A cruise with the gang, minus me

My dear wife Karen is aboard Jet Blue, about to taxi down the runway at Syracuse’s Hancock International Airport to head toward Fort Lauderdale. Tonight, Bubba Gump’s Shrimp. Tomorrow morning, the big ship of Royal Caribbean International. Key West. Other destinations and dinners and lunches and breakfasts. Friends we’ve cruised with for eight years now.…

At Festa Italiana, folks eat it up

Even the name sounds delicious. Festa Italiana. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? Well, sure, downtown Syracuse has its share of festivals that declare their devotion to the culinary. The Crawfish Festival is named after the bright red mud bug dug so much down New Orleans way, and in May, Clinton Square welcomed folks…

A patio party with a firepit warms our weekend

We’ve heard word of this big patio, my dear wife Karen and I, from the planning stages to the digging and pouring to the inevitable haggling about finishing touches with contractors. I was not pleased when damage was done to the steps that DJ had put in previously. Make it right, dude … When somebody…

Entering a new e world, and it’s not about dating

I’m trying to attract attention with a new online profile. I showed it to my dear wife Karen, and she gave it the green light. This first week after my temp agency informed me the 40-hour-per company had decided to end my assignment two months in has included enough soul searching to remind me that…

Thirteen years ago, we were invaded forever

Thirteen years ago to the minute, I was watching in horror as the television screens in the newsroom of the Syracuse Newspapers were all turned to some version of that horrible vision above. Oh, how the 9 o’clock hour on this day sends shivers down my spine every year. It forever will. The fact that…

Another weekend where everybody feels Irish

Dancers with a high step. Singers of Celtic rock. Singers with traditional strings. Spirits and spirit. The Syracuse Irish Festival was again sponsored by Guinness last Friday and Saturday, and it was pretty evident that the people it drew to downtown’s Clinton Square felt pretty darn Irish about the whole thing. In March, St. Patrick’s…

I can smell the September flowers

It’s a good day to step out and appreciate what I’ve got here with my dear wife Karen in our home in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Syracuse. In the hourglass front-yard garden, the roses are celebrating September with another cycle of blossoms. Pink and white, side by side. The violet peeking out belongs to…