Yesterday, we packed up the kids, the dog and the wonderbus with presents, lunch for Thanksgiving day, and all the kaboodle needed for a few days including skateboards, tennis racquets and chalk for a trip to Pittsburgh to visit my mom and my sister and brothers and their husbands, wives and kids. We got off around 11 as R. had business that was time dependent as did I (the other Cornell holiday card was finally approved with tweaks and the ftp'ing to the printer in line). After that, we drove to scenic Burdett NY where R. had a phone conversation and we bought lunch from Deb at the Grist Mill. Deb is the very bright and kind person who runs the Grist Mill Cafe and is the lead baker and chef. Her food is great so we had sumptious sandwiches and fresh rolls to devour on the road. Once the call was done, the sandwiches were wrapped and packed and away we went. The trip took a little longer than normal as there was a long backup and traffic jam outside of New Stanton. R. was brilliant and conncect the dots getting us to the Turnpike and away we went...listening to Ithaca's own Mollie Katzen talk about her new vegetarian cookbook on NPR.
We are at the Westin downtown as they allow us to take our pets--and Shady was presented with a lovely dog bed with a big brown bone screenprinted on the center with Westin embroidered on it. She was delighted. We have all had a turn with her outside and though there are small patches of grass, she is finding the city life no different than that of the country except the squirrels are not a prevalent and the nature a little less. We had dinner last night with my brother Tom and his wife and children at Lidia's (1400 Smallman Street--The Strip District). The food was delicious, service was kind and fast, and ambience was comfortable in a large, warehouse-y space. It is italian--but not the typical Pittsburgh spaghetti and meatballs in a windowless, smokefilled place. It was italian--italian style. It was great having a chance to see Tom and his crew by themselves in preparation for the day of fun today. We left our family and took Shady for a little walk up the strip a bit. The clubs were swinging...and K and A were in awe of the whole club scene wanting to when they could go to clubs? had we gone to clubs? what was the club thing like etc? There were lots of young women in club attire--short short short with scarey spiky shoes and lots of hair. Many of the girls should not have poured themselves into these short tubes of fabric as so much of themselves didn't make it into the dress. it all promised to be an amazing night to give thanks for --for this set.
I guess.
Rainy and balmy/humid this morning. More later