck overlooking Lake Erie. The lake is part of the Great Lakes chain--so it looks more like being on an ocean or sea. She's got a small private beach in front of her house and a huge-wrap around deck. She added a second floor --her master bedroom--with floor to ceiling windows looking out at the lake. Then, in the basement, she took the old boat house and made a "theater".

4th of July at Sal's

An evening with Dan and Marge Jeff and Bootie at Wendy Island. What a great location—a bit like the Freezer! Made us feel like home.

A wonderful evening with Jim and Frannie, their daughter and granddaughter and Jeff and Bootie. The meal was amazing—thanks to the culinary skills of their daughter.

Jim's Norton

University School 50th Reunion

The University School Reunion
Friday Night - Dinner at the Herbrucks

Saturday - Lunch in Hudson with the "A" Team

Sunday Night- Dinner with Jeff and Booty, Rich and Lani

Finn

A New Refrigerator!

The Cajuns left on Saturday morning and we discovered that our refrigerator was not cooling! We cleared out the freezer section and put the food into our basement freezer and made a quick trip to my Mom's house to pick up a small apartment sized refrigerator. We limped along with for 2 weeks while we waited to get our new refrigerator in stock.

It was a mere $3600 for the refrigerator (just replacing what we have with the latest model)--and another $600+ for the installation. They had to take out either a side window or the front windshield to get the old one out and the new one in! What a ripoff these motorhome products are! I looked into getting a residential refrigerator--which would mean going from 13.5 Cubic feet to over 20! But, it would mean adding two house batteries, a new inverter and probably cabinet modification. And, we do hate inverters--so we decided to just go with what we have.

It was nail biting to watch the mechanics take out the old and put in the new refrigerator. We were lucky to be able to get the units through the side window (it was a matter of inches!)

Winter in Florida

Winter in Florida...it's great to be close to my Mom and our favorite bar (and our "home away from home"), The Freezer. Every Sunday, we'd all head over in the afternoon to have wings and shrimp and a few glasses of wine. The staff there has become like family to us and we have met the most interesting patrons- people from all over the country come to see this amazing establishment. It is truly our favorite bar in the entire world!!

The Cajuns invade Crystal River!

Things here are quiet now that the Cajun invasion has departed. John and Brenda arrived on Thursday (with Alton and Coochie, another Cajun couple). We got them settled into their sites here at Rock Crusher and then took off (with both Chloe and Jacque- Alton and Coochie's shitz-tzu) for the Freezer. They absolutely loved it!

The next day, we took off for Tarpon Springs! It was a lovely day--just walking by the docks, hitting the shops and having a Greek lunch. We went to a restaurant with outdoor dining and the service was awful. Took absolutely forever to get service.....

Then, to make matter worse, we went out to Neon Leon's that night. It was a major risk-taking Cajun's to a Cajun restaurant, but we thought we'd give it a try. The place was absolutely packed and the entertainment made conversation a bit difficult. I requested "Big Butt Woman"--and they didn't know it, but said they could "google" it--and within a few minutes, they were playing the song- especially for our table. The Cajuns were thrilled. We weren't as thrilled with the service--it took over an hour to get our food!! Brenda asked our poor waitress if the chef had died...and John was giving her a hard time about the "teeny peenies" (the Pinot grigio's were in microscopic glasses...). Then, to top if off, the Jambalaya had red beans in it...a major no-no in Cajun cuisine...no beans in the jambalaya!! Even with the teeny peenies and the horrendous wait, we had a great time.

On Saturday morning, bid farewell to the Cajuns who were on their way to St Augustine on the east coast of Florida.

The Cruisin Cajun Birthday Rally in Rayne

It's hard to believe...but it's time to eat again...first the Cajun breakfast (eggs, grits and 2 biscuits!!), then lunch with Brenda and "the girls", and now, time for dinner....shrimp and grits, salad, grilled veggies, garlic bread and pumpkin roll

It's been great to see everyone. They’ve all been amused hearing about our adventures with the crippled slide and drunken hot tub parties. There's nothing quite like 4 days at John's Shed followed by 3 days of Rallying.... Fortunately, we only have a 5 hours drive on Sunday--we're going to stay in Mobile, so with any luck, we can catch an afternoon nap when we get to the campground.

Lunch at Huey and Katie's!!!! Unbelievably good!!

Memphis, at last

I had way too many airline bottles of cheap red wine last night- but we got up at 6 AM the next day and got on the road to Memphis. It was a 10 hour drive, but we were bound and determined to get as far south as we could. We arrived to sunny 70 degree weather and beautiful views of the Mississippi. Heavenly....and the slider worked, the jacks went down, and so far, everything is running great.

Our neighbor had one of the most innovative ways to tow his truck and boat back to Wisconsin!

We decided to spend the week here..just enjoying the river. We got our absentee ballots mailed for the election on Tuesday, the 2nd—not that it really made much of a difference. Instead of watching the election results, we put in a movie….just too depressing for words.