Another one bites the dust

MKG with ill-fated ivy covered historic stable on "Little" Summer Street.

There are some phrases you just don't want to see in the morning before you have had an adequate amount of coffee.

One is "pregnant sea dragon." Yahoo flung that one at me while I was trying to check my email. They like to brief you on weird world events, and one today concerned a pregnant sea dragon, which really isn't an image I want in my head, at least not this time of day.

Another is "emergency demolition." That was in the paper, which I read when, head still spinning over the pregnant sea dragon, I went out on the porch to drink my coffee.

I should not be writing the biography of Leonard Pennario. I should be in the demolition business. I would be like Warren Buffett! Here in Buffalo, anyone in the demolition business surely has as much work as he or she can handle.

The latest is we're losing that horse stable on Jersey. It was, er, not stable. We say the owner is unstable. Wow, this is like Shakespeare! You could go on forever like this.

Photo courtesy of BuffaloRising.com

But I don't want to joke. This loss makes me mad. I spent so many pleasant afternoons in the shadow of this stable's sky-high brick walls. My friend Peggy Farrell, the jazz singer, lives behind it on "Little" Summer Street. We would sit on her patio, and just admire that brick-wall, ivy-covered, age-old. And the front of the place was so lovely, and whimsical, too, for such a massive edifice. I should ask Pennario about it. He grew up in that neighborhood. I'll bet he remembers it. It would have been old when he was a kid.

Why do we have to lose everything??? This case is especially discouraging because the people who owned this place and let it run down aren't absentee landlords. They are prominent local citizens. This stable fell down in plain sight.

Appropriately enough, today is the feast of St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost objects.

I wonder who is the patron saint of pregnant sea dragons.

My husband, the motorhead

MKG welcoming visitors to Tonawanda.

I was so proud today to see Howard weighing in on the Buffalo News blog site about the drag racing -- or street racing, more accurately -- incident. He is right in saying that being from Tonawanda he has knowledge of motorhead matters. Amen, I say.

Once when I had been going out with Howard about two months, I had car trouble. My car just started making this noise. I immediately detoured to Howard's Tonawanda childhood home, where his mother was still living. I pulled the car into his driveway.

The original Goldman Motor's Tonawanda location.

Immediately the lights to the garage went on. Suddenly this quiet Tonawanda street looked like Transit Road. Then Howard came out of the garage, dragging things, all kinds of coils and hoses and chains and whatnot. These people from Tonawanda know this stuff. They are a different breed from the rest of us. It is a miracle now to think how in the world we can balance each other, Howard with his knowledge of radiators and air filters and me going around all day thinking of nothing but Leonard Pennario and William Kapell. But I guess that is one of the mysteries of life.

This is a secret: Howard and I went street racing once.

Bolts Dancing photo by HG

A few months ago we had that tragic incident when someone died after text-messaging on a cell phone while driving. The point was made: It's illegal to talk on a cell phone, but why isn't illegal to text-message?

I want to scream when I see these knee-jerk law proposals.

It's horrible when you lose someone in an accident. I know what that's like. But accidents are always going to happen. You can go only so far to protect people against themselves. About these driving laws: While you're driving, is it illegal to eat a three-course meal from Oliver's? Is it illegal to look someone up in the phone book? Is it illegal to take out your Latin missal and work on memorizing the Credo? I have the urge to do that, sometimes, in heavy traffic.

Long story short: Is it illegal to be dumb? If we continue on the road we're on, that's where we're headed.

Let's step on the gas, and see if we can get there first.

A river runs through it

Summer has sneaked up on me and now it is like being on a different planet.

Don't ask me why, but I have this refrigerator in my basement. Yesterday, I went down there to get my laundry and there's this funny smell. The fridge has spewed all this water all over the floor. Ugh! Double ugh! You have to wade through it to get to the washing machine.

What in the world?? Why do I even have this fridge? I should get rid of it. I have dim recollections of my sister Katie's husband David moving it in once upon a time. Typical Buffalo transaction: "We found this fridge somewhere, it works, do you want it?" "Sure, OK." Now it's here, it's queer, get used to it.

My saga with this fridge has not been easy. Once I had electricians here updating electrical outlets and stuff. I guess they did some good, but one thing they did that was not good was they unplugged this fridge, and they never plugged it back in, and at the time I was keeping stuff in the freezer, so... you guessed it, yecch. Double yecch! That was one of those times that when I discovered the problem, I just grimly started cleaning up. I read in the paper today about that Grand Island couple who used to own a restaurant in New Orleans and had to clean it up after Katrina. And I thought: I know what they're talking about!

Another story involving this fridge dates to our October Surprise storm. I was taking stuff out of it, trying to figure out what could be saved, and I was doing this by candlelight, because we had no power for a week. In the middle of this task my cell phone rang. (My land line was out, too.) And it was this pianist on the phone, Peter Nero. He had been at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and I had written something about him.

The funny thing was, I am not exactly friends with Mr. Nero. It was not as if I was used to him calling me on my cell. He must have gotten my cell number from the BPO. Which was fine, but it was also surreal, to be standing there in this unbelievable situation, like out of a Hitchcock movie, trying to light candles and salvage food and suddenly saying, "Oh, Mr. Nero, hello."

"It's Peter," Mr. Nero said. He is an extremely nice man as well as a fine pianist. "How are you?" he asked.

Any Buffalonian knows we get situations here you cannot put into words. So I didn't try.

"Fine," I said.

But I appreciated the weirdness of the situation. We went on talking, and it turned out that Peter Nero wanted my OK to include part of what I had written in an ad he was running. I said sure. As we talked, I came up from the basement and began roaming around the house, taking care of business. Howard and I were staying at his garage in Black Rock, so I was trying to find clothes I could wear the next day. I was putting candles into the front window in hopes that the house would look occupied and no one would break in. I was trying to find flashlights and matches. And all this time I was gabbing with Peter Nero, talking about concerts, this and that -- I told you he was a nice guy. I never mentioned the storm. I didn't know where to start.

Howard's garage bunker during the "October surprise" blackout.

All this drama, and I never would have started remembering it today were it not for my basement fridge!

Maybe I should keep it after all.

Blowin' in the wind

MKG is not green at being green.

This whole "green" thing, I don't quite understand it. What is new about this? Haven't we been trying forever to recycle, save energy and be nice to the planet? I have been doing that since high school. Was I the only one? Is everyone else just starting?

It's just the same old thing in a new package, is all I can think. And it's annoying. It's as if all my efforts -- taking the subway instead of driving, canning my own tomatoes, cooking dried beans instead of canned, supporting local farmers, buying used clothes, walking, obsessively recycling, roasting my own granola instead of buying packaged cereal -- are being ignored. I have even been known to mow the lawn with a hand mower! How many other people do that?

MKG tinkering in the shop with one of her carbon footprint experiments.

Oh well. That doesn't stop Howard and me from reducing our carbon footprint -- there's another new buzzword for you -- still further. As a matter of fact, it is now officially invisible. Good luck finding our carbon footprint. It is not anywhere.

We have discovered new technology which has allowed us to retire our window air conditioner. This new technology is quieter, more pleasant and much easier on the environment. It is ingenious technology, taking advantage of the fragrant, natural air outside. And if the air doesn't always smell that great, what with the zoo up-wind from us, that's OK too. Dung is a natural product. It is good for the environment.

Our new technology is an electric fan.

It's square, and it sits in the window, and it has a price tag on it, too, that says $5. I bought it at a garage sale last year or sometime, I forget. So I didn't even support whatever sweatshop the device originally came from. And because my mom was with me, I probably didn't even pay $5. My guess is she talked it down.

You cannot beat this thing!

It whirs throughout the night, creating a gentle white noise that makes it easy to sleep. Are you still allowed to write "white noise"? I am constantly being made aware that this or that phrase is politically incorrect. The scent of roses drifts up to the window. That is more cutting-edge energy-saving technology we have developed -- rosebushes that function as an organic security system. Creeps can't crawl in our front windows or the thorns will gore them to within an inch of their lives.

What about Al Gore? Him, too.

Anyway, Howard and I stand around every morning congratulating ourselves on how clever we are, with our electric fan. Lastnight with the winds and the thunderstorms it went berserk.

It helps make up for all the hot air we've been feeling these days.

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In my wildest dreams

Howard went to Kmart yesterday to buy curtains for Big Blue. Last week he restored one of the glass windows that used to be boarded up and now it is time to put curtains on it.

At the rate we are going the house is scheduled to be completed by June 13, 2056.

But that's OK, because we will always have Kmart. The Kmart near us has survived all kinds of Kmart downsizings, including the legendary purge that happened three years ago or something that took out the Kmart that was across the street from the Broadway Market. Our Kmart is great. It is an urban Kmart, near the corner of Elmwood and Hertel -- a great slug atmosphere, with kids screaming and parents swearing. The plants are kind of bedraggled, though I admit I have bought them. The store also carries Martha Stewart items, hilarious in such a setting.

Here are a few other urban stores that I love.

1. Lorigo's Meating Place. Under certain circumstances. This tiny food store is wedged onto Grant Street next to the Wilson Farms, near the M&T Bank. They have cheap pies that my brother George loves and they also have Fleischmann's Yeast at $2.15 a pound, if I remember correctly. But you cannot, cannot go there when the kids get out of school. It is just too little and crowded and you will go crazy when you are stuck behind 50 kids buying candy.

2. Caruso's on Hertel. A fine port in the storm when a blizzard is blowing in and you need Parmesan cheese and a squash or something.

3. Frontier Liquor. I love the baskets of marked-down wine at the front of the store.

4. The dollar store at the Main Place Mall. Has anyone else ever been here? Such an atmosphere! Narrow aisles, all full of Rain Bonnets, scarves, umbrellas, pads of stationery, kitchen stuff, cheap pens, what have you. Most memorable item I bought here: two headbands that Howard and I both use to keep our ears warm when we go cross-country skiing.

5. The Antique Lamp store on Hertel. Amazing, a store devoted to antique lamps.

6. The spice store in the Broadway Market. It took over the space where a little drugstore/herb place used to be, and you can now get all these herb teas and mysterious remedies as well as hippie food like kasha, sea salt and smoked paprika.

7. The mighty Amvets at the corner of Elmwood and Hertel.

8. The mighty St. Vincent de Paul at the corner of Main and Riley, is it? Everytime I go here I find something. I have a frequent shopper's card and they actually think to ask me for it.

9. Budway's, on Kenmore. Today when I walked in they were playing the Moody Blues' "In My Wildest Dreams." I had just been joking about that song with my brother George not two days ago! I had been saying, you never hear that song anymore. And we were laughing and singing it. Then I walk in today and I'm picking out broccoli crowns for my mom (98 cents a pound, such a deal) and I hear it. I couldn't believe it. There was this guy yakking on a cell phone and I had to get away from him and walk over to a speaker just to make sure. Yep, there it was. "In My Wildest Dreams." How about that?

10. Classic corner store at the corner of West Delavan and Baynes. I used to live right near there and go to that store all the time. I wonder if they still have that classic wooden floor.

Why would anyone shop in the suburbs?

I cover the waterfront

Joe. (honest)

Yikes! I am posting so late today! Thanks, everyone, for not giving up on me. I have a confession to make. I went to the beach.

I have been working and working and working on my book and it has occurred to me recently that I am missing the seasons. I was in California over Christmas and it was 75 degrees and sunny. That is not good for a person. Next, when I came home, I worked on the book all through spring. The tulips came up and I did not even notice.

So today I was sitting there working on my chapter about Leonard Pennario in Tanglewood and my friend Gary called me and said if I wanted to go to Sunset Bay he would pick me up in 15 minutes. I had all this work to do. I was going to finish the Tanglewood chapter and start a new chapter and use the Internet to track down two more musicians I wanted to find to talk to for the book. Then I was going to go run some errands, mostly to buy oatmeal for Howard and spray for the apple tree.

"I'm sorry," I told Gary. "I am going to stay home to work."

Yeah, right! What I really told him was, "OK, I'll be ready in 15 minutes."

That was something like one o'clock. Now it is after nine. The whole day, shot, because I was lying around on the beach drinking gin and tonics and watching my fellow beachgoers having chicken fights. And glorying in my tan. I have the best tan, from going so much to San Diego.

While I was at the beach I got into an argument with Gary's and my friend Joe over Barack Obama. I know you're not supposed to talk politics but sometimes I can't help it.

Joe loves Obama. "I've read all his books," he said.

"Barack Obama has written books?" I said.

"Yes, he has," Joe said.

"About what?" I said.

And Joe gave me a title, something about... about... I forget what. If the book had been about a concert pianist, I would remember it. But it wasn't.

I told Joe that the campaign would be really interesting because I am sure, as Howard is too, that either some weird thing is going to come out about Barack Obama, or else Michelle Obama is going to say something or do something to blow it. That woman is clearly an accident waiting to happen. As was Teresa Heinz Kerry. Remember her? She was always playing with her hair and looking and acting crazy. I sense Michelle Obama is the same way.

Joe and I were able to go back and forth about this for about a minute and a half before we decided we had better buy each other another drink and drop the subject. I am used to that. That is life as a conservative in Buffalo.

But really, I know Michelle Obama is going to blow it.

I wish I could buy her a gin and tonic, just to get her going.

Low hanging fruit

MKG cultivating organic fruit and looking very non-Republican.

I am not a Democrat but I am finding all this Hillary/Barack business tremendously entertaining. There was one moment I especially loved, watching the two of them "debating" a couple of months ago. Hillary had just answered a question, sort of. Then she said, without pausing, "And any time you want to ask HIM the hard question before you ask me, that's fine with me. You always ask me the hard questions first."

She said something like that, anyway. For a second, I actually liked Hillary. I liked that she felt so free to bitch, to sound like someone's disgruntled coworker.

But these days, as the contest between HRC and BHO reaches its ugly denouement, one thing puzzles me. That is the way everyone is going on about what Hillary is going to be doing now that she will be out of the race.

What do they mean, what will she be doing?

Won't she just disappear, like John Kerry?

Remember John Kerry? I know, it's tough. But he just vanished. One day, he was everywhere, the next, he was nowhere. Al Gore would have disappeared, too, had not he discovered that second career making science fiction movies.

Speaking of science fiction reminds me of my garden. I have been working in it faithfully. I am like someone out of the Old Testament, pulling up bishop's weed. I found three rosebushes under the bishop's weed! And a sage plant, complete with purple flowers. And my thyme and oregano. I knew they were in there, somewhere!

My garden still looks like hell, don't get me wrong. I cannot walk out the door without being overwhelmed with shame. I tell myself: You cannot write the biography of a great concert pianist, work a full-time job and have a good-looking garden, too. But still I cringe.

On the bright side Howard is spraying the apple tree today! He is the keeper of the apple tree.

Perhaps we should save some of that tree spray for those politicians and see if they bear fruit.

Revved up

MKG poses with her Republican-econobox.

What with the soaring gas prices, I am thinking it is time to buy a bigger car.

Maybe it's time to buy an SUV. I never liked them. I think they're ugly. But I hear you can get great deals these days. Say I saved $20,000 on a $60,000 slightly used Intimidator, or whatever they're called. That means with the $20,000 I saved, I could get 5,000 gallons of free gas. Such a deal!

When shopping for a new car, seek the advice of a professional driver like Buffalo cab-driver Ron Moss.

With the amount of driving I do, I would use only 50 gallons every two weeks, tops. Which means my free gas allotment would last me two years. That is cheaper than buying a Prius! Plus I know, you know, we all know that gas is going to come down. When it does, I can sell the SUV for what I paid for it, or pretty close to it. Or maybe more.

MKG recovering her stolen Buick on Lemon Street.

Meanwhile all those Prius owners will be dumping their out-of-fashion Priuses like last year's padded shoulders when they have to buy a new $5,000 battery. What is with those batteries? They cost more than a whole engine! I must pause to point out that every appliance I ever bought that needs batteries has been a ripoff. Think of those tears on Christmas mornings when you were a kid. Also, my Water-Pik kicked a few days ago -- after what, a month of use? Already I have had to buy a new one. Let that be a lesson.

Hmmm, maybe I'll buy a Hummer. They are closing the plant. They can't give them away. They have been humming a different tune.

Now, I am, too!

Yes-we-can open a can of can-do.

Wow, my muscles ache today, from yesterday's weeding session. And that was just the beginning. I have such a distance to go. I am such a loser in the garden.

But I have to admit I am high on my progress so far. The average person passing my house would not be able to tell that anything has been done, but I can. Now I am dreaming big. I am thinking maybe I will be able to work in a couple of unobtrusive tomato plants. That will be my antidote to the "skyrocketing" food prices.

I am very tired of hearing about these food prices and the stupid things people are apparently doing to cope, i.e., eating Spam and ketchup and mac and cheese. For one thing, the prices are not THAT bad. This is not the Great Depression. For another, um, can't anyone else out there cook? Am I the only one in the world who likes to come home from work, tie on an apron, pour a glass of wine and start chopping onions?

While I was in California I stooped to reading USA Today because that's what the Holiday Inn served up with breakfast. One story in the Life section killed me. It was a big story about these "skyrocketing" food prices. They zeroed in on one yuppie couple's hardships, chief of which seemed to be that the couple could no longer go out to dinner every night.

"Jack and Jill Jerk (I can't remember their real names) get ready for another dinner at home," read the caption to a big photo. It showed the wife putting salads on the table while her husband, in the background, opened the fridge. Both of them had bitchy, nasty looks on their faces.

That is such a trash attitude!

I love eating at home. It is one of life's supreme pleasures. Here are a few things, right off the top of my head, you can make with almost no money.

You can make chili with good old pinto beans, maybe a pound of ground beef or ground turkey. I like topping it with cornmeal dumplings. I know, people blah blah blah about corn going up because of ethanol, but you know what? That big bag of cornmeal still doesn't cost you that much, and you can get tons of meals out of it.

Photo by BuffaloBloviator.com

Chicken usually still hovers at not much more than a dollar a pound. Look around and you can get it for less. My favorite comfort food dinner -- I made this for my mom yesterday -- is chicken pieces in a pot with carrots and greens. Greens are a bargain vegetable. I paid $1 a bunch for collards and turnip greens. That was at the supermarket. In a little while you'll be able to find them for less at farmers' markets.

Make a fish chowder with mussels and those end pieces of catfish you can pick up cheap at the Tops fish counter. If you call it bouillabaisse, you will also have an excuse to use up a bit of orange rind, which you'd otherwise throw out.

These people who complain that they have to have another dinner at home should be given something to cry about.

Go on, start chopping those onions.

Woman vs. Weeds

Mike.

Instead of going to the gym today, or walking around the park, I went outside to pull up some weeds. What a sight the garden was! Incredible!

In Buffalo we learn to make lemonade when life hands us lemons. That's what makes us think of having a Comedy Hall of Fame -- which I really think we should have, Buffalo being the butt of so many jokes, but of course we'll never get around to it -- a Weather Museum, and whatnot. Anyway, I humbly offer my front yard as the Museum of Invasive Weeds.

You name it, I've got it! Bishop's weed, yarrow (it's pretty but I completely regret ever having introduced it into my garden), lamb's ear (ditto) and these long spiky things with weedy looking yellow flowers on top of the stalks.

I labored for about 45 minutes, with every clod in Buffalo driving past with car stereo blaring. It got easier, actually. The first weed is the hardest weed, as the Grateful Dead sang, or something to that effect. The toughest part of today's task was walking out to the garden and looking at it.

Now I feel a great sense of accomplishment. Don't get me wrong: My garden still looks like an untamed nature preserve. But I got a little exercise -- badly needed because in California I was back on the Leonard Pennario steak and ice cream diet. If I order a salad Pennario mocks me out. So I tend to eat what he eats.

I did get a little exercise in San Diego swimming in the pool at the Holiday Inn. One day Mike swam with me. He wore his Speedos. You remember when I blogged about the Speedos. But I never lost an ounce thanks to swimming. I can swim a hundred laps and not get the least bit tired or winded. It is an exercise that never worked for me.

Not like gardening.

I'm ready just to lie down in the weeds!

Remember the Alamo

I love how when I am out of state, my art director slacks off. Howard has posted only one picture on my blog since I left. He is working round the clock on Big Blue. He is making hay while the sun shines.

[Editor's note: Ok. I added a few pictures.]

Rather than jumping out of a window when MKG left town, I decided to rehab this one with a nice view of City Hall

I went down to the "parts department" coal ash pile to see what I could find that may be useful.

Perfect!

I also found this cool milk bottle that says "Buffalo".

I always wear my coal mining headlight when I dig through the "parts department".

The neon sign visible from my workshop is the New Era Cap entrance.

I hastily mix home-made historic paint formula as the Dulski's can be seen making progress on their project across the street. Mrs. Dulski must be out of town too.

...

The finished sashes. The white-wall effect is my home-brew glazing compound made from chalk power, mineral oil, and boiled linseed oil. The wooden sashes are sealed in linseed oil.

...

The finished window. Who will get all of their glass up first?

Now we can keep an eye on City Hall.

Jackie Jocko took this picture of me at the after-party.

Well, Howard, heads up, because as of tonight, the Wife is back.

In a couple of minutes I have to go return my rental car. My company this time around was Alamo. I forgot to book my car until the last minute before I left, and to my horror, my old standby -- Enterprise -- was all out of vehicles. How insulting! After Enterprise had sent me my Preferred Customer card and everything! So I wound up going with Alamo. I will never do that again.

One thing I get a kick out of about Enterprise is that their employees are all about 20 years old and very chirpy. The guys, too, I am talking about. They walk you around the lot and let you choose your car. That kills me. If you don't like one, fine, they give you another. Meanwhile they chat with you, asking what you're doing here, where you are heading. The employees at the airport Enterprise location have heard a lot about Leonard Pennario, believe me. They let me talk about him, which I love.

I will never forget the first time I went to the San Diego airport Enterprise, which was on Halloween last year. All the attendants were in costume and I was walked around the lot by a cute pirate. Seeing that I had not slept in 48 hours this seemed perfectly natural to me. I was here to spend three months with a brilliant, complicated piano virtuoso I had only just met, why wouldn't I be welcomed by a pirate? We chose my car and the pirate handed over the keys and chatted with me about what I would be doing in the San Diego area. Then the pirate gave me a map. Then -- this is the part that's really memorable -- he gave me specific directions to a nude beach he said was really cool. Wow, I thought happily as I drove away in my fog. I have been here what, an hour? And already a pirate has given me directions to a nude beach.

Every time I go that Enterprise I remember that day affectionately.

But this time around, no Enterprise! And Alamo, what a dump. Everyone was mean to me. First they wouldn't take my Entertainment coupons, which Enterprise accepts without question. Next they offered me no opportunity to talk about Leonard Pennario. Then to top things off I didn't like the car. I had shelled out for a full-size car, which Howard insists on for my safety. This is life with a neurotic Jewish husband. And when I got out to the car -- and Alamo didn't even send anyone with me, booooo -- it was this cheesy little Volvo. What would I be doing in this Volvo? What did they think I was, some kind of liberal? Plus it had only half a tank of gas. And when I turned the key, a sign flashed saying, "Needs Routine Maintenance."

I stalked back into the office. I began bitching like the New Yorker I am. In situations like this Buffalonians have every right to call ourselves New Yorkers. We are from New York State. We can use that term and we can live up to it, too. The upshot of the prolonged fight that resulted was that I got this .... this ... Avalon, is it? All I know is it's a dark red. A monsignor car, to quote one of my friends. And it's full-sized, at least it seems to be. It is not some recyclable little piece of trash like that first number they tried to hand me.

It is an adventure, traveling!

Now it's time to pack up the laptop.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NWA278

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NWA472/history/20080604/0147Z/KDTW/KBUF

Queen City summer

Now that it is June I keep thinking of things I want to do when I get back to Buffalo. There is nothing like a Buffalo summer.

You can get even more specific. When we were teenagers I remember my cousin Caroline, who lived on Depew Avenue, talking about how wonderful a North Buffalo summer was. Now, living in North Buffalo myself, I see what she meant. Hertel Avenue, baking in the sun. The freight trains thundering past on the tracks by Linden Avenue. Tennis tournaments in progress in Delaware Park. You pass the zoo and the giraffes are out. That is a true test of summer, when the giraffes are out. They are out only on the nicest days.

What was the zoo thinking, shipping the elephants out for the summer? I know they are revamping the elephant house, but there has to have been some way around that, some better solution, that would have allowed the elephants to stay. Sometimes it is as if our public institutions just want to stick it to us, you know?

Well, I do not need bad karma today. I will resist ranting about the elephants. Instead I will list a few things I love about Buffalo in the summer.

1. Sunset Bay Beach Club. The best beach, with wonderful sand, and a bar with two-for-one specials and great gin and tonics.

2. Niagara Street. I have always loved this gritty underappreciated street. I love to ride my bike on it and smell the river and then eat at one of its Italian restaurants. That is a perfect summer day.

3. You can also walk or ride your bike across the Peace Bridge. Beat the cost of gas! My sister and I did this a lot when we lived on Delavan. We would take a whole day to bomb around and walk to the Peace Bridge and on over to Fort Erie. It's fun to walk to a foreign country. You feel like such a vagabond. And Fort Erie reminds me of my next summer treat...

4. Happy Jack's. A wonderful and undersung institution. One waiter told me it has been there, run by the same family, since the 1930s. Last time I checked they had a patio, so you could sit by the river. I have not checked recently but I plan on doing so this summer.

5. Fort Niagara. Not only is it beautiful, but it is a world-class historic destination. It's so rare, in our country, to see buildings that date from before Mozart was born. Listen to me. I always think in terms of musicians. When Howard bought Big Blue downtown, I got dreamy and said, oh, when that house went up, Johannes Brahms was a young man.

6. The new canal slip historic site downtown. I have been there only once but already I know I will be knocking around there a lot.

7. The Miss Buffalo. Nothing like it on a sultry summer night.

8. The Finger Lakes. Not exactly Buffalo, but near. And as beautiful as anything you will find in Europe. I have been all over Europe. I know. There is this very dry Gewurztraminer they make a the MacGregor winery, I think it's called, that tastes like citrus, like grapefruit. I am normally not a white wine drinker but I want a glass of that. I wish I had one now.

9. Wineries in Chautauqua and Niagara counties. I have not been to many but this is the summer I will go. I am getting into the habit of telling outsiders that Buffalo is in wine country. Well, we are!

10. One more slot to make this list an even 10.... what to choose ... what to choose ... Well, this is an off-the-cuff list so I'll just throw out one more thing. The patio at Duo. Has anyone else seen this patio? It's stunning. I can't wait to go there for a late-night gin and tonic. Best of all you can walk there from Big Blue. So I have a chance of dragging Howard.

This makes me feel good that I am flying home tomorrow.

Nailed

Every trip it surprises me, the stuff I forget. I keep hoping I will get this down to a science. Maybe I can have a bag already packed, with doubles of everything I will need. It will mean buying another Water-Pik, electric toothbrush, tape recorder and all kinds of other stuff. But it will be worth it if it means I don't have to go crazy when I get here looking for drugstores and Radio Shacks.

Whenever you go somewhere you remember something you forgot last time. But you also forget something you remembered last time.

This trip what I forgot is nail polish. And polish remover. I didn't discover it till this morning, which was stupid, because lastnight I stopped in a drugstore, and after I got what I needed I was just kind of wandering looking for stuff to buy. And they had all these beautiful new nail polish colors. This is the kind of thing I am thinking about when I should be thinking about Leonard Pennario and his performance at Tanglewood of Prokofiev's Toccata. Prokofiev, Schmokofiev! (I had to write that, just because I love how it looks.)

With my braces keeping me from biting my nails, suddenly nail polish has become a big thing with me. I like to do them up nice, because it's great that something can look nice, as long as I am running around with a mouth full of metal. And I want to be able to show off my new nails to Leonard, because he has beautiful hands and goes for manicures so they always look nice. I have been bragging to Leonard about my new nails and now look, they're all chipped and I have forgotten my polish.

Here is my plan: After church I am going to run to a drugstore and pick up what I need. Then I am going to head over to meet Pennario as planned, and while I am there, I can quick fix my nails. I can say, "Leonard, you don't mind, do you, if I use your bathroom to do my nails?"

I can just hear him thinking: Why didn't I get Tim Page from the Washington Post to write my book? Why did I have to choose this ditz?

But desperate times call for desperate measures.