A delightful flash of Cardinal red in winter

I’ve spent the two summers since I’ve started this blog ready to grab my iPhone or iPad for its camera whenever the Cardinal red flashed by the backyard of the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood Little Bitty shared by my dear wife Karen and I. I’ve never been quick enough to get a good shot.…

Dr. Dog sounds cool and has one guy who looks familiar

I’m digging the CBS weekend morning news’ Saturday version more and more. It takes me a while to get comfortable with personalities and style, I readily admit, and weekdays I am an avowed “Today” follower over on NBC. CBS, though, is wise enough to schedule the weekend morning shows to start and last a couple…

Another trip to Trader Joe’s might lead to a third …

When I wrote about my dear wife Karen and I’s first trip to Syracuse’s new Trader Joe’s in November, it moved many people to pitch in with helpful suggestions. I so surely agree that three-buck wine that people I trust swear is drinkable is an idea whose time has come. And then we discovered that…

So you wanted to know more about the Diner and that mural

I know a good question when I see it. So when commenter Nancy C. let loose with, “Mark, who’s the artist” during the strong string of thoughts at the tail end of my Tuesday post about the colorful mural that adorns one whole wall of a diner we’re blessed with here in Syracuse, N.Y., I…

Feeling negative from the start

I heard the furnace running before I opened my eyes. I did not hear the furnance stop. I heard my dear wife Karen open the door to the back porch to step out and open the back porch door so Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle could do her Tuesday morning thing and felt the dog…

Come back to the Market Diner, Jimmy Dean

So who’d you like to have breakfast with given a free hand? Pancakes with Pavlov and ask him to bring his dogs? Oatmeal with Oliver Stone so you can explain why everybody’s against you? Eggs over easy with Ella Fitzgerald so you tell her how much you admired how she always made hitting the hard…

Cashing in on the gift cards puts us in the Red

My smart and beautiful daughter Elisabeth and her terrific boyfriend George know I like lobster. My stepson Daryl knows I like lobster. My sister Dory knows I like lobster. I squirreled away their presents from my December birthday and Christmas for one big night with my dear wife Karen. I figured the $100 total plus…

Feeling like a bogey man in Syracuse

It happens every year at this time. I always put on my TV thinking it may make me feel better. The PGA Tour golfers are at the Kapalua Plantation Course in Hawaii for its annual Tournament of Champions. I dialed in my iPad Air at 5 p.m. Friday to snap a photo from round one.…

Great to see you, Kitt Crescendo, write again

When I read in one of her December posts that Kitt Crescendo was in Syracuse, N.Y. because of her new day job, I started a back-and-forth in her comment section. We already knew each other in the WordPress world, so I felt comfortable enough to give her a bit of grief for not letting me…

The Hotel Syracuse remembers the old as it faces the new

They called this “Suite Stories Ghostwalk,” and indeed the Hotel Syracuse had some stories to tell. But it wasn’t the kind of ghosts of folks who famously die and hang around these old buildings of ours. No, when I signed up as a “back guide” on the last Saturday of 2014 and walked the grounds…