While we ate our Peacheys glazed donut, my dear wife Karen and I took a good luck at the closed-for-the-evening Extreme Strong setup. I imagined the strong person in the home-away-from-home parked behind the sign. Slurping a protein smoothie? Sleeping to regain power? Watching me watching? I swear I’m not creepy. Welcome to Central New…

This is the second spot my dear wife Karen has selected for the sunflower plant we bought at the Regional Market. In this dry, hot, sunny summer, I think it may be shuttled elsewhere as well in our never-endig quest to keep it as robust as possible.

All it took was one burst of Saturday night’s Syracuse Mets post-game fireworks to see why the would not allow fans to stay on the Salt City Deck to watch. They indeed were bursting right around us. We liked it.

Our backyard peony tree has a hard act to follow. The front yard peony we left behind at the old house was one of the most bountiful of that bunch of plants we’d put in the ground on our dozen years there. We put this plant in a couple years ago and hoped. It’s showing…

This time around at NBT Bank Stadium, found merchandise on the racks I couldn’t resist for myself. I also put my new Syracuse Mets hoodie on as soon as my dear wife Karen and I got back from the Mets store. She had decided upon a long-sleeved shirt that stayed in the bag. Already, you…

During the pregame ceremony Sunday in the Carrier Dome, the announcer proclaimed Gary Gait the greatest college lacrosse player of all time. We indeed live in the GOAT generation. And my 40 years of living in Syracuse included the time Gary Gait spent with brother Paul Gait winning national championships for the Orange. He’s launch…

By shovel, by foot stomp, every time I pass by these pipes I make sure the path is clear. I learned the hard way our first winter here that they lead to our furnace. If the air flow gets blocked, it’s as if the heater can’t breathe, and down drops the house temperatures.

Sometimes the winter and my need to get the car as close as possible for possible plowing makes the art of taking out the garbage and recyclables a bit of a tight squeeze. My job to haul them out to the curb, so no complaints here. My dear wife Karen, when she drops stuff out…

Earlier this winter I thought that maybe I’d made a bad call when I’d decided for the whole-season option and sent our plowing company the check to cover our driveway needs through winter. OK, maybe we still would have come out better if I’d checked the pay-per-plow box. But I still feel pretty good when…

Even when my trusty shovel allows me to keep up with the falling snow … I often look the next time to discover the blowing winds have given me the task of another go at least part of the walks.