Valentine's Day and Presidents' Day

On the Saturday before Valentine's Day, I visited Matt, Mike, Dad, and Granny at the Gerbers'. Tracey and David had gone away for a few days to Puerto Rico, and Dad and Granny were hanging out with the guys. It was a pretty low-key day.

M&M and I played some video games. I petted on Molly.

The guys left to go ice skating at Rockefeller Center with their youth group from the temple late that afternoon.

Dad, Gran, and I had dinner at Smith Brothers—which sometimes, erroneously, calls itself Smith Brother's on its signage and website—in Ridgewood. It was OK. The food and atmosphere, like the bad punctuation, reminded me of South Jersey. :-)

And so did these people: Gran ...

... and Dad.

***

Tony and I had our Valentine's Day dinner, on the Sunday before, at Commerce. For our entrees, we both got the Red Snapper with Eggplant and Bok Choi in a Thai-Inspired Broth. "Sooo good," I raved on Facebook. "I drank all of the broth." That sauce was actually a little too salty for me, but it was loaded with flavor.

Here's my boy posing thoughtfully. And handsomely.

***

I took the 13th and 14th off so I could go to the 136th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. I wrote a lengthy post about it over at Queer New York.

Before the second night's judging, Lou and I grabbed a quick dinner at Pizza Suprema. It was much better than the average slice joint. Quite good.

Here's a photo I took from our not-so-great-but-good-enough seats during the Best in Show judging.

***

The following Sunday, I made Hamburger Soup, from homemade vegetable broth and tomato puree, ground beef, Bintje potatoes, sweet potatoes, and multicolored carrots from the farmers market.

***

The next afternoon, on Presidents' Day, I met the Schultieses at FAO Schwarz. At Christmas, I had told Abbe and Zane that I would take them to the toy store to make their own Muppet Whatnots. Bob told me earlier in the day that Zane had woken up singing about making a Muppet. :-)

The kids selected the characteristics for their Muppets by placing stickers on a sheet.

Then we had some time to kill while the Muppets were created. Bob posed with a sample Muppet:

And with a pound of Reese's Cups:

That works out to 100 calories per $1.

I posed with a candy bar I'd never heard of but that nonetheless summed me up perfectly. And it looks like that gal in the orange jacket agrees.

After the Muppets were made, we headed downtown to have Hamburger Soup with Tony, who'd had a busy day for work or else he would have joined us at FAO Schwarz.

While I heated up the soup and the adults had some wine, the kids went up to the nephew cage to play with their Muppets. Zane had immediately named his Mr. Bob. Later, Abbe chose Princess Maya as her Muppet's name.

We adults had salad for a starter, with a bell-pepper-and-onion dressing I made. And on the side with the soup, we had Mary's Gone Crackers crackers, which Bob and the kids liked much more than I had thought they would, because they're very seedy and nutty. (The crackers, not the people. :-) I figured Jen would like them.) And Abbe had two helpings of the soup. Winna!

The boys.

And the girls.

For dessert, I had whipped up some chocolate chip cookies, just like the ones I had made with the nephews during the Muppets-based weekend they spent with us.

Jen told me on Friday, when Tony and I went over for a pizza night, that the kids had been playing with their Muppets constantly all week, which they'd had off from school.

That was a fun night too, with Tim and Lauren, Mike and Gina, Mil, and a surprise appearance by the kids' piano teacher, Louis, and his artist partner, Michael.

I'll end the post with a Muppet that Zane had made for Tony and me and a thank-you card the kids made while they were upstairs, with materials Tony had left up there for them.

UPDATE on Feb. 29: Here's a photo of another terrific card I got that I had meant to put in the post, from Tony for Valentine's Day:

Comments

[Mark (Game Master) Heskin]

I envy your fun at FAO Schwarz. I LOVE Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!