davidfcooper

I made the mistake of complaining about Shoshana's choice in clothes last week--a faux pas that cost me a trip to the mall today. The fact is she buys much more flattering apparel when I tag along, and she does enjoy the attention. She picked out and took into the changing room numerous garments all of which she rejected. While she was in the changing room I found some more suitable choices from which she chose the following (the blue dress is from H&M and the deep purple is from Macy's:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/shoshndavid/detail?.dir=eca6&.dnm=e8f4re2.jpg

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/shoshndavid/detail?.dir=eca6&.dnm=9762re2.jpg

Following cowgrrl's suggestion, earlier this week I decided to eliminate dairy from my diet, and so far I feel less lethargic and my mucus/phlegm is thinner; a simple step that makes me feel much better.

Today Shoshana has off from work and went museum and gallery hopping in Manhattan (activities that involve too much standing for me to participate). I'm planning to prune our mulberry tree later today.
Tomorrow after shul we're having lunch with a friend who used to be Allen Ginsberg's secretary.

To see the accompanying video for the poems in the previous two posts click here: http://thecommonpeople.blogspot.com/

On Thursday I was greeted by a ticket on my windshield for a lapsed state inspection sticker. When I brought the car to our garage guy it turned out it needed some work before it could pass inspection--an unanticipated expense in an expensive month. We had already decided to hire a painter to paint our apartment. The painter doesn't have a car so I had to buy the paint myself & he's applying it. Fortunately I had already made the trip to Lowes and bought the paint before getting the ticket. The painter has a day job M-F so he's doing the job on the weekends. He started Saturday and we hope he'll finish next weekend. Meanwhile our apartment feels like when we just moved in. Right now our bedroom, the upstairs mezzanine, and the living room and kitchen ceiling are done, but the living room furniture is in the middle of the room under a drop cloth, the blinds and curtains are in the guest bedroom as are the paintings and photos. We can still use the kitchen, but we are effectively without a living room. We found a drop of house paint on one of Shoshana's old oil paintings, the painter apologized, and since the house paint is water based Shosh got most of it off.

Speaking of Shosh's paintings, her painting "Mill Basin" was sold Friday night at the opening reception of the group show in which it has been exhibited at the Simon Liu Gallery. Today I will bring
"Murray Harbour" to the gallery to replace "Mill Basin" for the final three weeks of the show.

A house painter is supposed to come by tommorow morning to give us an estimate on painting our apartment. It really needs to get done--we last painted 11 years ago when we first moved here. If the estimate is too expensive we may have to attempt it ourselves (we have 14' ceilings). We'll see if we make it to synagogue afterward. Tomorrow afternoon is one of Shoshana's openings (the other gallery is later this week), and we'll probably eat out tomorrow evening. Sunday Shosh hopes to paint, which she hasn't been able to do the past couple of weeks because of family obligations.

We'll be away this weekend, & we're not shlepping the laptop, so I'll try to catch up with LJ sometime next week. We're going to Hartford for our autistic niece's bat-mitvah; it should be interesting to see how much of the ritual she is willing & able to perform. The rabbi wisely planned it for Sunday, which is the beginning of a new month (Elul) on the Jewish calendar, rather than Saturday when there is a longer service attended by more people. We'll drive up tomorrow, attend a family dinner in honor of our niece Saturday evening, and then the service and a large catered kiddush (post-service social hour) Sunday. We should be back Sunday evening.

We're back from our Poconos vacation and have uploaded photos (after clicking on the link you can click on View Slideshow or else view the photos one at a time):
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/shoshndavid/album?.dir=/2a72

We got to the Budget Motel in East Stroudsburg in a little over an hour and half from Brooklyn including a stop in Rockaway, NJ for lunch at The Hibernia Diner where I had a roasted veggies wrap and Shosh had a veggie panini. After checking in and partial unpacking we headed out to try to get in a hike before dinner. Five or six minutes later we exited the interstate and started hearing a dragging sound behind us and suddenly the engine became noisier. We pulled over to the parking lot of a convenience store and discovered that our muffler had broken off and was dragging. After getting a referral to a repair shop from the store clerk I kicked the muffler off and put it in the trunk and drove five interstate exits to the repair shop without the muffler. Fortunately the repair shop could take us right away and could locate a new replacement muffler. While the work was being done we went for a walk down Main St. in Stoudsburg taking note of Everybody's Cafe, a restaurant in an old victorian house. Our new muffler cost $125 installed (plus tax) and we drove to Tannersville to shop at the outlet center where we bought underwear at Hanes and sneakers and sandals at Easy Spirit. We then returned to Everybody's Cafe for a romantic dinner (which has numerous vegetarian dishes; we'll definitely dine there again).

The next day we drove to Bushkill Falls and did the "difficult" hike that the brochure said would take two and a half hours in a little over an hour; it's a scenic walk on well maintained paths. For lunch we had funnel cakes and ice cream (we never eat junk food at home) and on the drive back there was a traffic jam; the area is being overdeveloped into exurbia sprawl. We decided to have a fish dinner at the restaurant in the motel, which was surprisingly good.

Our third day we got a late start and headed out to look for a place to hike but decided to have lunch at a truck stop first. The people leaving the next table were Israelis; almost every vacation we've been on we hear Hebrew being spoken at some point in the trip. On our waitress' recommendation we drove to Hickory Run State Park. After exiting the interstate the fire patrol instructed us to take a detour to the park, where Shosh was bitten by a flying insect (possibly a bee). We drove to a ranger station where she was given an insect bite wipe that brought down the swelling and where the ranger recommended the Shades of Death trail. My guess is that the trail is named for the hemlock trees that provide a lovely canopy (as do the abundant mountain laurel). After our hike we drove to Big Pocono State Park and drove to the top of Camelback and enjoyed the panoramic views. We dined nearby at an Indian restaurant in an old railroad car, Tandoor Palace, which we also recommend.

Before returning to NY on Sunday we drove down route 611, stopped at a scenic overpass, and did a short hike at the Old Slate Farmhouse. We had lunch in Delaware Watergap, bought local produce and baked goods. and then headed out. On the drive home we stopped for gas and encountered some traffic so the trip took two hours. Considering the quality of the hiking and dining and how much closer PA is to NYC than say VT, I think we'll be back. Although VT is politically and culturally more in tune with us, it takes twice or three time as long to get to; and although the Poconos is more Republican it is also demographically more integrated.