It was another strange day today. To begin the day, the cable TV was still not up. So, Rick called and they admitted we must have a problem since everybody else seems to be fine. Okay, we’ll send someone out but it could be anywhere from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Great, thanks a lot. Just what I wanted to do while my Mom is here visiting, is spend the day waiting for them to come. We went to the grocery store early [and the wine store; I’m certain we’re going to need some kind of sustenance here]. Rick had to drive into New York City this morning for a meeting with a potential client and we knew he would be pretty late in getting home. The cable guy arrived around noon and said there was nothing he could do and that he needed the next level of technician to come out. He had seen another tech down our street working and asked him what he was there for. When they discovered they were there for the same reasons, they concluded the problem was widespread. 24+ hours later and still no TV.  I guess we should be thankful that we still have internet service and phone since it’s all through the same cable.

Not having TV is a bit like having a power outage. You KNOW you don’t have any power, yet you go over and flip on the light switch. Nothing happens. Same thing with TV. I don’t watch it much, but somehow when it’s not available you miss it all the more. You can’t watch the news. You don’t know the weather forecast. You can’t watch your favorite programs, and worst of all, your TIVO won’t record them! Hey, what’s up with that?  I must admit, if this kind of outage happens again we will go back to DIRECT TV. We brought our dish with us, so no real biggie there. It’s just more cost effective to have the digital cable, phone and internet all rolled into one.

Anyhoo, no TV. My Mom can’t watch her Soaps. We read. I knitted. We weeded the flower beds. We decided to watch a movie. Great. We decided to watch a DVD. I can’t find the remote for the TV in the kitchen area, which has a VCR and DVD bulit in. We put in the DVD, start watching the movie and all is good. The doorbell rings, the dogs go crazy and I need to put the DVD on hold. Only without the remote I have to use the few buttons on the TV; SKIP [reverse], PLAY, STOP, SKIP [forward].  I can’t pause it, I can only push STOP. Will it start back up in the same place?  You all know how frustrating DVDs can be. The door turns out to be the kid down the road asking for a school donation. Crap, all that commotion for that?? I say no to the donation and push the PLAY button. It works, but I decide to feed the dogs while we are at a stopping point. When we start it back up the darn DVD starts at the beginning instead of where we left off. Again, without the remote I can only use SKIP, which is not really fast-forwarding. Let’s just say things didn’t go smoothly and after much back-and-forthing [the end of the movie, the beginning again, etc] we finally get to the point where we left off. At this point it’s frustrating and my Mom, who doesn’t own a DVD player, doesn’t understand why I’m having so much trouble.

The movie was good [The Butcher’s Wife] and we are expecting Rick to call and say he’s back from his trip into the Big Apple and on his way home. The phone rings, it’s Rick. It’s about 5:15 and he’s still at the studio in NYC. Okay, dinner without him. On a Friday evening when it’s raining it’s going to take him forever to get out of there. We decide to watch another movie while dinner is in progress. All goes well until the DVD starts to stutter and the picture is breaking up into pixels for several frames. Then the picture freezes altogether. We wait and watch. Well, I say to Mom, I’ll try to do something. I push SKIP; nothing. I push PLAY and it goes back to the beginning of the movie. Mom and I just look at each other and start to laugh. We can’t help it, this is ridiculous. SKIP really does mean SKIP and we keep SKIPPING over the part we need to be watching. We laugh some more and pretty soon we can’t stop. I swear, I only had one glass of wine so far…well, maybe one and a half. My Mom has tears rolling down her face she’s laughing so hard. It may sound stupid to you. Maybe you had to be there.

Rick finally arrives home at 8:15. It’s raining. The TV is still not working and they are supposed to come tomorrow between 2:00 and 4:00. More waiting. My poor Mom. Let’s hope the rest of her visit goes more smoothly. Tomorrow we’re going to eat lunch out at the TEXAS WIENER place and see how that is. Then spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. And so, the end of another strange day.

Hellooooooo! Anybody out there? Is anyone reading this drivel that I keep writing? Or should I be confining it to my own personal diary, on paper, tucked into my bedside drawer? If I don’t start getting some response from people out there in cyberland, that is exactly what I am going to do! I have not had any comments except for one early on [bless you, Margie!]. No one emails me [except my Mom-in-Law, thank you!] to let me know whether or not you are enjoying any of this or not. I mostly started this blog to keep in touch with everyone, but yet I hear NADA from 95% of you! Surely you can’t all be that busy that you can’t drop me a line? And, for anyone who is not family or friends, are you reading this? Please let me hear some kind of feedback. I know someone is visiting the site because the hits just keep going up! If you like it, please let me hear from you. Otherwise, I may just take all of it offline and keep it to myself!

Tonight we experienced the worst thunderstorm that I have seen in years. Thunder boomed, lightening lit up the skies, the dogs [and cats] all ran for cover and the skies just opened up. Finally the dogs asked to go downstairs to the relative safety of their crates for the duration of the storm. I can’t say that I blame them. I was ready to run for cover too each time I saw the skies light up. We had some very close hits. The lights flickered on and off, we lost cable TV and it still is not back on by 10:00 p.m. We still have the air conditioning on tonight [though it hasn’t run in a while now] because it’s so humid and sticky outside. I guess I’ve forgotten what humidity can be like after being away for 30 some odd years. Tonight it’s not much fun. I know Rick posted to his site about having a “joyful” moment while I was gone last night. Hmm..maybe he was just joyful I wasn’t here? Because for sure, the dogs have been anything BUT good since I’ve been home. Maybe it’s the drop in barometric pressure that set them off; or maybe not. It always used to in Colorado. Or, maybe I should just leave again? Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. I certainly hope so.

On Sunday morning Rick and I went to the farmer’s market in Warwick, New York. Warwick is not very far away, about a 15 to 20 minute drive. As I’ve mentioned before, we are very close to the New York border! We’ve driven to Warwick once before but never down into the business district. We were intrigued, however, after passing a winery, a U-Pick-It apple orchard and a creamery, all in what looked like a lovely setting. On this beautiful Sunday morning we chose to drive up the east side of Greenwood Lake since Kim and Mark had mentioned there were a couple of good restaurants on this side and we wanted to see where they were. A very pretty drive! We are going to try out at least one of the restaurants when my Mom is here this week. They both have outdoor seating with a view of the lake, and one is right on the lake. Anyway, I digress. This is supposed to be about the farmer’s market.

We found the market with no problem at all, just off the main business district [which by the way needs a lot more exploring, including a book shop]. It’s not a large market, but what they do have is all quality, organic, local goods. There were stalls selling gorgeous plants, huge freshly baked pies and tarts, goat cheese, artisan bread, fresh pesto [we bought some], all kinds of fresh salad greens [all organic], a french style bakery was selling mini quiches and pastries. My favorite stall, Bobolink Dairy, was sellling homemade cheeses and hearty breads baked in a wood fired oven. We bought some cheddar and a cheese called foret [pronounced the french way: four-ay]. People in front of use were buying huge slices out of a wheel of bread that had whole cloves of garlic baked right in. We couldn’t resist that either.

Our next stop was the Warwick Winery booth. We sampled the Riesling, Chardonnay, and a blend they call Nadia. We bought some of each. Now we had lunch and then some! There was a stall selling fresh duck, rabbit, ribs and more out of their truck and we almost bought a rabbit. Next week, maybe. We’ll be back! I have a feeling you’ll be hearing a lot about Warwick. We picked up a schedule of events for the summer and there are all kinds of festivals taking place. Here is a photo from the market and one of the old train station.

Okay, I promised to tell you all about All the Way Dogs and Taylor Ham. For those of you reading my blog out there, I’m sure you just can’t wait to hear what they are! The BBQ was fun and we got to meet some more people. We hope to see them again before too long. All the Way Hot Dogs are simply hot dogs with mustard, chili sauce and onions. The kind of chili sauce you use makes a world of difference. Whatever kind Kim used was really good, so I’ll have to ask her if she made it herself or bought it somewhere. I remember as a kid growing up in Hyde Park there was a place called Texas Lunch that had the best hot dogs in all the world. My Mom has been back to eat there, but says it’s not as good as it was back in the 60s. She said they’ve changed the sauce. See, it’s all in the chili sauce. They also have restaurants here called Texas Wieners which I think are similar. We need to check those out. Hot dogs are really a big deal here. But I wonder how “Texas” style hot dogs came into being in New Jersey and New York??

Taylor Ham is more of an enigma. The best I can come up with is it’s something like Canadian Bacon. It comes in a roll that you slice and it’s made from ham. I was wrong in calling it Hamburger Plate, as they are called Hamburger Combos when you add a slice of Taylor Ham on top of your hamburger. Very tasty! They tell us that a real New Jersey breakfast is a slice of Taylor ham topped with cheese on a hard roll. Yum! I bet it’s good! For those of you wanting a better description of Taylor ham, here is the Wikipedia excerpt:

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