Still here

 

Cookie admits it. He has been quieter than usual.  

I had forgotten how dreadfully dreary in winter Cleveland can be.  Still, we go through each day as best as we can.  But dear God where or where is the sun?  Today was rainy and then the fog swept in while I was running an errand on the west side. While heading east on 490 to get to the Opportunity Corridor (a fairly new road that connects University Circle to I-77 and points west) as I drove past "Steel Valley" I could not see the huge steel plant or three car lengths in front of me.  But I made it back unscathed.

We are still unpacking, though at a much slower pace.  

One of the unpleasant surprises about the new Maison d'Cookie is that our furniture doesn't fit in many instances.  We have too many side chairs and too many side tables.  We also have too many windows that don't have UV Glass, so the art that we had on walls in the old house can't be placed in many places for fear it will fade. 

But we are through Christmas, and we are meeting new people.  

And I am going places that are totally new - Like Cleveland's West side and burbs. I am finding out that the chain stores out that way are really superior to what we have on the east side. 

One thing that has me concerned is that I have been having some memory issues, which I am attributing to having so much on my mind.  Oy!  New traffic patterns, and new routes, and I am still conquering a lot of the agoraphobia I developed during COVID.  I'll get there, and some sunlight will help. 

In any event, on to New Year's.

There is a lot to do and get done in 2024 and I am looking forward to it all.  The people we have met around here are beyond wonderful.  And that makes it all worthwhile.  

Happy Boxing Day to all who observe it.

 

Jade Dragon

On a swatch, it's one thing. in a large room, it's overpowering.

 

As the husband and I settle, or try to settle, into the house, something has us bamboozled. 

Where are we going to hang the art?

We don't have priceless works, but we have a few that have been in the family forever.  And this house, at 112 years old has an interesting problem - a forty-foot-deep living room that has two big bay windows, two huge arches, a fireplace, and as little wall space as you can imagine.

Honestly, many open floor plans "for today's living" don't even offer that kind of space.  

The walls in the living room were, at one time, Sherwin Williams' Jade Dragon, a color that has darkened over the five or six years since the room was last painted.  What color is Jade Dragon? The same color as Margaret Hamilton's make-up in The Wizard of Oz.

Said living room will be painted a far lighter hue come spring, but in the meantime, we are pulling nails, and patching, which meant, finding the remnants of what was in the can of Jade Dragon in the basement, dry as the desert. 

So I spent an hour and a half at Sherwin Williams today waiting for my turn.  All I needed was a quart of this concoction (I am a Benjamin Moore kind of guy) watching other painters who got there before me, strut around. 

I spent most of the time looking at my paint fan (that quasi booklet of every paint color that Sherwin Williams makes, they give them out if you ask) and trying to decide what color we could paint the living room if I didn't hate dirty Jade Dragon so much. 

Then my mind had a thought: Jade Dragon is a perfect drag name. Not for me, but for someone else. Neither the Husband nor I do drag, still, we have drag names. The Husband's "drag name" is Taffeta Darling, after Madeline Kahn in Young Frankenstein. 

Mine is decidedly more Shaker: Bubbie VanAken®, an homage to all the Jewish bubbies that lived on Van Aken in the 1960s and 70s, who furnished their houses in Glitzy Louis the XVI furniture. 

Anyway, after the rough trade painters were through, it was my time.  I told Miss Thing at the counter what I needed and his reaction was "Really? Do you really need that color? I mean I never would have thought you were a Jade Dragon type of guy."  I told him that we evidently were in sync, that I wasn't, but that I needed it for touch-ups.

And we talked about colors, and the names of the colors. And what a job it would be. 

"Could never do it," said he. "My names would be too honest for Corporate."

I could see his point.  I mean, one of S-W's biggest selling colors isn't a color at all, it's a shade: Agreeable Gray.  It's not too light, not too saturated. With white woodwork, it's a totally safe bet. 

I told him I would have named it Safe Choice Gray.

"And who wants to go safe when you paint a space?"

Which brought us back to Jade Dragon. 

"This color cries out for bird of paradise wallpaper, with banana leaves."

So I left, a can of paint in hand. The spots have been touched up and are now drying. 

And before you know it, the sun is beginning to set. 

Tomorrow, another adventure. 

But tonight, it's all about covering Jade Dragon up with art.

Your catharsis is not my ephiphany

 

What fresh Hell is this?

Well, today is my birthday.  Whoop de-do.

When you are born on Thanksgiving or have a birthday during Thanksgiving week, it's always a bummer.  

Making it worse is that in the United States, this date is always a day of National Day of Mourning.  Kennedy was killed on my first birthday. 

After a while, you get used to it. 

You never get a real birthday party on your birthday if you were born on a Thanksgiving week, because everyone is traveling.  And a meal on Thanksgiving is never a birthday feast.  Trust me, my family tried that con enough times and it never worked. 

Presents always came after the Christmas sales started. UNLESS, you have that Aunt who buys a gift for you at Christmas close-out time and by the time your birthday rolls around, you are too old for the gift. 

The absolute worst of those idiots are people who say "It's your birthday? Well did you know that Kennedy was killed on this day?" 

Why yes. Yes, I do. Because I am not stupid, I have lived that connection for my entire life, had the national news remind me every damn year. And your catharsis doesn't equal my epiphany.

There was a girl in high school who took every opportunity to ask me if I knew I was going bald.  And every time she did it, it was like the first time she knew it was happening. 

And some people, like "Becky" from high school, who have said it once, like to do repeat performances like "Becky" every damn year. 

"You have pointed that out every time my birthday rolls around, and, I can assure you, it's not as big of a revelation to me as it is for you." 

Quite literally, I am trapped in some macabre Groundhog Day movie. 

Making matters worse is that the weather in Cleveland every November is dismal, wet, grey, chill to the bone cold, which just makes my SADD shift into high gear. 

None to worry - this too will soon pass. We'll get through this weekend, and then ramp up for Christmas. 

Still, The Husband hurts for me. He wants me to be happy and have a nice day, and it pains him that he can't make it so.  I keep telling him I have everything I could ever want. I do have friends. I have my health. He has his health. We have a rainy day fund in the bank, not much, but enough.  So what else could I ever wish for?

Good things come to those who wait.  

I can wait. 

And because Thanksgiving floats around the calendar like Veterans Day, you really have no way of knowing one year to the next.  But in 2024, its on the 28th, and my birthday is a Friday the week before.  So things are looking up.

And yes, I can wait. 

When did light bulbs become such a pain in the in the socket?

 

One of the toughest things about the new house is getting the "light" situation in each room settled. 

Unlike the last two houses, where the longest exterior walls faced north and south, this house is like our home in Columbus, this house faces east and west.  Because of this, and the layout of the rooms, our windows are east-west and north, with only five facing south.  

The previous owners, who were a man-child and his wife, were huge fans of bare bulbs in clear glass fixtures, which give off horrible lighting effects, making everyone look like a ghoul.

I mean, c'mon people, it's going to be 2024 - don't we all know what lightbulbs look like?

We've been using LED bulbs for a very long time. But the new mainstream LED bulbs in "equivalent watts" don't seem to get the job done anymore. 

Light output is measured not in watts, but in lumens.  Today's modern 60-watt equivalent bulbs are supposed to crank out 800 lumens.  Add to that the light temperature of daylight (which makes everything look and feel cold), Soft White, and Warm White, which has a brownish cast. 

The problem is, that there is no standard for what qualifies as "Soft White" light anymore.  And then the manufacturers have their own standards.   today I saw a box of lightbulbs that claimed to be "Soft White" and on the high end of the kelvin (bluish light) scale.  Can someone tell me how that is supposed to work?

And there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the lumen ratings.   The difference between GE Reveal soft white 60-watt equivalent bulbs and the 75-watt equivalent is 15 lumens, supposedly. But when I get out my camera light meter, the output between the two bulbs is almost the same. 

We've had luck with GE 100-watt equivalents which actually do put out a reasonable amount of light.  But at the same time, we now have a box full of lousy 800-lumen bulbs that are worthless because their light output is all different. 

Change is the only constant in life, but dealing with these light bulbs and their inconsistencies in illumination could drive one to drink. 

Slowly, we are testing and finding "watt" works, but so far, the 800-lumen bulbs are losing out to the brighter cousins. 

A lot to unpack here.

 

Even Kevin has tried to help with the paper problem. 

So here is the deal.  We've been here for five weeks. The movers packed 215 boxes and crates of our stuff.  Yes, we have a lot of stuff.  But remember, both Cookie and The Husband both work from home and out of our home. Still, 205 boxes of all sizes into a 2,500-square-foot house is a lot. 

To date, we have unpacked around one hundred boxes.   So there are, more or less, 105 boxes to go. 

And that isn't counting the art on the walls. 

Our burb picks up trash once a week and yard waste and recycling on the same day.  everything has to go in the can, or the yard waste bag at the curb.  The only time you can put out "overage" is the first trash day of the month. 

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get rid of these boxes so they don't end up wet or bug infested, and recycle them?

But wait, there's more! 

The movers used 24x36 sheets of clean newsprint to pack each box.  The paper wrapped around stuff, wadded up to provide a soft bed to place things onto, stuffed inside stuff, and wadded up and placed on top of said stuff, filled up voids, etc., and so on.   

On average, dishpack box (about 48" tall, 24" wide, and deep) contains about - and are you ready for this, on average, 40 sheets of this crumpled paper.  Less for smaller boxes and more - sometimes a whole lot more -  for huge boxes, especially if they just contain a "lamp".  

That means we dealing with potentially 12,000 sheets of this stuff, more or less.

So when we unpack, each sheet needs to be pulled out, and searched through (to make sure there is no little stuff), and then the sheets have to be laid down and smoothed out. That takes time. It can take one minute or ten to unpack an item. 

And this shit doesn't lay down smooth.  No, you can smooth it out and it'll fight ya.  And try as you might to make neat piles, like likes to slide this way and that. 

That's why after five weeks, we are only into 100, more or less, boxes. 

MOREOVER, those boxes need to be broken down and the tape stripped from the boxes so they can be recycled. 

But there is nowhere to take these boxes as they pile up.   And you can't put things where they need to go because the dumbass movers put the furniture in the middle of the room and boxes against the walls. 

But ah, the good news is that we have found several people who have gladly taken the boxes, and most of the sheets of packing paper.   One woman was in a disability-accessible van talking to a young man about boxes.  Cookie interjected himself overhearing this, and asked "Does someone need moving boxes?"

Indeed.  The woman is the sole caregiver for her son who has CP, and they are moving into a one-floor condo and needed boxes. They took fifty boxes and reams of packing paper.  "How much do I owe you?" I said that we should be paying her.

Then after not being able to give the boxes away on Next Door (ugh) I stumbled into a Facebook group and found that a woman had just posted something asking for boxes to help a friend move. How about thirty of them, I asked, and packing paper, too. Again, I got rid of the boxes and packing paper, and she was delighted that they were free. 

Another 20 boxes went to someone that a friend knew who was moving into his condo. 

And lately I have been having dreams that one day I will wake up and find my home full of the boxes that I gave these people.  Having used them, they returned them. Then I wake up. 

Last weekend I unpacked my office so I am taking it easy until this weekend when we get into the pictures and artwork. 

I am hoping to have the first and second floors squared away by New Year's.  

But the basement is clearly a 2024 project. 

 

East side, West side, We're Going On the Town

 

Cookie and Husband have been exploring the East side, and the West side of Cleveland, but not the South side of Cleveland.  Cleveland doesn't have a south side. Oh, there is a south side, but the parts that are east of Cuyahoga are the East and the parts that are west of the river are west. 

To help the husband acclimate to what is where, Cookie has made sure he knows which main roads lead to, and what they don't do.  And he has passed driving tests, where I tell him where we going and he has to navigate the route. 

He has learned that Mayfield Road is a east/west arterial, that Warrensville Center Road will take him to Shaker, and that Warrensville Center Road is fucked up as they replace the bridge over the Rapid at Shaker Boulevard.  And that's not all. 

He's been the entire length of Superior Avenue, which alas is mostly not Superior to anything,  and that Prospect Road doesn't lead to any prospects unless it's hookers yer' after. 

He has learned that effectively that one can get to Culver's in Eastlake just as fast as S.O.M. Center Road will take you, and that the nearest Menard's is in Mondo Parma. 

The great surprise is that the "Opportunity Corridor" (a stupid name for a road through the burned-out neighborhoods of the eastside), which is an extension of 105th Street will get you to I-71 faster than if one had taken Lee Road across to 480. 

Together we have learned that the huge modern building that looks like a tribal casino from the Opportunity Corridor is in fact the new youth courts building and detention center. 

He also has learned, as have I, that the Giant Eagle at Legacy Village is the place to shop, not the Giant Eagle on Chagrin, which is just gross.   That Heinen's, a grocery chain from my childhood, really does have finer foods, in more locations, and that Dave's Market is great as well. 

And we have discovered that Spectrum Cable sucks - I mean, Jesus it is lousy - when it works. 

He has also learned that the dysfunctional city of East Cleveland (sister city to East Saint Louis, Illinois) is to be avoided, always. No reason to go there, no reason for it to be its own city.  May it be ripe for redevelopment in our lifetimes, or annexation by the City of Cleveland.

Finally, we have discovered how much we hate steam heat and that the ker-chunking of the heat pipes as water and steam vapor duke it out.  I tell you the first night we heard that racket we both sat upright in bed thinking that some depraved soul had taken a pick axe to the house. 

Two weekends ago, I took him to the West side of Cleveland, another land, far away. 

So yeah, it's good to be home. 

Longer than a little while.

 

Well, that really did take longer than expected. 

Our time in the "Old Line State" has ended. 

The husband and I are in the Heights!

The whole moving company was a gigantic fuck up, maybe more on that later. 

But the good news is, the air is sweet in Ohio.  Cookie's asthma is doing better, and the dogs have more prance in their steps.  The husband is more relaxed. The Grocery stores are better, shopping in general is better, and the drivers aren't as batshit angry when they drive. 

Cookie's office should be set up on Monday or Tuesday.

One bit of good news is that the Husband and I registered our cars, and I was able to snag my old license plates, which had been my mother's for 55 years and my father's for 10 before that.  Somehow, that seemed to reset our exit from Ohio 12 years ago. 

AND, we were able to vote in the November election, casting YES votes for women's reproductive health, and legalizing weed for retail sales. (Although the scuttlebutt on the street is that the Ohio House is trying to introduce legislation to muck up BOTH constitutional amendments.  We'll see.  Ohio voters don't like to be ignored.)

So more to come as time permits. 

And oddly, there is nothing we miss about Maryland, except AMTRAK. We aren't pining for anything, or anyone, save for a handful of friends.

My body still aches when I move and I am exhausted from all of this lifting, but we are getting there!

Going off line, for a short while

 

Well, here we are waiting for the packers' who didn't show up today. 

Cookie was not pleased. Still ain't ten hours after their expected arrival. 

Why? I don't want to get into it.  Suffice it to say that the head of the moving company was on the phone today apologizing for their fuck up. But he is guaranteeing me that they will be here tomorrow.  He's already peeling back charges. We'll see.

But the people who are crating the uber fragile things were here, busy as bees.  

So something did get done. 

Anyway, from tomorrow on, a cascade of events will take place, including the shutdown of the internet access at this house. Hotels get involved, equipment gets packed away, etc., consuming lots of takeout.  The worst isn't having TV, its watching the boys wander around this house, being very confused by the boxes that are everywhere. (Their toys get thrown in the back of my car while the husband loads them in his for the six-hour drive to N.E. Ohio. They'll get doggy relax pills to take the stress of the move away.)

And then, we give the keys to the new couple buying the house, and we literally drive northwest with the night. 

They say, for the movers, the stressful part is playing packing box Tetris - trying to use every inch of space in the van so nothing goes wrong, gets crushed or flies about.  For owners, the stress happens when they unload the van, put things in the wrong places and whoopsy daisy two legs on that table built by an ancestor in 1790 snapped off and you deal with insurance. 

So you may hear from sooner, or later. I have no idea. But we'll get back online. 

The things you end up thinking about on the cusp of something new

 

Cookie has been deep in thought.  

Deep in thought when he should be packing.  The movers swoop in to start the job of packing our lives up in brown boxes in about 36 hours.  

A snap of the finger in time. But there is something about me that wants to be in this moment. 

Remember when a day and a half felt like an eternity when we were young and had no idea how time worked?  When we are young, the things and places that we pass, and we think we will always be there because they always have been there for us. 

Now it seems like it flies by in an instant. They say by your eighties, time feels like minutes. In your nineties the past flies by in seconds. 

Maybe my age is beginning to show, but there comes a time in your life when saying goodbye to your familiarities, to your surroundings becomes as important, as the people in those surroundings.  People and the space around you become part of you, however small they are.

In writing every book, it's the pictures that people say "I debated whether to bring this or not" or "I know you won't be interested in this," that ends up being the most important image we come across.  So today, it's not a streetside picture of our neighbor's beautiful homes that I will miss, but the view of those houses from the window in my office. Or through my windshield. Or on a walk. 

In my youth, when I went to Park Synagogue Nursey School in Cleveland Heights, the small bus that we rode in would take a route that took us down to Fairhill Road, to pick up a girl who lived at Belgian Village, a set of chic houses built in the cliff overlooking the Doan Brook ravine.  

The ravine was populated with birch trees. None of us had ever seen these white trunk trees, and unable to process where we were or traveled, that place, that seemingly enchanted forest - at least to us - simply became known as "The White Trees".

I captured that in my mind, and it has stayed clear as if it were yesterday. But that yesterday was fifty-eight years ago.  

At the same time, I couldn't tell you the little girls name.  

So how do you capture the knobley trunks of the Sycamore trees that dot parts of Baltimore, when they are wet with rain, and the new bark turns brilliant green and putty brown.  You can take a picture, but pictures never really capture the life of that moment. 

How do you capture the people who stand at this corner or that, along York Road waiting for a break in traffic before they dart into traffic to get to the other side.  What are they thinking? 

How do you capture those incidental things?

And then you start to wonder while running an errand, "In all likelihood, I'll never be here again."  

Which leads you to ponder some very foolish thoughts.  It's not grand considerations like "the last time I saw Paris" but it is the everyday tasks like the last time I go to this Staples, the last time I enjoy the Enchiladas Supreme at El Salto, and the last time I will ever set foot in the Ruxton Post Office. 

When you're young, you're foolish, you don't know it because you have nothing in your experience to give you perspective on what lasts and an explanation on why it matters what matters. The places that have always been will always be.  And what was here before you doesn't matter because well, the world revolves around your experience in that moment.  

It isn't until you look back and think, "Wasn't there a house there?" "Where are all the people I remember walking in this area. The streets look so barren, and the shop windows are empty," that you realize that just as you have gotten on in the world, the world has gotten on without you. 

If we are fools in our youth, then I am surely a foolish old man now. Who is to say that even if I concentrate right now, with all my might, I can freeze this moment in time as it is, looking out this window so in five, ten, twenty years I'll remember it perfectly?

In time we forget the type of details that, at this moment, feel so important. As studies have shown that as we forget, our thought functions kick in and fill in what makes sense to remember. You know that you were at a place, you know there was a building, but you have forgotten that the building is cream color, so your mind makes the building white or tan, and then that becomes ingrained in your memory.  Why? Because we don't like having to think that we forgot the details. 

And perhaps it's this old man's mind that desperately wants to remember these moments because I am so afraid of forgetting what is familiar. 

Still, in these quiet moments, before the chaos of the movers enters this house in a couple days, in the ponderings of this place we called home, there is a gentle calmness that I'll need to get through everything that is about to happen to us.  

And it will happen because we want this newness. 

We won't have time to dwell in a place we no longer live. We will be focused on life as we live it. 

Saying thank you.

 

As my mother would say, while removing one article of jewelry from her cocktail attire before heading off to the event, "No matter how boring the party, you thank the people who have been the bright spots - they're the ones who get you through the event."

Over the last 11 years, there have been many things that I have complained about in this city, but there have been people and businesses who have twinkled like bright spots.  

So has been Cookie during this past week. 

There are plenty of good people here.  They just have different priorities.  And there are good businesses that helped us get through the daily schlep. 

I have thanked the owner of the local market near our house. That store became more of our lifeline than I care to think, but they usually have what we want, produce excepted.

I have thanked the mechanic who kept our old cars alive and running, sometimes on short notice. 

I have thanked many of our neighbors for their kindnesses, especially when one of us has been down for some malady like the 2017 flu that sidelined both of us simultaneously, or my surgery last January.  These people made sure we had food to eat so the Husband could relax. 

I have thanked the post office of in Ruxton, the best-kept and now exposed secret, in northern Baltimore for their efficiency and kindness.  

I thanked our former mail carrier, Reggie. What a terrific guy. Despite hardships in his life, he has always been dependable. And seeing the neighborhood rally around him and help him, thank all of you as well.

I have thanked our yard care company who always took care of us.  Carol, you are the BEST.

I have thanked even BGE, because their linemen, through multiple power failures, always kept us in the loop. 

I even thanked Dino, the dishwasher whisperer, who can repair any home appliance, and who is far smarter than almost anyone I know, my husband aside.

Then there have been the special neighbors, the ones who are especially kind in ways that you can't put into words. 

Thank you to my colon surgeon who saved my life in 2014.  Thanks to you I had six years of near normal life. 

Thanks to the urologist who helped me get cancer-free for eight months. 

Thank you to our family physician who has taken care of both of us since discovering him in 2015. 

Thanks to my shrink Charlie for finally getting me to a point where I can deal with my depression. 

Finally, and I cannot believe I am including this one, thank you to Comcast. Despite being the worst-run, abusive, and most frustrating service provider that anyone needs to tolerate, you carried every single PBS station around giving us ten channels of programming that got us through COVID.  And every British mystery imaginable has been digested and enjoyed us.  

And I need to thank this blog's readership - you have stayed with me through the worst years of my adult life. 

Fair warning, there are more to come, but better I hope.

Facebook, this really isn't me.

 

And just in time for Yom Kippur, too.

But Zuck the Fuck, your algorithm is way off. Way off.

I simply don't have the body for this because I am not a self starving Kardasian, or a pole dancer. 

So thanks, so much, but with all that money you pour into this monster of yours, do your advertisers really understand that you are sending them on a billable snipe hunt?

Hugs,

Cookie 

Just why is it called "the Heights"

 

East of downtown Cleveland there are suburbs that bear names ending in "Heights".  There's a reason for that, and it's geographical, with a bit of elitism sprinkled in.  

Cleveland also has suburbs on its west (of the Cuyahoga River) that use the word "Heights" in their names as well. There is no real geographical reason, and while some are very nice, they are not heights.

The eastside heights are geographically indeed situated on "heights".

The west side, not so much. 

Allow Cookie to explain. 

East of Cleveland - which has nothing to do with the city of East Cleveland - and trust me, that is an entirely different kettle of fish - rises an ancient plateau.  And that plateau rises very quickly.  It stretches roughly from the banks of the Cuyahoga River north towards the Lake Erie plateau and points northeast of the region.  In some places the rise is subtle, in other places, such as between University Circle and Cleveland Heights, it gets rather steep, 300 to 500 feet up. 

When these areas were being transformed from farmland overlooking the expanding city of Cleveland, they colloquially were called the heights, because they were higher ground.  The first example that Cookie can friend is from a man named Dr. H. Ambler who wanted to develop his land, and he named it Ambler Heights.  Dr. Ambler also built a quixotic ruined "Indian fort", complete with a crumbling stone tower to entice people to come up and have a "look see."

As the rich escaped ever commercial and industrializing Million's Row or Euclid Avenue, a good percentage made their way up the Cedar Glen Parkway, the Mayfield Pike, and Ambler Road (Now Fairhill Road) and built mansions in what was called the Overlook at the top of the first rise. 

Other developers followed, and the places that built up for their idealized communities started to include "Heights" as part of their names.  Still, yet another increase in elevation happens along Fairmount Boulevard and Cedar Road.  

So we end up with Cleveland Heights, and Shaker Heights (built on the land owned by the North Union Shakers). 

While both communities catered to the wealthy, Cleveland Heights developed over time and through the efforts of many developers.  Shaker Heights also developed over time, but its development and street grid were tightly controlled through 1950. 

In the meantime, the other "Heights" burbs developed.  Garfield Heights started the trend when development began in the 1910s, followed by University Heights in the 1920s. Warrensville Heights, Mayfield Heights, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, Bedford Heights, Highland Heights, and Richmond Heights all flourished after World War II, but lacked investments by the well-to-do.  Lyndhurst and South Euclid are honorary heights cities, but Beachwood is not. Well, maybe it is, who knows.

And what of the westside's Broadview Heights? Not a Heights. Fairview Heights? Not a Heights. Oh, sure, they use the name, but being from the Heights is an Eastside thing. The Village of Highland Hills? Not a Heights, although it has higher terrain than most around it. 

It is, however, a unified school district shared between Cleveland Heights and University Heights that was bestowed the crown royale of being just known as "Heights" upon Cleveland Heights.  It entered the flow of conversation because "Heights High School" is in Cleveland Heights.  Shaker Heights kids went to Shake High School, but Cleveland and University Heights kids went to "Heights".

For the non-locals, the inclusion of University School, a prep school which has it lower school building in Shaker Heights, not University Heights.  University Heights has John Carroll University.  Just so you know. 

And what of Dr. Ambler and his Ambler Heights? Ultimately, it was swallowed up by Cleveland Heights. 

And where is the height of the Heights?  Cookie has no idea. But I do know that the highest point in the Dugway Brook watershed is Lyman Circle, in Shaker Heights, although I never considered that as being exceptionally "high".  I also think that Sulgrave Oval is higher in elevation than Lyman Circle.

So when someone from the Heights says that Cleveland is downhill, we mean it is down the hill that we call the Heights. 

Well, its ours, -or - A place to call Home.

 

What's this about a Zuzz-Zuzz Water Softener?

The key is ours, and work on Castle Cookie is underway.  

We have cleaned the kitchen, which took four days. And yes, it was that bad.   New appliances are on their way. 

As I type, the gutters are being cleaned out, and the floors are being sanded and brought back to life. \

More as we move forward.  But mentally and physically, it's exhausting work.

We are in state of Suspense...

 

...and but which type of suspense is the question.   

Geographical: Are we Marylanders, or Ohioians?

Hitchcockian: In this genre, we feel that everything is OK on the surface that we see, but the undercurrent is rife with things that could go wrong, have gone wrong, or we are about to confront what is about to go wrong, but of course, it predicated on murder, international intrigue, or finding that Shirley McClain has buried an ex-husband on the property.

Marionette: In this genre, we are subjected to the whims of those people and institutions pulling our strings - a reality not of our own volition.  The buyer's mortgage company plays a tune for documentation and we dance.  The seller's agent plays a little tune and we dance.  No fun. No one is dancing for us.

Enforcement: The house we are buying will be ours, yet we owe The municipality certain "fixes" and worse still, they want the cost of fixes held in an escrow account, but we need those monies to pay the contractors. 

Datewise: We are far enough from the move that we can't really pack personal stuff because we are still using it, but we are close to moving and it is gnawing and clawing at our very souls. 

Accounting: We are neither homeowners having sold our house, nor are we homeowners because we haven't closed on the new one.  So we feel as if we are the ACH that has arrived at the credit union today, but we can't post to the member accounts until tomorrow.

Are 'ians, 'ers, or 'ites?: Are we Baltimorians, or are we Clevelanders? Or are we ex-pat Columbusites?

Are we: Befuddled, Bemused or Besotted?

Finally, should I keep Doing Hard Time in Shaker Heights going, or should I create a blog anew?

See?  No fun. 

And the moving company has been selected...

 

After various fits and starts, the moving company has been selected. We chose the winner on a variety points, and we ended up with the same van lines that moved us here.

Moving interstate is really expensive folks, when you pay for it yourself. 

Within a state, it's by the miles and by the hour. 

Interstate is by the time, the miles, and the POUNDS.  THEN you tack on the packing.  We are having them pack because then the insurance covers damages incurred to your items.  We may not have museum-quality items, but we have things that matter to us, and we want it all there in one piece, not pieces.  And we'll fill the whole damn van.

Paper items weigh the most, in terms of small items piling up and equaling POUNDS.  Old magazines that you are keeping because they have images you mean to scan, or reference articles that you turn back to? HEAVY. Books? HEAVY. 

That both the husband and collect ephemera works against us. 

The second-place company didn't get it because I wasn't too sure about the estimator. She glided through the house in a dream state, seldom tapping on her tablet.  Did she get it all, or was she some sort of savant, I'll never know, but she did come within a ton of the last-place contender.

Our last-place contender was the van lines with the orange trucks.  They have a good reputation, but he was simply an asshole. He came in dressed too well, set up computer equipment, and walked him around tapping things into his device. 

When he asked where we were going I said "Cleveland" and his response under his breath was "That's too bad." Strike one, asshole.

Then I was showing him the family pieces that have been our families for GENERATIONS his crack was "Everyone has stuff that they claim is valuable."  Strike two, asshole. 

Strike three was delivered while he was printing his estimate and telling me that "Every time I have seen a move go bad is when clients violate the terms of the contract and expect the carrier to supply extra boxes - then our contract is void and the prices goes exponentially blah, blah, blah..."

And I am thinking to myself "Listen here asshole, maybe you did the estimate right, maybe you effed it up. Don't blame it on me." So strike three.

The cherry on top was that he demanded a signed contract in two weeks. Nothing like high-pressure sales and threats to earn my trust, right? 

So we have our movers, and we are happy. We have our week, we are just waiting for verification. 

Now I need to find a shredding company to take stuff to. 

Mawby's

 

If you are from Cleveland's "Heights", and are of a certain age, you remember Mawby's, a small chain of burger places.  The picture above is the one at Cedar Center, a shopping center that lined both sides Cedar Road just west of Warrensville-Center Road.

Mawby's also had a Van Aken Center location in Shaker, but for the life of me, I cannot remember it.  Or maybe it closed before my mind could hold memories, or it could have closed even before I was me.  There was another at Cedar-Lee.  There may have been others, but they were all gone by the time I was twelve.

But, whatever the location, they made the best burgers in the world.  And the coffee, my mother claimed, would grow hair on your chest.

Mawby's is no longer, and that's a shame.  

They weren't fancy, in fact, they were downright spartan.  The restaurants didn't serve booze (that would have made them "a joint"), and they had no booths or tables. What they had were the longest counters in the Western Reserve with round stools bolted to the floor. The undersides of these counters were caked with years and years worth of chewing gum stuck under the counter by generations of patrons.  

At night, from the outside, the locations looked a lot like Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.

They may have had other things to eat, but people went for the burgers, the french fries.  I seem to recall onion rings, as well.  Other people remember their "Indian Pudding" which sounds good (cornmeal, butter, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, a pinch of salt, and cinnamon, which is first heated to incorporate the ingredients, and then baked) that I may need to make a batch this winter. 

At Cedar-Lee, and at Cedar Center, the burgers were cooked on flat-topped carbon steel grilles, by cooks who mostly kept their backs to you.  These were not men in white jackets, but men in pants and white tee shirts, a paper hat on their heads, and long-apron tied in the back. Orders were taken by a counterwoman who would say "Tell me what you'll have." 

And if you tried to pull a dine and dash, those same cooks would tear out of there and catch up with you and shake the money out of you. Those were great days. 

My mother, who worked very hard at keeping her figure slim, would crave a Mawby's once in a great while, with grilled onions that were out of this world. I can still see the grease that would drip from those burgers, but that was what made them so good.  But the onions, my gawd those onions, they were pure heaven. 

Eventually, the clientele that made Mawby's famous died off or moved on, if not in location, then with their palettes.  Cedar-Lee went through a difficult 1970s, and then into a decline, which happily is behind it.* While Cedar Center made it to the 1980s, after that it went into decline.  The last Mawby's closed about the time the "Saucy Crepe" opened at Van Aken, and Heck's became popular in Ohio City.  Another place, Our Gang, opened in Beachwood, under the huge water tower, but it wasn't the same. Heck's is still around, but the crepe phase faded out, and Our Gang closed, and "Yours Truly"**, a smallish chain, took their place.  

Still, they ain't Mawby's.  

I doubt anyone ever will. But I can hope. 

*When they reopen Chin's Pagoda, then it will be really back. 

**Cookie has a personal aversion to Yours Truly.  The food is fine, and the restaurants a clean and well-run. But I always found the name to be somewhat forced, and frankly, it leaves you hanging because someone's name should follow it. But the biggest strike was that it was a favorite of Shark, my Step Monster, who would gush "I just love Yours Truly because that's the way I feel about my husband."  Never my father, but he was her husband and she wanted every fucking person to know it.  Still, should you get the chance, try it. It has its fans. My "meh" is about Shark, not the place itself.

And the winner is the Heights, but not Shaker

 

Well, this past week brought yet another trip to Cleveland. This time for a house inspection.  Yes, we have selected the next roost. And, it is not, with a pang of regret in Shaker Heights.  

Darlings when I say that, it hurts.  I really wanted to return to the place of my childhood.  I wanted the spirit of my mother, who loved her time in Shaker like no other, to be at rest. And I dearly wanted a place in Lomond, Sussex, or Onaway - and we came (stop thinking dirty thoughts) very close, alas no cigar. The houses were all charming, but each came with its faults.  

You know: This one had no backyard. This other one had a backyard but was on a busy street that you lived on but not a neighborhood you lived in.  Another one held promise, but the neighborhood could be in transition as "developer urbanization" takes root.  Still, another had murals painted on the walls depicting happy Europeans toiling in the fields. 

"What say you about this?" asked Relator. 

The artistry was one step above what happened to Ecco Homo, just barely. 

"But the seller claims it was done by an artist in residence."

"A grandchild spending the summer with their bubbie isn't an artist in residency," said I.

Next, then there was the house that felt rusty. 

Rusty you say? 

Door knobs, the wrought iron on the staircases was rusty, the basement was damp, the doors wouldn't shut, on and on and on. The kitchen needed a redo. We could have housed the King Family, but alas, they have all passed on their reward. We got out of that one pronto when we saw the electric setup.

Many suburbs have something called POS repairs. Some sellers take care of them, while others want the buyers to assume them.  The house cannot sell until someone fixes them or signs a contract promising to fix them. The houses that pass POS and are perfect sell quickly.  And we weren't quick enough.  Others, well, someone younger with deeper pockets. 

We went through faded mansions, cruddy colonials, and a ranch house that smelled like a ranch. 

In that same ranch, we found a laundry room that was wallpapered in foiled silver, lime, and yellow wallpaper - something that was very Morgan and Hirshfield.*

"Sometimes I wonder," said the Realtor, as she looked about.

"Nonsense - who doesn't want their Norge to feel pretty?"   

"Let's look at one more," she said.  

I was going to beg off - looking at houses is tough work - but she insisted.  

And boy was I glad. It was the perfect house for us.  It hadn't sold because it needed work, but at the same time, no one had tried to shit Chip and Joanna Gaines all over the place.  The wood floors are fine, the woodwork is the same fumed oak of our first house. The staircase is just grand enough so I can make an entrance, with my eyes bulging and my eyebrows arched on Halloween. 

It's not in Shaker, but the street is boffo, and the neighbors are wonderfully nice. And soon, it'll be ours.  It needs work. But the floor plan can easily be reconfigured to the way people live today without ruining its charms. And we can add on a first-floor master without a problem. With some money and careful planning, it will be a good place to spend our golden years. And the best part? No glitz. 

So farewell to the pipe dream, but what this offers is something better: a place not for my mother, but for us. 

*My people from the east side of Cleveland will know what and who I mean. 

Isn't this a wundereful booffet...

 

From afar, the fashion plate herself.

"Sometimes I feel trapped. Trapped in a dream, not of my own volition..." 
                                                                  ~Vicky Eydie (aka The Devine Miss M)

So the Cookie's made a trip into the Ohios - remember, it is not just one state, but one state with multiple personalities - last week to look at houses.  Actually, Cookie took two three-day trips to Ohio to look at houses, with the husband making one trip to make sure I was right. 

Oh, the sites we saw on that second trip!  And that before we went to the first house!

The Husband and I were staying at our budget suite hotel of choice, which is nice but is not Grand Hotel. It puts us where we need to be, and gives us a kitchenette, and room if one of us (Cookie) wants to go to bed early, without forcing the husband to do the same.  It also gives us the Waffle Breakfast option, which means you get to make your own Waffles at the comp breakfast. 

And here our encounter starts, as Cookie is waiting on his make-it-yourself waffle. As it is the weekend, the place is crawling with guests and small children. I hear someone hacking up a lung and there to my right is an older woman, trying to look younger. Her hair is dyed so black it has a blue cast, and her skin is freckled from years of sunbathing. Clutched in her right hand is a plate holding a box of Kool cigarettes, and in her left, is a knotting wad of an old cotton white blanket in which she is bundled around her like a giant shell. Oddly, part of the blanket is between her legs, exposing gams that at one point must have been quite the sight in Myrtle Beach.

She looks like she is a giant egg.

Did I mention that it was 7:00 AM and 85 degrees outside? 

I watch as she looks as carefully at the sterno trays holding pans of scrambled eggs, sliced kielbasa, turkey bacon, and sausage-like Holly Golightly examining the windows at Tiffany's. Her hand reaches out as Holly's would, to touch the window at Tiffany, so close, yet so far - but to this woman, it is to longingly touch the serving tongs of the breakfast meats.  But like Holly, just before contact is made, she stops, and pulls back, as if an ancient voice says "No, this is not for you."

She sashays to the oatmeal pot, looking at the handle, repulsed by it and yet she takes a bowl and fills it with the glop. 

Evidently, the ancient voice instructed her to take of the porridge: "You may have this."

After lingering over the gruel, she slowly slinks, sylphlike to my side, and browses the varieties of juices, as if they are rare gems. By this point, I and trying to wrestle my Golden Delicious Malt Waffle from the ancient waffle iron maiden, that is putting up a fight. 

She clears her throat, I am about to say "I almost have it off..." when she says in a low seductive growl, "Isn't this a magnificent boofet?" She licks her lips, and at that moment, the plastic fork loosens the waffle and my hand jerks up sending said waffle up into the air like a flapjack in mid-air which I catch.  The woman running the "boofet" appears and says "Nice catch."

I turn, quickly, lest she the look of horror on my face, and stare at a bowl of syrup cups, and when I turn around, I see the vamp slinking towards the seating area. 

As I am gathering my wits about me, the vamp is evidently unfurling hers.  And under that blanket? She has made a halter dress of her King bed flat sheet from her room. This is something that "a broad" would do in Harold Robbins' novel, after waking up in some strange stud's apartment in those novels of the sixties. I have never seen it in real life as the only Broads in my life have been my father's ex-wives. 

My husband is eating at the high table, opposite her.  She looks at us both and reaches her arms up over her head where they clasp, exposing her arms and her pits. She winks.

Cookie is torn. And I repelled, or am I about ready to take my plate over there and meet the creature from Room 313?

Thankfully my husband says "Let's go sit with Bill over there, and we get up and move to a table by the windows.  Who is Bill?  There is no Bill. It's "husband code" for let's get out of this place. As we ate, I watched her repeat the process with another man, then another. As she reaches for the ceiling in another stretch, the man's wife says they have to meet with the minister before the wedding, and she does so LOUDLY.

Finally, a leathered motorcyclist, one of several staying at the inn catches her eye. 

We leave, but in my mind, she takes on three of the hog-riding men in her suite.  She is a sassy pony for them, and they are her breakfast meats. 

When we return to the Inn, there she is, out front. Lighting one cool off the dying stump of another, and chatting up a man in a wheelchair on oxygen who is smoking as well. 

Part of me wonders if she really was able to find what she was obviously trying to find. 

But part of me has made up my mind that thinking about it too hard ruins the moments at the "wonderful boofay."

No, Cookie is not bi curious

 

I really have to adopt this attitude

House hunting in central Ohio right now is a giant pain in the ass. 

Simply put, our price point is generous, but the crap on the market right now in that price zone is, well crap. 

The realtor sends us new listings daily, and they are either in the wrong zip code or next to a really busy road. It's not her fault, she is doing everything that we ask of her, and more. 

"You are going to like this one, but it has vinyl replacement windows, and they ripped out the hardwood floors and put in gray vinyl plank flooring," she'll note.

Ugh. Yup, the houses look like Lowe's and HGTV had a baby and it looks horrible and cheap. But they want $800k for it.  OR, they are the unloved houses of the 1950s, and 1960s.

Our conversation this morning went something like this:

"So I know that you said no, but are you sure you aren't the least bi-level curious," said she.  "Maybe a nice split level?"

"That bad," I said?

"Horrible. There's a large spilt-level that has come on the market by Saint Andrews.  My guess is that the family had a lot of children."

"Like the Waltons?"

"Looks more like Yours, Mine, and Ours."

In fact, it was built as a large split, four bedrooms up, but then they added a one-floor wing off of the lower level family room, with three more bedrooms and a huge bathroom, with two toilet stalls.

Yes, toilet stalls. 

"Great if you are hosting orgies," said she. 

Besides being way too old for that, I told her the creepy addition and the stucco exterior and aluminum windows left me feeling cold.  "I am not aroused by this."

Well, keep an open mind, I was encouraged, but she only said it half-heartedly.  "Maybe you could tear that wing down."

Anyway, I think we have a Central Ohio limit. If we can't find anything by mid-September, we may have to rent through the winter and that isn't something we really want to do. 

Something gnawing, something clawing, from...within.

 

Beige and Dutch Cocoa are so Bourgeois

Can you feel it? 

It's so thick, I could cut it with a butter knife. 

The anticipation that something could be happening, which could be good. Or it could be bad. 

Everyone wants our house. 

And yet we are in a holding pattern, which is neither good nor bad.  

Edgar Allen Poe would describe our frayed nerves as something gnawing, something clawing, from...within. 

It was never supposed to move this fast.  It wasn't part of the two-year plan that I proposed to my husband in 2022.  According to that plan, we still have a year out.

As of today, its more like 90 days.

So sometimes I just want to go out into the backyard, let out a purely primal scream, and release this anxiety.  But not in women's clothing like our friend in the picture.  That isn't Cookie's style. 

But that hollering would really piss off the neighbors.  

Remember, while people think that Bawlmore is all John Waters, it ain't in this neighborhood.  

Above all else, dignity. 

So now the conversations are starting with Ohio real estate agents.  Imagine buying a home long distance, and yet not knowing which city, or which of the Ohios we are going to. 

It sure as fuck ain't going to be Obetz.  Same for Amrap*. 

So trust me when I tell you that the suspense isn't just on your side, it's on our side as well. 

* Amrap spelled backward is Parma. 

Realtors to the left of us, realtors to the right

 

Just so you know, three more realtor visits this week.

Realtor No. 3, we liked it.  He's coming back tomorrow and showing the house to the other relator in his office for opinion and pricing. 

Realtor No. 4 comes today. She's from a company with a hoity toity reputation. 

The good news is that none of them have been like Rosa Moline walked in and declared the place a dump.  And one even went so far as to confide what I have known all along about the House Hunters Generation. 

Next week is setting up more appointments for another moving company to come through. 

It simply never ends...

The passing parade of real estate agents

So it looks like this move is going to happen.

When and how is another issue. 

We are talking with attorneys about selling the house ourselves because we have people who want to buy it. 

We have real estate agents on our doorstep so we have options in case one of the people who want to buy it don't meet our price. 

And we have had moving companies in and out of the door giving us estimates because when you move interstate, it's by the pound and by the mile.  Ugh. 

The real estate people are interesting.  Some people throw out a huge number because they want your business. Some people think the house is fine as is "because it is livable without anything that has to be done."

Then, other agents want the whole thing redone, top to bottom.  

Other agents tell us to subtract furniture and lighting, while still others tell us to not subtract lighting and not replace it, in case it leads to unseen, unknown problems.  

"Why replace a ceiling if you don't have to?  Leave that light right when it is." 

But it's the prices that are freaking us out.  Let's start with what we think the house is worth, and we'll call that X, today. 

Realtor One says:  "Of course, you can get that, but I would list it  at X+Z and let's see who bites."

Realtor Two says: "As of today? I think your price is optimistic.  I think you are overinflating the price by Q.  So I would put it on at X-Q, or G.  Or we could put it on at X+F, but then you have to spend some money on upgrades..."

Realtor three says: "In a perfect world, it should bring X.  But who knows?  I say X is good, or X - 5, and get people in a bidding mood."

Then there are their suggestions. 

R2: "Replace this, that, and that bathroom floor."

Us: You can't just do that. We'd have to pull the whole bathroom, and what guarantee is it that we would get our money back?"

R2: "We you won't get all of your money back, but you'd get 90% and it would make the house sell faster."

UGH!

All of it, UGH!

Anyway, we have two more relators to interview, then we will put out all of their suggestions, and compare. 

And this doesn't even begin to cover the buying side of the equation, which is a mess, in Ohio. 

Ugh!

Cliques at the Nonprogressive Progressive Dinner

 

Seriously? What the hey?

As you all will remember, I wrote about the catfight that erupted between two neighbors over yard debris.  One neighbor had her landscaper blow her into the neighbor's yard, and when that neighbor blew her back, things got catty, and very mean girls meets junior high schoolish nanny nanny bo bo.

And coming up was the neighborhood potluck, and folks wanted an update about what happened when the two hellcats met up at what is usually a big event for the neighborhood.  

Well, we had the neighborhood potluck, and NEITHER party showed up.  So instead of fireworks, we had a wet sparkler.

But what was really disappointing was that the neighborhood potluck was, up until COVID, and fun and festive affair for us in the neighborhood.  You had people of all ages and backgrounds.  And if you were new, you were introduced by neighbors to people they know. 

In fact, for an event that used to draw 100-125 people 12 years ago, this year only 75 RSVP'd that they would be there.  Of those seventy-five only forty to fifty showed up.  

But by dessert, which the people who were supposed to bring didn't, the group was down to less than 30. A lot of people just ended up leaving after dinner with an Irish Goodbye.

No, each street is assigned a duty.  If you live on X, then you bring a main dish. If you live on Y and Z, you bring a side. Q and R bring an hors-d'oeuvre for the cocktail hour, and finally, M brings dessert. (X and M are the longest streets in the neighborhood, the rest are short.)

So X Street stepped up, and everyone else, well, just came to drink and socialize and treat it like Wine-O-Clock. Hell, the M Street people only could muster a frozen cheesecake and a "vegetarian soy "Puddin'' with currants.  Dutifully, I tried it, after all someone made it. It was something that I had not had before and the flavor was, well, let's say there was a flavor there. And I hate currants, but I ate some. 

It's kind of hard to have a progressive potluck when people don't hold up their end of the deal. 

It's not the only time recently this has happened. They treat any event like this as wine-o-clock.

Worse still, the progressive potluck was an event designed to help people meet the people in their neighborhoods. Now it seems to have been taken over by unsocialized packs of wine-o-clock mommies and bro-dads.

And these play date parents, do not let non-parents in. Nope, they don't know what to do with you. 

But the 30-45 crowd only socializes within their clusters.  And maybe that's the way things are changing toward. I just find it really sad.

So this may be our last event. And if we go next year, I am not wasting money on making food that doesn't get eaten and gets thrown out. 

But one thing is for sure, I am detaching from this place.  In my mind, we've already moved. 

Vacation Interruptus

 

Well, it was bound to happen in these times of COVID.  

The Husband and I left for the Ohios last Monday.  This trip was a long, long-planned annual visit to see friends, family, and of course, "Shrine of the Family and Ancient Locations," as we like to call it. 

Monday, we had dinner and drinks with friends, no issues there, although someone got very loud and very drunk.  Not me, not the husband. Enough said.

Tuesday, we shopped, bought, and acquired "stuff" that which we cannot get here in our self-imposed exile in Maryland. So that was good. 

Tuesday, we had dinner with more beloved friends at a favorite place. Delightful!

Wednesday, we made a trip to tour neighborhoods in Cleveland Heights, and Shaker Heights, that we are looking at, should the near future take us there. And we spent the day visiting those Ancient locations of my youth. And while it seemed like just yesterday for Cookie, let's face it, that was in the previous century.  

We do have an affection for Lomond and Sussex neighborhoods in Shaker.  We both got a huge neighborhood hard-on for the Euclid Heights neighborhood of Cleveland Heights. Both the husband and I were in love with the location and the feel of the neighborhood.  So much so that we literally moved emotionally. 

We visited with family, ate at our favorite deli, then headed to Columbus.  By this point we were exhausted, so we got pizza and headed to the hotel suite we chose to pamper ourselves. 

That's when we got the text.

Our friend "Myrt" texted us to say that her husband, Horace, who was fine the night before at dinner, woke up sneezing his head off, running a fever and sick, and tested positive for COVID. 

That meant we called everyone in Cleveland that we had a contact point and let them know.  I texted the doctor while The Husband spoke with Myrt, asking about Horace.  Then we called all the people we were going to see and canceled those plans.  

We reinforced to Myrt and Horace that we were grateful they called, and despite her saying "you probably hate us...", no, we love you all the more.  But I did point out that Mryt and Horace were going to buy us a good steak dinner the next time we are back home. 

So we sat and brooded, mulled over options.  We are fully vaxed, still, we were worrying. Was the exposure long enough, could it have been passed in conversation? We shared no meals, but...

In the end, we made the call to get in the car in the morning and drive the seven hours back to Baltimore. 

No fun. 

The whole way back we were messaged, texted, and were otherwise contacted by friends. telling us we made the right decision.  I mean no one wants to be with someone who possibly could expose them to COVID - Cookie would certainly not want that. 

Still, our disappointment was evident.  

We told ourselves that at least we could get the dogs back early, we missed them something awful, and we did get our points back from the hotel without any type of bureaucratic kerfuffle.  Face it, I said, they were glad we were leaving before we got everyone sick there, too. 

And yes, we are making plans to go back later in the summer, and for longer. Still, it was quite a blow in the present. 

So now we wait, six full days before we can take a test to see if we test positive. If we do, may it be mild. Then it's another 10-14 days in total isolation to clear the virus.  Good thing we like each other. 

But the whole thing crystallized one important thing - if we were living there, this wouldn't have robbed us of a vacation.  Our friends would be people we could again see all the time. And we wouldn't have to bumble about in a car for all those hours. 

Moreover, we could be back home where we yearn to be and belong. 

So COVID may score one on us, but in the next year, Ohio, here we come.

Tales of the neigborhood

Woe to anyone who crosses her.

The other day, while catching up with our neighbor Gertie, she and I witnessed a heated discussion between neighbors. 

Evidently, the one (Blond, Bitchy and Big Boobs) who is a total bitch to everyone wanted her yard cleaned up.  So husband hired a yard crew to clean up and mulch down the yard that BBB could care less about.

They brought out their gasoline-powered blowers and proceeded to blow last's fall and winter's detritus onto the other neighbor's freshly landscaped and mulched beds.  When the next-door neighbor saw what was going on, she asked BBB to ask her yard men to stop blowing crap into her Zen garden.  

BBB, screamed back that "You'll have to ask my husband to do that," because ""He's the one who handles the yard."

Which prompted a "Seriously?" commented from the aggrieved neighbor. She had a point. I mean really, what kind of smack is that?

BBB then said, "I mean that Zen garden is just a giant litter box!"

And then she walked back into the house because that is the type of passive-aggressive Barbie doll that she is.

So her aggrieved neighbor did what felt good at the moment- but wasn't very Zenlike - she got out her husband's gasoline-powered leaf blower and blew the crap back into BBB's yard.  

"Oh," said Gert, "I think we are in for another bug tussle."

Now I was torn. Part of me found the aggrieved neighbors take no shit, take no prisoners attitude something I could cheer on. 

"We went through this a couple years ago," opined Gert.  "This just made for unpleasantness."

But we all know that revenge is usually a dish best-served cold. Yet another question was, why wasn't wronged party meditating on it, which is very Zenlike. 

THAT prompted BBB to storm out of her house and walk up to her gardeners, and based on her hand gestures (it was kind of hard for us to see through Gertie's hedge, and the machines in the yard were making an awful racket) order one of the men working in her yard to blow the shit back into her neighbor's yard.  

I think body language is pretty universal, and he essentially was telling her "I am not your champion." He shrugged his shoulders and walked away.  

SO, BBB went over to the fence and started screaming at the neighbor, who screamed back "I THOUGHT ONLY YOUR HUSBAND COULD SPEAK WITH THE GARDENER!"

Our neighborhood picnic and potluck is this weekend, so I for one am interested in how BBB is going to play this. On the other hand, I think that it would be best to steer clear of both of them. 

My cocktail with Blobby

 

Blobby is very real. 

Believe me, reader, when I tell you, the man and the myth lived up to the hype, fellow blogger Blobby everything and more. 

When I knew that I had some family things in Ohio that needed tending, I contacted Blobby to see if he would like to get together for coffee or a beer, and the date was set at the Van Aken District (VAD) Market Place. 

Blobby and I were both at OSU at the same time, but we never crossed paths.  That can happen when a student population is 60,000+.  I mean the University is so large it has its own zip code.  No, not the Zip+4, I mean 43210.  But we grew up in Cleveland's eastern suburbs, and I swear that it's a small town. 

We chatted about stuff, I had a lovely time, and I hope he did too. He got me to sit outdoors, which my Husband will tell you is near impossible, and we toughed it out until the sun sank behind a building. Upon finishing our beverages we left and went our separate ways.  I did invite him and 714 to come to visit us in Baltimore. 

Just as I got out to the car, some woman came running up to my car, jumping up and down and it was my lab partner from 8th-grade science. Now Cookie is known for spotting people, but the last I heard, she was in Cincinnati, so I never dreamed of seeing her, but there she was so back in I went.   We talked about our big project - making five gallons of wine and monitoring the fermentation process. But, being 14, our parents were there for the bottling and they got to keep the spoils. Could that really have been 46 years ago? Where does time fly?

I have to say this, I have had meet-ups with bloggers and they all go well, with the exception of a former blogger who tried shaking me down for cash. And we'll just leave it at that. 

But, Oh, Cleveland, how you evolve in the most wonderful of ways, and a big f-you to media outlets that continue to only focus on that sliver of bad that every city has.  Before I left I did tell the husband that if our old family house was for sale in the Lomond area Shaker, our move would come immediately, not later. 

But it was not to be!

So it was out on Thursday, driving in the rain, was no fun. This was not only my first long-range drive travel since the Pandemic began but since the cancer surgery as well.  Visited, ran into cousins, eat a disgusting amount of heavenly food, and left there at 6am.  I arrived back in Bawlimore at 1:00 PM.  Not bad for a six-hour trip with a breakfast break and stops to use the necessary here and there. 

It's good to go back home and to the place, we'll be living in 18-24 months. 

Cookie

What not to eat: Wrigley's Franks and Hot Potato Salad Dish

 

When I was a child, there were a series of jokes that were always prefaced with "What is grosser than gross," and then the disgusting punch line followed with a cringe-inducing line, usually "When your great grandmother kisses you goodbye and slips you the tongue."

Shiver, ick!

Cookie keeps a file on foods out of women's magazines that are filed under "Food - Inedible". This is one of those files, and well, this is a grosser-than-gross post:

Franks and Potato Salad Dinner, brought to you by Wrigley's Spearmint Gum isn't so much a 'recipe" - none of these three color ads are true recipes.  They are more "assemble the usual suspects, an arrangement like this, serve them, and then stick a stick of our gum in your pie hole to cover up the taste. 

In this one, line a casserole dish with one pound of skinless franks, and slice in half - because evidently, we want to spread this around and make it last.  make sure that you cut one end of the severed frank into a point, so when you slide them into the round dish to seal the bottom. {Wink}.  The fill the void - and folk we all have a void to fill - with potato salad, one of the famous cold salads.  

But here, things get weirder than average because they want you to bake this mess for 20-25 minutes.  Now anyone who bakes basic potato salad is a deviant, ok?  But, they give you the option of filling the center with German Potato Salad, which is meant to be heated. 

We leave weird and cross over into disgusting when they suggest that you ice this mess with the "bewitching taste of "Catsup*", Chili** (and where is that recipe?), or BBQ sauce. 

Yeah, BBQ sauce really dresses up this hot mess.

Now the only people who could stomach this hot mess are heavy smokers.  The type that smoke while they eat.  People named Estil, Corliss, Bud, and "Sister Girl".

For dessert - after people are done vomiting this back up - then comes the gum. Because the whole family will be desperate to get that lasting bile taste out of their mouths. 

Making these ads all the better are the cheap, but lurid color separation.  That the page is stained with age, or coffee, or whatever, just makes you even more queasy.

You can thank me later when you download the image, post it on your blog or the Face of Book, to gross out your friends. 

Now excuse me while I get a refreshing cool cloth for the back of my neck, after sharing this with you.

 *We here at Ville Cookie are a step up when we buy "Catsup" because we only use ketchup when appropriate. 

**Could they mean Canned Chili? Quelle Horrour!