A pool over the pool

So this week’s thaw made for a happy backyard time for our cherished rescue mutt Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle. I opened the back door of A Bitty Better as soon as got home from the library. I discovered a day near 60 degrees F had left us with a melting mass on top of…

Everybody outside

It’s been weeks since my work friends and I have taken to the paths of Onondaga Lake Park during either our morning or afternoon breaks. It seems like that’s how long the polar vortex hung over the Village of Liverpool, anyway. Monday, though … The trail at 11 a.m. was, well, packed with happy people.…

There’s a lot of love to be unearthed in Juliet, Naked

Oh, goodie, another fun little movie that got its life from the pages of a Nick Hornby novel. Juliet, Naked starts out about music and some eccentric little people who center their lives around it, yes, those of you forever fans of High Fidelity. There once was this rocker by the name of Tucker Crowe…

Crows lead to foxes, I discover

On a January work break walk with my colleagues, the loud screeching of crows broke our conversation. Laura declared that in her neighborhood a few blocks away in the Village of Liverpool, that has been signifying the sighting of a fox. And she spotted it, too. Off to the right in the backyard. Out came…

Going big

My dear wife Karen’s year of deliberation about the photo she had made of one of our digital captures from our family trip to Kona led to her determination that bigger would be better. And so our Hawaii wall has been altered. I do believe none of us will forget our time in the 50th…

Baseball, please

As we turn the calendar to February, I say: Baseball, please. Spring training will be starting soon. And, yes, that is a new Syracuse Mets hat on top of my head.

World class vibe at Bangkok Thai

So I’m sitting with my work friends/colleagues for a business lunch at our favorite, friendly Liverpool quick getaway spot Bangkok Thai, and something amazing hits my gaze. The faraway wall has paint peeling in a peculiar pattern. Or maybe somebody chipped it away on purpose. I did discern the shapes of large land masses I…

Here’s the whole library sign

I promised that the next trip I took to the downtown branch, I’d catch all the letters of the cool sign. First I took a photo from the outside looking up. Coming at it from the other direction helped my sense of order. They really did hit a home run with this one. And inside,…

Yes, we could make them at home

It only took one pass through the frozen food section and a few minutes of hard looking in the Asian food sauce aisle to come home with the right ingredients to re-create the potstickers meal we’d savored so much at TGIF. I think my dear wife Karen’s version turned out even more succulent potstickers, if…

Spike Lee makes you think hard with BlackKlansman

Picture a proud African American police officer from the Colorado Springs force on the phone with David Duke, convincing him to send him this KKK card. Yes, it really happened. And under the direction of Spike Lee from his screenplay with Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott from the book by that policeman, the…