Daily Report: Old Faces

I've been loving the weather here in upstate New York. Being away from the 93º heat and 100% humidity is the one single-most agreeable aspect to this vacation... after seeing family, of course.

However, at night, the temperature drops down to 68º and a breeze sends me to shivers. It makes for a comfortable sleep under a nice blanket, but sitting on the back porch chit-chatting in the moonlight is decidedly uncomfortable.

I definitely miss Pui now. I find myself throughout the day — in everything I see or do — wishing Pui could see, hear, experience, or just enjoy the same things that I'm doing: (Notwithstanding what I said above about being cold...) the beautiful weather, the gorgeous scenery, the friendly people, the relaxing moments, the American culture... all of it.

Today, I went with my mother and Paul to look at a "modular home", which is basically a home that is pre-assembled at a factory, and only the final few steps of the building process are completed at the property site... kind of the peach flambeé of home building. My mother lives in a modular house currently, but it is too small, and Paul lives in his old family house currently, but it is too large. I don't mind another move for my mother, but she is thinking of moving out of Bath, and I'm not as enthusiastic about that. She's thinking about giving up the small town life, and moving to The Big City... Elmira.


We always think of spelling errors as the
purview of Thailand stores. Don't ever
count out the Yanks on their ability
to misspell: "Unbrella Base".After that, we went to the local ice cream stand, and then did some shopping at the grocery store, P&C. More Spaghetti-O's for Jil.

In the evening, I met up with my old best high school buddy, Rick. He married a local girl named Katie, whose family owns all of the McDonald's in the area. They now run a shipping service (kind of like "Mailboxes, Etc") in the next county North of here. We met up at The Village Tavern in Hammondsport. I remembered the place as a "burger and fish-fry" kind of establishment. I think Rick did too. Weren't we surprised when we saw the prices: $120 for 3 people. I can't believe that Rick and his wife insisted on paying my way, but they did.

Well, the crab stuffed flounder was very nice (although at $24.95 I wouldn't go back for seconds), and — as the bar has 99 beers available, all of them fancy — for the first time in a decade, I got to enjoy a bottle of Westvleteren Trappist Ale #8. At $13.75 per (regular sized) bottle, it was actually much cheaper than it should/could have been. (I was going to pass as I wasn't paying for dinner, but Katie persisted I order it once I had mentioned it. If you ever meet her, you'll understand how I couldn't refuse when she insisted I order something.)

Anyway, I know that Rick will be reading this, so thank you again for dinner old friend... it was awesome to see you again, and I'll make sure I see you next time I'm in town, and next time dinner is on me.

After dinner, I went over to Dad and Judy's house, where I met up with Dan and Nancy, and we watched a movie called "Shooter" with Marky Mark which was only mediocre. Then, it was home to bed.

As for Mike's thousand words, I finally found a photograph that I feel sums up America perfectly. It shows American abundance, consumerism, overindulgence... and the propensity to take something good, and keep improving upon it and adding to it until the point where everybody — except those who enjoy moderation — can find a way to like it: An entire grocery store shelf of nothing but crap to put on top of ice cream.