Nothing Is Coming Up Roses

On walk through the blocks surrounding the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood this week, I asked Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle if she would like to stray just a few houses from our usual route to see if the folks who give us a wonderful display of color every summer are…

Sticking my neck out

There was a running gag in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 that hit close to home. The elder women, whenever they posed for a photo, grabbed hold of the back of each other’s necks and, just as the taker took, gave the person next to them a little tug of support. Wow, I’ve noticed…

No lie about that great coverage

Welcome to the club, my colleagues said. That did not make me feel better. I spilled paint at the store. Setting up the scene: My boss handed a work sheet to all in the paint department. One of my assignments was to down stock and fill in two bays in the major paint aisle. So…

Snow apparent reason

I set this morning’s alarm for 5:10 a.m., to ease my way back into tomorrow’s opening shift at the store. My first stop was the kitchen, to push the button on my coffee maker, loaded with Dunkin’ last night. The view out the front window of our Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of…

Welcome to the hoops capital for men and women

The games will be played elsewhere. Houston on Saturday and Indianapolis on Sunday, to be precise. But make no mistake about it. The folks who call Syracuse, N.Y., and its surrounding miles home can undeniably make claim as the basketball capital of the entire world this weekend. The Syracuse men’s and women’s teams both won…

Hitting the dome walls makes us happy

KP, Tater and I got our golf season off to its traditional indoor start last week. Too chilly and wet for us to comfortably put in our first swings of 2016 on an outside course, we once again gathered inside the Golf Dome at Turning Stone Resort and Casino, some 25 southeast of Syracuse in…

A special meal coming for a Happy Easter

My dear wife Karen asked a couple of days ago what I’d like to have for dinner on Easter. A ham steak? My answer had that question mark on the end of it, but that’s the way we left it. Then in those nether moments before I drifted off to sleep that night, a better…

Climbing the store ladder, literally and figuratively

I’ve put two weeks in at the paint department. I’m learning a lot at the store. I have to be good at climbing the ladder. For stocking, they keep big things up high. Early on, my boss told me to deal with garbage cans. The store sells a good variety, from humongous to very large…

Too big for easy picking?

Usually when something of any value of all is put out to the road here in our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood, it’s picked up by this urban hunter or that. We’ve had a king-size mattress disappear from in front of the Little Bitty, much to our joy. Yeah, it was a comfortable bed, but…

Away with the clutter, ahhhh

I knew my mess was spreading too far and wide in the Little Bitty I share with my dear wife Karen in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. I saw it every moment I sat writing in my recliner/work chair. The wide ottoman that we’d bought because it serves as seating-in-the-pinch had become completely covered…