Hello on Monday from the Berkshires

Dear Friends,



The Valentine’s Dinner and Cabaret Show last evening went well. Linda and I were the first ones there. Some of my friends would have turned right around, and gone to the first floor dinning area and bar, and waited until some one else to arrive. Not the Curley’s, under my direction. We went directly to the bar on this second floor room where the dinner and the show were being held. A person, not the regular bartender, got behind the bar and poured us a glass of white wine. Since this guy was out of his element, and didn’t even have a cash box set up, he gave us the wine for free. You see, sometimes “Early is Good!”

When I say that we were there early, we actually we were right on time for the start of the 6:30 PM cocktail hour which was the way it was advertised. The whole evening contained a series of mismanaged incidents which this place is notorious for. As Linda and I were driving home from the show, we said that they could use the help from our teaching experience. We could never walk into a classroom unprepared. If you didn’t take care of details before your classes began, you were in for a very long day.

The food was touted as a Chinese buffet. The names of what you saw on the serving table didn’t match up. The head of a duck on the platter of overcooked duck products frighten a few of us. We did manage to find sustenance in some of the food products. The desserts were okay, and a glass of champagne was part of the sweets portion of the dinner.

The question is would we go back next year? If we did go out on Valentine’s Day with the couple whom we went with, it definitely would not be at this place.



I am the only one socially engaged today. I have a 6 PM UNICO membership meeting at a local restaurant.

Linda will expect a day of rest and relaxation from our long weekend. Linda will be watching the Olympics. Last night she was watching ice-skating as I headed off to bed.



I have to find time for a workout at Retro Fitness. I think that I will go when Linda wakes up. This means I will be at the gym when there are more distractions than usual. Oh Darn!



Our Tuesday social calendar might be in jeopardy. We are supposed to get a couple inches of a mid afternoon snow event. A couple of the Mah Jongg players don’t drive when it is snowing including the Queen

I am not sure if the Pasta Fund Raiser for Tuesday at 5:30 PM might be postponed too if the roads are dangerous.



The weekend, which we made it through, had so many positives. To see your offspring going through the process of searching for their first home in the suburbs was kind of fun to observe. To see them so happy, and mentally planning of how it is going to work out.

Commuting to work is about to change. Kevin won’t have the luxury of walking down the stairs from their apartment which is right above the restaurant. Kyla can’t just walk a block or so to the train station from the restaurant to go to her place of work in downtown Boston. They have been living with one car, but that changed yesterday when Kyla got Kevin a Valentine’s gift of a new car. The commute from the suburbs takes about 25 minutes depending on the traffic. The Brodeur’s, who drove on Route 93 every day of their long teaching careers to get to their respective schools, told them the best times to travel to avoid traffic problems. Kevin and Kyla will have to use Route 93 to get to work,

Then there is the baby sitting issue. Luckily, there is a day care center not too far from the end of their street. Ginny Brodeur, who lives a street away from where Kevin and Kyla will be living, has graciously volunteered to do a pick up at the day care center if Kyla gets tied up at work.

Family and friends prove that they are the link to help us get through the little bumps in the road of life.



While I was catching up with the local newspapers, I saw an article in the fish and game portion of the Sunday newspaper. Two friends, from a neighboring town, were ice-fishing for Northern Pike on Onota Lake. On the same day, about an hour apart, they each caught a Pike. One was 29 pounds, and the other was 26 pounds. I told Linda that if I ever caught a fish that large, I would have it mounted. She was worried that I would put it on a living room wall. I told her that it would go in my “Man Cave.”



Well, I have to do some quiet activities, one of which is to put away some of the food products which we purchased at Costco’s on the way home from the Brodeur’s yesterday. This is not going to be a noisy activity since the noise will take place in the storage room in the basement.



Have a great week at work or play.

Talk to you soon. The Curley Lad