Hawleyblog

A Dog Post in Which Rudy Falls Asleep While Peeing and Tony and I Consider Dogs Named Olive and Moonbeam

Saturday night was a particularly sleepy one for Rudy and me. I kept falling asleep on the couch next to Tony while he was watching his British food shows on the Cooking Channel: Two Fat Ladies and The Supersizers Go .... Rudy was on his bed, which is near the TV. Tony said I may as well go lie down. So I did, but not in our bed. I curled up next to Rudy on his bed and fell asleep there.

Tony told me that after a little while, Rudy stepped on and over me without waking me up and fell asleep again on the floor. (Rudy likes being near us in the bed or on the couch, but he doesn't like to be held too close while he's trying to sleep. It cramps his style.)

Later, Tony took Rudy out to pee. Rudy barely woke up when Tony put the leash on him, and he fell asleep in the elevator on the ride down. And once they were outside, Tony said, he fell asleep standing up as he was peeing! Poor exhausted little fella.

***

Tony and I have both gone back and forth a bit in recent months as to whether we're ready to get another dog. It's been so easy having just Rudy. And we've been undecided as to whether Rudy would want another dog in the house; sometimes we think he would be grateful to have a baby sister and sometimes we think he's content being the only woofer.

Well, now we're both finally ready to get a second dog. And just as we had both arrived at that decision, Bob sent me a link to a craigslist ad (which may not be a viable link for too much longer) for a cute little foster dog named Olive who's in need of a permanent home. The foster parents are friends of a co-worker of Bob's. We thought the writeup was charming and Olive looked like a little doll, and so I e-mailed the foster mom. I asked her whether Olive is a barker and whether she's housebroken. The woman said barking isn't an issue but she doesn't know whether Olive is housetrained or not because their other dog was never fully trained to not relieve himself in the apartment. I appreciated her honesty and thanked her for giving Olive a good home until she can find her forever home but said that the housebreaking issue was probably too much of a sticking point for us. The other sticking point is that they're in Park Slope, and we'd have to rent a car to get Rudy there to meet Olive.

Enter Moonbeam. I saw her on Petfinder on Monday and fell for her scruffy good looks. So did Tony. I sent an e-mail to Animal Haven inquiring about her that didn't get a reply. Yesterday, I saw that she had been adopted. *sigh* The good news is that Animal Haven is within a reasonable, though not terribly short, walking distance from the apartment. So we figure we'll most likely end up adopting from AH because we'd be able to get Rudy there to meet his potential sister or brother without hiring a car.

***

Here are a couple of videos I took of Rudy on Thanksgiving night and haven't used on the blog because I haven't done an all-dog-related post in a while. In the first, he's making cute snoring noises, and in the second, he's wiggling and kicking his feet in his sleep.

 

 

 

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While I'm posting old stuff, here's a photo Rich took of me and my guys that I gave framed copies of to the family at Christmas. We have to take a new photo, though, because when these were printed out, the tops of our heads were cut off.

And here's a cute photo of the woofer boy I posted on Facebook back in December but never here.

"Guess who smells like milk n honey?" I wrote.

Rudy likes to have either his butt or head resting on Tony's foot.

It Wouldn't Be Summer Without a Cape May Weekend With Dan and Paul

I squeezed in a long weekend with Paul and Dan in Cape May last weekend before my superbusy week at work last week and before Tony and I move into our new apartment this week.

The weather sucked. We got in only a few hours of beachtime on Saturday before the clouds and rain rolled in. And Sunday was equally gloomy. (And in Bridgeton and its suburbs, the part of Cumberland County where I grew up, there was terrible flooding after as much as a foot of rain fell. My Dad got a half inch of water in his basement, and he had to Shop-Vac some water from Granny's basement too.)

I still had lots of fun with my buds, though.

Paul showed me this Mascul-out commercial parody video. I think it's from The Man Show. He also told me about his step-great-uncle (or as I described that relationship: no relation whatsoever really :-) ) Haskell Bus Boggs, who filmed Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, and some other TV shows and movies that are mentioned on Boggs's IMDB page. Paul doesn't know how HBB got his middle name. I want to know whether he ever told Michael Landon to just cut his goddamn hair already.

The mention of Bonanza caused Dan to recall that our friend Petey Wetey would look for Pernell Roberts to be showing off his bulge in the show. Paul cracked that I have more of a Cokie Roberts vibe going on. Damn him and his mean meanness!

I declared the country song of the summer to be Josh Turner's "Firecracker," even though, as is always the case with my CSOTS picks, it's not new. But it's new to me. Cuz I don't listen to country music unless I'm hanging out with Paul. Josh Turner is a hottie with a furry chest and a voice so deep that you know his balls have to be this big. *makes a gesture like big balls* And this song has such fantastic lyrics: "She goes off with a great big bang. ... When she makes love, she's a heart attacker." Well done, Josh (or your songwriter). Well done.

Paul also e-mailed me a list of first-world problems that has apparently been making the rounds of the Internets but that, like most somewhat recently popular country songs, was new to me:

We drove over a bridge that has a crazy sign dividing Jersey into North and South, which is really shortchanging the South, considering that Cape May is the southern tip of the state:

The Gerbers had arrived in Ocean City on Saturday to start a week's vacation down the shore. We were supposed to meet up with them for dinner at Lucky Bones that night, but the Gerbers got stuck in crazy traffic and couldn't even get out of that dry town. (We all assumed that was because people were seeing the weekend was likely to be a rainout and so were going home.) I was bummed when Tracey texted to say they weren't going to make it, but it turned out to be the right decision. When D, P, and I got to Lucky Bones, we were told there would be an hour and a half wait for a table for only three. So we went and had a fine meal at a Mexican place just down the road called 5 de Mayo that doesn't have a website.

On Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the Uncle Bill's Pancake House in North Cape May. I got oatmeal raisin pancakes that were really good and at least seemed to be, maybe possibly, a little bit healthy. I also got a side of pork roll because I just have to eat some of that questionable, pig-derived product at some point when I'm in that area.

And speaking of pigs: Dan, Paul, and I and some of the ladies from the campground where D&P have their trailer and who, like us, were at the city beach on Saturday were all drooling over a very muscular and pleasingly tattooed guy who was building a sand castle near us. I'll have some pix of him at the end, so you'll have to stick around for that.

Paul drove me down to Cape May from and back to the Trenton Transit Center. On the way back, we first listened to some songs from his iPod Shuffle, most of which were older, noncountry songs. Then we listened to some Fleet Foxes, a group I started getting into after watching a goat-filled video of theirs on Homer's blog, on my iPhone. And I played "Brotherhood of Man," my favorite number from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which Paul had seen performed on the Tonys. He then played the cast recording of Urinetown, which I liked enough to buy from iTunes.

Here are some more photos from the weekend:

Me and Paul at Uncle Bill's

Dan at Uncle Bill's

A Westie name Bob, who belongs to Sam's mother Barbara

Dan and Paul's Claire, hoping for a ride to the beach

And the sand castle builder

A Weekend With the 'Phews and a Weekend With the Hawleys, Part I

The nephews visited me two weekends ago for their third bimonthly Uncle Bill weekend. The high point was a Saturday visit to Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. The low point was a clogged toilet early Sunday morning. And the mid point was a Saturday night dinner at Ditch Plains, which was only so-so.

We had talked about going to The Jewish Museum to see the Harry Houdini exhibit on this visit, but my friends Missy and Nate have been wanting to see it too. And because they were going to be away on vacation during this visit from the boys, I suggested we wait until the March visit to go to that museum in the hope that M&N would be able to join M&M and me.

Matt and Mike were excited about attending an afternoon workshop on pixelation, and they ended up really enjoying the class. We also caught an episode of a serialized Green Hornet movie from 1940, the year Dad was born. Because of the wording on this page of the museum's website, I thought the plot was going to have something to do with King Tut. But it turned out that Tut's Fever is the name of the theater within the museum where the movie was playing. It's decorated in an over-the-top ancient Egyptian style.

In a hallway behind the seating area was a sarcophagus that you could open by pulling a handle. Inside was a wooden carving of a mummified James Dean.

The movie was sooo cheesy, and we enjoyed it for its silliness. The plot involved some crazy scheme by the owner of a flight school to collect on insurance money for his crashed planes and dead students. My favorite moment was when the Green Hornet tried to stop a student from taking his solo night flight that was bound to crash. The student, who recognized the Green Hornet immediately when he arrived on the scene, nonetheless refused to leave the plane at the crime fighter's request. Rather than telling the guy "Your plane has been sabotaged to go down in flames," our hero said he didn't have time to explain the situation and just insisted that the guy scram. So they got into a fistfight that ended when the Green Hornet zapped him with his stinging gun.

We also liked the museum's main exhibit called "Behind the Screen." I know I wasn't supposed to, but I couldn't resist snapping a picture of the kitschiest bit of Star Wars merchandise I've ever seen.

Perhaps the single-most-interesting thing at the museum for me was the kinetic sculpture by Brooklyn artist Gregory Barsamian called Feral Fount.* There's a video of FF at Barsamian's linked website.

We had an enjoyable lunch in the museum's cafe before the guys' workshop.

The evening before, Tracey had stayed for dinner and treated us all to a meal at Kobma. I had suggested trying a different Thai place for Tracey's first time eating that type of cuisine, one called Tue that I've gone to a couple of times for a quick, cheap and tasty lunch, though never for dinner. But the Gerbers all preferred to go to the place the guys had enjoyed twice before. Tracey ended up ordering a fine but fairly bland chicken and mixed veggies dish because she was leery of getting something that would be too hot and spicy. She tried and preferred the Red Curry Chicken, so now she knows she's OK with eating something that's got some chili heat to it.

For dinner on Saturday, we went to Ditch Plains, the surfing-themed restaurant the Schultieses, Tony, and I went to before Mummenschanz. None of us was thrilled with the food—except for the two ice cream sandwiches we split for dessert and the housemade sweet potato chips that came as a side with the guys' dinners. And this time, the service was pretty weak too.

Really early Sunday morning, I found the toilet clogged up when I went to pee. I tried plunging it a couple of times, but it became clear pretty fast that it was going to have to be snaked. One of the guys had taken a very large dump during the night. (Making big poops is genetic with them, from their father's side. It's true. It's something Tracey has had to deal with toiletwise since they first got potty trained.)

I called a few advertised-as-24-hour plumbers early that morning and got through first to a major national pipe-cleaning firm whose name rhymes with "photo shooter." The woman who answered the phone said someone would be out by 10 and that I would get a call when the "technician" was on the way. I was thrilled about the getting-a-call-first part because it meant we didn't have to be stranded at the apartment waiting for the guy to show up and could get something to eat at a place with a usable bathroom. That turned out to be the Pain Quotidien outpost on the corner of Hudson and Perry, which I figured would have one of the cleanest bathrooms around. And it did have a nice one. And on top of that, I enjoyed my oatmeal with mint tea, and the guys had fun peeling and eating their soft-boiled eggs.

I did indeed get a call when the plumber was on his way, but after a half hour, there was no sign of him. I called back and was told he was parked outside. I looked outside, and there was still no sign of him. I called again and was told he had locked his keys in his car. Sigh. Eventually, he made an appearance and told me about his problem. He showed me his very fat wallet, which looked like George Costanza's stuffed-full-of-receipts one from the "Reverse Peephole" episode of Seinfeld. He said he has two other wallets that are just as big, and he was moving stuff—including some keys, only one of which was in his wallet—when he got the call about my job. He neglected to move his other keys to this wallet, which is why he ended up locked out. He was able to reach his snake from the one door he could get into, so he was able to unclog my toilet pipe before too long. Even though he was clearly preoccupied about what to do about his car, he was very professional. I heard him flush the toilet several times, and he asked me to listen as he flushed it twice because I would know better than him what it normally sounds like.

While the plumber was working in the bathroom, I finished making the double batch of Peppermint Brownies I mentioned in my previous post. And the boys had some fun trying their hands at making pop-ups. Before we went to Ditch Plains the night before, we'd walked to the Dick Blick Art Materials store in the East Village so I could buy some large sheets of cardstock in various colors as well as some other supplies I'll need to make my own cards. The boys practiced on cheap, white copy paper I'd already had at home, but I told them if they really liked a design they'd made, they could make it again using the cardstock.

Throughout the weekend, we played some Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii. Matt said he liked it enough that he'd want to own it, but Mike was less impressed. Well, he enjoyed it, but he's played so many platforming games on the Wii lately, including New Super Mario Bros., Kirby's Epic Yarn, and both Super Mario Galaxy games, that he doesn't feel like he needs yet another one.

The only other noteworthy thing we did before Tracey and David arrived that I haven't yet mentioned in this nonchronological post was watch The Cat in the Hat—the live-action version with Mike Meyers—on Friday night. I was pretty sure I was going to hate it, but the boys remembered watching it twice when they were younger, including once at a sleepover, and enjoying it and they really wanted to watch it again. I did hate it. I thought it was completely soulless and humorless. And they didn't like it this time either. They thought it was stupid and unfunny, which made me happy, because it shows their tastes are maturing.

We didn't get around to doing some other things we'd planned to do, including a Monopoly rematch with Tony. He stopped over for a little while on Saturday night, and Rudy jumped right into his lap in my stuffed chair. And they both made love to the camera with their eyes as I snapped their picture.

We all went over to Tony's for lunch on Sunday afternoon. I made a salad with mixed lettuces, slivers of carrot, and slices of apple—all from the Greenmarket—as well as my never-disappoint citrus vinaigrette. For the main course, we had gluten-free pasta made from quinoa and corn that we topped with store-bought tomato sauce that was labeled as being gluten-free. Everyone was enthusiastic about the meal, and David in particular enjoyed the Hoboken Farms sauce.

***

Last weekend, I went down to South Jersey to visit Gran for her birthday. She had turned 92 that Wednesday. It was a pretty low-key time. On Friday night, Dad and Jean took us all to dinner at the Coach Room. And on Saturday night, I treated us all to dinner at DiLisi. After the dinners, at Dad and Jean's, we watched Jeopardy! on Friday and The Lawrence Welk Show on Saturday. Dad criticized one of the singers on Lawrence Welk for singing through his nose.

I got Gran a beautiful bouquet from Hudson River Flowers. I took them down in my own vase because I wanted to spend more money on the flowers and less—well, nothing—on a container.

Granny trimmed the flowers and put them in her own, shorter vase on Saturday afternoon, so I would be able to bring my vase back home with me, even though I'd told her she could keep it for the time being. The flowers looked even better after she was done with them. (The photo isn't as fine a quality because I took it with my iPhone instead of my camera.) 

Granny said she always wanted to work in a flower shop but never had the guts to try out for the job. She liked the card I gave her.

I think it was one of the cutest cards I've ever bought. I got it at what's now my go-to card store: House of Cards & Curiosities.

I knew Dad and Jean would have gotten or made a cake for Gran, so I had decided to bring something for us to eat for breakfast. I made more of the "Pop-Tarts" I took down at Christmas, only this time I used an unopened jar of strawberry jam I'd purchased before making that first batch in case I didn't have enough raspberry jam to fill all of those tarts.

I'll include some more photos in a part II post later this week.

*FOOTNOTE UPDATE on Feb. 18: I just noticed that Barsamian's website calls the sculpture Feral Font. I'm not sure which is correct. Artists aren't exactly known for their language skills.

My Portland Vacation, Part I

I arrived in Portland about 4 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday. My buddy Mark—whom I'd met, along with his partner, Rodger, at GB5—picked me up at the airport. Rodger had been visiting his ailing and now recovering father in California, and he got back home on Friday, while Mark and I were out at Sauvie Island, buying berrries and giving M&R's Chesapeake Bay retriever, Mac, some exercise in the Columbia River.

The first evening, Mark insisted on treating me for dinner even though he and Rodger were putting me up for two nights. I had a delicious burger and homemade fries, with a side of broccolini, at Pause. Mark loves the fruit cheesecakes at this place. I had a good flourless-chocolate-pistachio-cake dealie. We both took about half of our dessert home.

That night, we hung out, chatted, and watched a little TV. (I must start recording RuPaul's Drag U. The dragulator is too much fun.) And I petted on Mac.

Mark had me give Mac a couple of Milk Bones when we first got home. Mac can be territorial, he said, and feeding him would immediately put me on his good side. I'm sure the snack helped, but Mac took to me right away. He knows a dog nut when he sees one.

I shocked Mark by sleeping in until 8:30, which should have felt like 11:30. I'd woken up about 5 or so, used the bathroom, and wondered whether I'd be able to fall back to sle—ZZZZZZ.

For breakfast, I had spelt toast with two kinds of homemade jam: raspberry and blueberry-marionberry-boysenberry. Both of them were awesome, but because I liked the raspberry slightly better, Mark said we'd make that kind while I was there. As regular readers of Mark's and Rodger's blogs know, they freeze and can lots of foods made from Oregon's finest produce every year. Late July to early August isn't the optimum time for berries, which is when I would have liked to have gone to Portland, but I couldn't really have gone earlier in the summer given my move.

Here's the jammy toast. (On Saturday morning, I had toast with strawberry freezer jam.)

After breakfast, Mark and I went to Sauvie Island. Mark threw sticks and floaty toys in the river for Mac to retrieve. It's what Mac lives to do; he gets all excited when you say the word river.

 

 

After a while, at Mark's suggestion, I walked up the beach to the clothing-optional area. It wasn't terribly warm yet, but I took off my clothes anyway because a) I didn't want to look like a lurker and b) it's been a long time since I've gone to a nude beach and I love the sensation of being naked outside. There wasn't much eye candy around. I thought I'd see some on the way back toward Mark and Mac because on the way out, I'd seen a promising-looking, bearish clothed guy walk out of the woods toward the beach, but he still had his clothes on when I next saw him. Maybe he was new to this and was shy. Or maybe he was waiting for it to get warmer. *shrugs*

On the drive from the beach to one of Mark's usual produce providers, we stopped to check out a nest with osprey in it. As regular readers of their blogs know, the guys enjoy bird-watching too. It wasn't the optimum time for that activity in Oregon either, but Sauvie Island is a great place for it.

I got out of the car to take a photo, and the momma osprey flew off the nest and kicked up a fuss. She didn't swoop down and claw at me—though I almost wish she had, because that would have made for a really interesting story—but she squawked a lot and even followed the car down the road a little ways. Mark said she must have been thinking, "I scared the shit out of those guys."

Mark said many pairs of bald eagles nest on the island too. The osprey often build their nests on manmade platforms above utility poles. The platforms were constructed there to encourage the birds not to nest directly on the poles.

We got our berries at The Pumpkin Patch, which felt like my kind of place. (As regular readers of my blog know, I'm a farmers market nerd.) Mark wasn't going to let me pay, but I threw my credit card down early, like he'd done at Pause. We got raspberries, of course, for the jam.

And I grabbed a box each of blueberries and marionberries, which I realize now I forgot to try. *sigh*

There were also some cheap, big-ass bags of beets suitable for pickling. Or making a vat of borscht.

A Dog Post With Some Cool Terriers and a Collie Named Abby

Last night, I finally watched the last of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show I recorded back in February. (Yeah, I'm behind on my DVRed-TV-show viewing. And also in blogging about TV shows I enjoyed, such as the TWO seasons of Project Runway that have come and gone without a writeup. *sigh*) All I had left to watch were the terrier group judging* and the selection of Best in Show.

During the terrier judging, I fell in love with Curry, a Glen of Imaal terrier who lives in New York, seven blocks from Madison Square Garden. (In the clip I linked to at "terrier group judging," she appears when there are 19 minutes and 40 seconds left.) Curry was obsessed with the snacky smell on the floor where previous handlers had thrown down treats, and she didn't want to move from that spot. LOVED that. I wish I could have pulled her through the TV and introduced her to her kindred spirit Emme. The color commentator mentioned that Curry's owner was a Grammy-winning songwriter named Bruce Sussman and that his partner is Rob Shuter, a columnist for Popeater.com. He didn't say whether Sussman was the handler, but judging from an old photo I found of him on the Internets, he was.

Ooh, I also found this fun article about the run-up to Curry's appearance at Westminster. The writer talked to Sussman before a big terrier-only show in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Her follow-up piece said that Curry didn't win an invitation to Westminster by earning enough points at the Pa. show. Maybe she won a spot through the open entry process for champions. There's no further follow-up on paw nation.

At the end of the terrier judging, the guy who was handler for the Scottish terrier, Sadie, who went on to win Best in Show, smooched the guy who was handler for the Airedale terrier not once but twice on the lips. (The first kiss is when there are 17 seconds left.) Awesome.

Though Curry was my favorite terrier, I was also very taken with Dyson the Dandie Dinmont terrier (23:16 left) and Maya the border terrier (27:36 left). And Sadie was awesome too, of course.

***

Too funny: Los Angeles Times reader photos of pets behaving badly.

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Latest nickname for Emme: Foxy Lady

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On a walk in the park on Sunday, Rudy and I encountered a female basset named Clementine who was hostile toward my boy. She didn't seem too enthused as we approached, and she barked and then growled at him when Rudy got within sniffing range. Her human said she has a problem with male dogs.

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Some of my recent favorite woofers on Daily Puppy: Amos the English setter (a Potluck Puppy I came across today), Silas the dachshund, Hazel the mixed breed, and Honey the mixed breed, who might possibly be the cutest Daily Puppy ever.

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Bob with Abby, the really sweet collie owned by my college-vintage friends John and Tracy. I'll eventually write about the surprise party Tracy threw for John's 40th birthday this past weekend. That post will probably come after my next food-related post but well before my next Project Runway–related post.

*Click on the arrow to the right of the ADDITIONAL EPISODES clips and then on BEST OF TERRIER GROUP for that clip.

A Music Post With Some Brand-New Stuff and, Naturally, Some Old Stuff Too

I've been buying up the music from Glee as it hits iTunes, and I've fallen in love with the show. It's a crazy soap opera set in a high school, and the characters' actions are ridiculously over the top, but it's tons of fun. And the music is mostly all fantastic.

My favorite Glee song of the moment is "Don't Make Me Over," which is sung by Amber Riley (Mercedes). Riley makes my spine tingle when she belts out the chorus, whose lyrics express a theme of the show: "Accept me for what I am. Accept me for the things that I do."

I also love "Imagine"; "Taking Chances"; "Somebody to Love"; "It's My Life/Confessions Pt. II"; the incredibly sexist but ultimately irresistible "Gold Digger," with Matthew Morrison's Mr. Schue filling in for Kanye West; and the amazing duet between Lea Michele and guest star Kristin Chenoweth on "Maybe This Time" from the muscial Cabaret.

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I ordered Hem's Twelfth Night right after I saw the play in Central Park with Missy in June. The CD arrived in October, and it didn't disappoint—other than in the lateness of its release. A few of the songs were a little too Ren Festy for me, but "Full Phathom* Five," "Come Away Death," "The Wind and the Rain," "Where Is Fancy Bred?" and several orchestral numbers with no singing, including "Sebastian and Antonio," are all wonderful. "FPF," with Audra McDonald and Anne Hathaway on vocals, is especially lovely.

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When John visited me back in July, he gave me a bunch of cool songs that I said I'd write about in more detail in my next all-music post. That time is now!

John is a big David Gray fan, and so am I, but I don't have DG's Sell, Sell, Sell album on which the fantastic song "Late Night Radio" appears.

I'd heard great things about Regina Spektor but never bought any of her tunes. John gave me "Fidelity" off her Begin to Hope album, and I dig it. You've probably heard it. It's the song where she sings "just to break my fall" and she breaks "fall" into many syllables. And then she sings "better" like "betta." You know what I mean.

I'm fond of KT Tunstall's hits, but I hadn't bought any of them either. Now, thanks to John, I've got a live version of "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" from volume 14 of 93.3 KGSR Radio Austin's Broadcasts series of discs.

K. McCarty's "Walking the Cow" and "Like a Monkey in a Zoo" from the album Dead Dog's Eyeball: Songs of Daniel Johnston are quirky and fun.

And another great song was one I actually already owned on CD, but it was good to get a reminder of it. I'm talking about John Gorka's performance of "I'm from New Jersey" on NPR's World Café program that was included on the Live @ the World Café 10th Anniversary Edition double album. The lyrics are awesome, especially if you also grew up in NJ: "I'm from New Jersey. No, I don't talk that way. I watched too much TV when I was young. ... I'm from New Jersey. It's not like Texas, no. There is no mystery. I can't pretend. I'm from New Jersey. It's like Ohio but even more so. Imagine that. I know which exit and where I'm bound. Tolls on the parkway, they will slow you down."

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My favorite songs from Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs' Under the Covers, Vol. 2, which I bought back in the summer, are "You're So Vain," "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding," and a really fun version of "Killer Queen." I look forward to Vol. 3—which would "cover" the '80s—if MS & SH decide to make it.

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I hauled out my Music From Queer Eye for the Straight Guy CD, which came out—hah!—in 2004, to listen to on the drive to South Jersey in September. The first four tracks and song No. 10 are all winners.

Widelife's "All Things (Just Keep Getting Better)" leads off the CD and, of course, was the Fab Five's theme song. I also love "Good Luck," Basement Jaxx's energetic kiss-off that's so very well sung by Lisa Kekaula: "Good luck, good luck, good luck in your new bed. Enjoy the nightmares, when you're resting your head."

The Chemical Brothers mix of Kylie Minogue's "Slow" allows me to abide by the gay mafia's mandate that every gay man own at least one track by the cute little Aussie. And I like it. I'd buy KM's "Can't Get You Out of My Head" too, but I'm afraid I'd never get its propulsive beat and Kylie's "La la la, la la la la la"s out of my head.

"Move Your Feet" by Junior Senior and Prophet Omega's "An Area Big Enough to Do It In" are both great fun. I knew that had to be Danielia Cotton doing backup vocals on "AABETDII" before I read the credits for the song. I thought I might have written about Cotton, but a Lijit search shows I haven't. I have a five-track CD she put out in 2004 that's very good, and I see that she's released two studio albums and a live album since then. I should check those out.

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I think the Human Rights Campaign is pretty much a worthless organization, but back in 2002, I bought a CD that HRC released called "Being Out Rocks," and it's got some worthwhile songs on it. The ones I transferred to my iPhone's iPod are 1) Ani DiFranco's "In or Out," which is the ultimate bisexual anthem. I love it when Ani sings "It's Mr. DiFranco to you" and "I've got spots; I've got stripes too." 2) Janis Ian's classic ballad about young interracial love destroyed by bigotry, "Society's Child" 3) Catie Curtis's absolutely adorable "Kiss That Counted": " 'Cause this would be the kiss that counted, the one that mattered, my life before me undone. This would be the kiss that counted, the one that shattered my defenses, bringing me emotion. You say, 'It must be 4 a.m.' And I say, 'If I don't kiss you now, I will never sleep again.' " and 4) a live version of "I Am What I Am" from La Cage Aux Folles sung by Harvey Fierstein, because it's the perfect song for stating that you're out and proud.

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On Tuesday night on one of the TVs at the gym, I saw the last half or so of the video for Duffy's "Rain on Your Parade." The black-and-white color scheme; the shifts in lighting; the jacket-, tie-, and sneakers-wearing dancers; Duffy's thighs; the strings; the tympani. I ate it all up. And bought it from iTunes when I got home.

*I'm not sure why it's spelled on the album with a ph instead of an f.

TITC 2009, Part I

Last weekend, I visited my old neck of the woods once again for Thanksgiving in the Country weekend. Visiting Hunterdon and Bucks counties is always somewhat bittersweet. It reminds me how much I love that area and still miss my little house in Stockton and the farm outside Sergeantsville—and the B&B and dairy goats—that I had with my ex Steve. And how much I miss seeing my friends who live down that way as often as I used to. But I've got no regrets about moving to New York for my job. I love the countryside, but the city is where I'm supposed to be right now.

I kenneled the dogs on Friday and took the bus to Lambertville. When I reached the Port Authority Bus Terminal, I was a little anxious about getting a spot on the bus I'd planned to take, which was going to get into L'ville about 5:30. The terminal was crowded with Yankees fans who'd gone to the parade that day celebrating their "heroes" who'd won ... freedom for all of the oppressed peoples of the world? No. Universal health care for all Americans? No. Four baseball games? Yes! I know, I'm a killjoy cynic. But I just can't understand getting excited about a bunch of millionaires playing a sport in a billion-dollar stadium that's mostly financed by taxpayers, most of whom can't afford to take their family there to see a game.

Anyhow, I needn't have worried. There were plenty of seats on the bus, though the ticket line was a nightmare because a woman in front of me pissed off two different ticket sellers so much that one stormed off (after she called him an "asshole" and a "bastard") and the other looked like she wanted to break through the window and strangle her. This woman insisted that she was always sold a ticket for a particular route that ended up in a place where the ticket sellers said no buses ever went. Or at least no buses went to that place on the route whose number she gave them. After some people in my line and I started insisting that she should either buy a ticket for a real route or get the hell out of the way, she finally completed some type of transaction with the second ticket seller. She was not wearing any Yankees paraphernalia, btw.*

Friday evening, after we'd caught up, Pat and I went to dinner at Giuseppe's on Route 202 outside New Hope because I wanted to have some pizza, even though I knew it wouldn't be as good as my precious La Villa Siciliana. I enjoyed my personal-size white pizza with broccoli raab and sausage.

After dinner, we skimmed through A Muppet Family Christmas at Pat's apartment. Pat had gotten a stack of Muppet movies on VHS for cheap after a local video store had closed. She'd wanted to ask me if I was familiar with a certain Christmas song the Muppets sang toward the end of the show (I wasn't), but we ended up watching most of it anyhow because there were many scenes Pat said I just had to see. :-) One highlight was at the very end, when Jim Henson made a cameo appearance in the kitchen of Fozzie's mother's house to wash the dishes that were dirtied for Christmas dinner.

The movie was especially pertinent because I was all excited about seeing the Jim Henson exhibit, Jim Henson's Fantastic World, at the Michener Museum in Doylestown the next day. Pat had already seen it with a friend from the library—and loved it—so she was going to drop me off at the museum while she went to a previously scheduled reiki appointment.

First thing that morning, Pat and I met Carl and Russ, my buddies whom I used to eat breakfast with almost every weekend, for breakfast at Meil's in Stockton. Rafael, who was also a regular breakfaster back then, and their friends Rhoda and Al joined us. It was lots of fun catching up with my crotchety old pals. Carl has had several big shows since I last saw him, and an art gallery at Kean University, where he used to teach, was renamed after his parents, Karl and Helen. He's still as funny as ever. He loves to razz Margaret, a longtime waitress at Meil's, telling her she's "beautiful but surly."

And Russ, who's a retired teacher, is still raising his beloved German shepherds. And he said he's got 50 barn cats now, all of them spayed or neutered.

And now here's a cavalcade of photos from the breakfast:

A candid shot of Pat. Margaret is the woman over Pat's left shoulder.

My delicious breakfast: two eggs scrambled, sweet potato muffins, and fried potatoes

Meil's display case of goodies. Best almond croissants ever, among other delicious treats

A group shot taken by a friendly biker. Left to right: Pat, Al, Rhoda, Rafael, Russ, Carl, and me

There were three dogs outside Meil's waiting for their masters. In these photos, they seem very concerned with what's going on inside the restaurant but they were actually quite friendly and welcomed the attention we gave them.

Pat drove me past my old house so I could take a quick peek at it, and then we were off to Doylestown.

The Michener Art Museum really is a Bucks County treasure. The Transition sculpture in front of the museum ...

... used to be in Manhattan outside the J.C. Penney Building. The artist, Raymond Granville Barger, was also a poet, and he wrote a poem, also named Transition, for the sculpture's dedication ceremony at the museum.

The Henson exhibit was wonderful. Jim Henson was a creative genius and a humanitarian. And, I learned, he also had the gift of being able to lead other extremely talented people toward the fulfillment of his vision.

The exhibit spanned his career, from his early days making commercials, appearing with his Muppets on various local and national TV shows, and producing and starring in an Academy Award–nominated short film called Time Piece, to his later TV shows and movies that we all know and love. I remember enjoying The Dark Crystal but I never saw Labyrinth. The Muppet Show was always the fastest half hour on television for me growing up. It's such a shame he lived to only 53. Who knows how many more amazing stories he could have brought to life during these almost two decades he's been gone?

Because of legal issues involving Disney, Miss Piggy and some of the other Muppet characters weren't allowed to appear in the exhibit. *sigh* Pat has gotten very enamored of Miss Piggy's take-no-shit character while watching her Muppet tapes. I said our new mantra should be WWMPD: What would Miss Piggy do?

I also was captivated by the museum's Charles Ward exhibit. Ward, a native of Trenton, was a student of famed Bucks County impressionist Daniel Garber. His work was inspired by time spent in BC—specifically, Carversville—and Mexico. He created some wonderful murals for the Trenton Post Office and the PO in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, in the 1930s. The murals were commissioned under a New Deal arts program called the Public Works of Art Project.

Pat and I got lunch at Lilly's Gourmet in town. I had a very   satisfying shepherd's pie with a side salad. And after hitting a few stores, we stopped in at Let Them Eat Cupcakes. I went for the delicious Red Velvet. Next time I'm in D-town, I have to try the Banana Butterscotch, which Pat highly recommended.

*I'm not totally anti-Yankee. The Gerbers, George, and some other friends of mine are Yankee fans. I'm just annoyed that so much attention is paid to these guys who play a freakin' game for a living and so little is paid to, you know, stuff that really matters.

A Post in Which I Turn 40, Part I

I turned 40 yesterday. I wasn't horrified but neither was I terribly happy about that development. Thankfully, I had a busy weekend of fun activities to keep my mind off my age.

I was off on Friday and again today. That's one of the pluses of working for the same company for more than 11 years: lots of paid time off. So suck on that, 25-year-olds! :-)

On Thursday evening, I made the base for my Coffee Ice Cream, which I was going to take to South Jersey mostly for my Dad, who turned 69 seven days before my birthday. He doesn't seem overly freaked out about turning 70 next year, but he's hating the idea that in 11 years, he'll be 80. That's a Hawley for you, worrying about things far in advance!

My original plan was to do my usual Friday pizza night with Bob and Jen, drive to South Jersey on Saturday, and drive back to Brooklyn on Monday. But B&J, forgetting that I was going down to visit family, asked if I was free for a dinner out on Saturday. I asked if they were free on Sunday, and when they said they were, I suggested I could move everything forward a day and so get to share my birthday evening with them. The big meal out Dad was going to treat me to was scheduled for Saturday and couldn't be any other night because that restaurant, the Franklinville Inn, is closed on Sunday and Dad and Jean were going to the train station in Philadelphia on Friday to pick up Jean's daughter Debbie. And I really wanted a nice night out on the actual birthday. Preferably with much imbibing.

On Friday morning, I ran the custard through my ice cream makers and put it in a large plastic container in the freezer so it would completely solidify. So that I could then put it in a soup pot with a bunch of ice cubes and what was left of the Lemon Verbena Ice Cream (that I still plan to write about in my next all-food-and-drink post) and drive it around in the trunk of a car for about 3 hours.

I finished my Labor Day blog post, cleaned up a kitchenful of dishes, ironed some clothes, packed for the weekend, loaded up the car, and got on the road about 3. Which was later than I'd wanted, but I'd ended up having to squeeze everything I wanted to get done "all day Friday" into "Friday before I got on the road."

After I put the ice cream in Granny's freezer and got the dogs fed and settled in at Granny's house, I took her to dinner at DeLisi. I ordered a half portion of Chicken Francaise for each of us, but the waitress brought us two full portions instead. I was very hungry and managed to eat all of mine, plus the roasted potatoes and escarole that came with it. Granny got broccoli instead of escarole because, the waitress said, they had only enough of it for one more plate. Granny was relieved as she had no idea what escarole was. I told her it was an Italian green that's often used in soups, and the escarole on my plate also had some white beans mixed in that I didn't eat because I think beans should replace meat, not accompany it. Because I'm strange that way.

Look at that huge portion of food on Gran's plate. There's no way she could have eaten even half of that. (And I really had no business eating all of mine.) The waitress was somewhat apologetic about having gotten the order wrong, but she still charged me full price for both meals.

After dinner, we went back to Gran's place to retrieve the ice cream and take it over to Dad and Jean's house. They'd actually gotten home from Philly before I arrived in Hopewell.* Dad enjoyed his coffee ice cream, and Jean fed Debbie a spoonful of each of the flavors as she sat on the couch as if she were a baby bird. Debbie was really sleepy because she'd gotten up at about 5:30 that morning. Like Dad, Gran and I both had coffee ice cream only. Dad thought it seemed stronger than usual, and I said I'd used more beans this time—because I had a few more left in the bag than I normally use and figured I'd throw them all in—and a little more sugar than usual because the little extra sugar had made my Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream noticeably better.

Dad said something about getting Granny "some kind of plate" at the Franklinville Inn, and I teased him that he literally meant "Yeah, just an empty plate for the old lady." I said, "I know you're Cheap-Ass Bill Hawley From the Sticks, but damn, man."

Jean mentioned that Tom DeLay was going to be on Dancing With the Stars this season, and I said he should be in goddamn jail, not on TV. Jean said we shouldn't talk about politics, and Dad said the old saw about not discussing politics or religion. "Jesus hates Tom DeLay," I said. "Discuss."

*ARROHK, I grew up in Hopewell, which is a suburb of Bridgeton. Our house was on the street behind Granny and Pop Pop's house.

Another Fun Weekend With the Nephews, Part I

My now-11-year-old nephews stayed with me this past weekend. Their birthday was last Wednesday, and they start sixth grade next week. Holy crap, they're growing up fast.

Tracey and David went to the bar mitzvah of the second son of David's former business partner out in Connecticut on Saturday. And since T&D knew they wouldn't be getting home until late that night, I had sole possession of Matt and Mike from Friday afternoon, when Tracey brought them into the hood, until lunchtime Sunday.

Two summers ago—as regular readers of Hawleyblog may recall or, then again, may not—I hosted M&M for a fun-filled weekend during which we went to Coney Island and the New York Aquarium. That coincided with the bar mitzvah of the oldest son of David's former business partner. That guy and his wife have four sons, the next of which will be 13 in two years. I told Tracey that I want to have the 'phews here for a weekend next summer anyway, regardless of the lack of an out-of-state bar mitzvah.

I took both Thursday and Friday off so I'd have time to get the apartment cleaned and some birthday cupcakes made before the hooligans arrive. I decided to make chocolate cupcakes with mint icing because M&M and I enjoyed that kind of cupcake when I visited them, Granny, and Dad in New Jersey in July. And because I wanted to try the Mint Buttercream icing from the Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book I mentioned in this post.

The icing was quite a bit of work, made more difficult by the recipe maker's assumption that I had two and possibly three bowls for my KitchenAid mixer. I was determined to get enough mint flavor into the icing without resorting to the 1/4 teaspoon of peppermint extract called for at the end of the process, so I put a lot more fresh mint leaves and stems in the milk than was called for. They overwhelmed the milk, which never did rise to the temperature it was supposed to before I took it off the stove out of fear I'd end up with too little milk in the pan to do its job in the icing.

When I got to the end of the process, I tasted the icing, which seemed fine texture-wise, and found it sorely lacking in the mint department. So I went out and bought peppermint extract. You could taste the mint in the finished icing, but it was by no means in-your-face.

The cake part of the cupcakes turned out perfect. I again used the One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes recipe, which was supposed to make 18. I ended up with 20. Here are some of the finished cupcakes. I put sprigs of chocolate mint on top of a few of them. Fancy!

I'm still learnin' about cake icing. When I hear "buttercream," it sounds like something I ought to put in the fridge. The book said you could leave it out of the refrigerator for 24 hours, but once I got the cupcakes iced, I put them in the fridge. When the boys and I had one apiece after dinner, the icing was pasty. When we ate them at other times throughout the weekend, I allowed plenty of time for them to come to room temperature first. M&M, but especially Matt, said they weren't that crazy about the icing on Friday night, but Michael ate all of his cupcake. They seemed to like the icing better after that first night, eating all of the cake and the icing, and I thought it was much improved when it wasn't chilled.

Before we had our dessert Friday, Tracey took us to Miracle Grill for dinner; it's always good. And before that, when Tracey and the guys arrived, Rudy made some weird noises I'd never heard him make before. He knows T&M&M by now and shouldn't have been making what sounded like a negative fuss. Tracey suggested that he was wondering where Molly was, and I said that had to be it. Maybe you'll think I'm crazy, but he really did sound like he was perplexed at the failure of his girlfriend/cousin to appear with her mommy and big brothers.

That night, the boys wanted to watch Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie on the Disney Channel. I'll get into big trouble with Michael if I don't say that he thought it was the best movie ever. When Matt said he thought it was a little cheesy, I agreed with him, but I said that I had fun watching it. I'd never seen the TV show, and I was curious to find out who plays the father because he looked familiar. I looked up the show on imdb, and found out it was David DeLuise, a chunky but cute son of Dom DeLuise. The guys couldn't believe the page listed everyone who's ever been on the show, even in a bit part such as Large Boyfriend. Oh yes, my 'phews, such is the magic of imdb.

I'll wrap up the first part of this post with a photo of the guys at Miracle Grill. From left to right, it's Matt and Mike.

A Woofer Post With Some Cartoon Flashbacks

The morning of the Pride Parade, I ran into the main doctor at the veterinarians' office where I take the pooches while I was walking Emme and Rudy. Dr. Silverman was walking his two little white dogs on Prospect Park West, and Rudy was excited to see everyone. Dr. Silverman said a 4-month-old bloodhound was being boarded at the office that weekend and this dog already had bigger ears than Rudy's. I should have told him, "Prove it, doc! I'll be there at 9 with Rudy and a tape measure."

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Rudy's favorite walking buddy, Cleo, a female English cocker spaniel, has moved to New Orleans. Vinny—my main dog walker while my usual dog walker, Gary, is away for several months—would sometimes bring Cleo and a sweet black lab named Birdie (or Bertie?) to walk with my kids. Vinny said Rudy likes Birdie but he loooved Cleo. I asked Vinny—who told me about Cleo when he mistakenly showed up to walk the woofers on a day I didn't have to work—whether Cleo was into Rudy as much as he was into her. He said that Cleo really liked him. He said she's 8 years old and a very high energy dog. Have fun in the Big Easy, girlfriend!

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I still haven't gotten a muzzle for Emme, even though in my last all-dogs post, I said I should just do it already. I looked for one at the closest pet store to my apartment, and they didn't have the right size. And then I started thinking about how Emme is the dog equivalent of an old lady and I pictured my Granny in a Hannibal Lecter mask and I chickened out.

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Fred is the coolest basset hound in the reader photos posted at nytimes.com. And Napolean wins the prize for the top Pembroke Welsh corgi.

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Joyce told me I had to check out these pictures of bulldog puppy Mack with his kitten friends on The Daily Puppy. I told her the photos reminded me of that bulldog in the Warner Bros. cartoon who loved that black-and-white kitten and let it sleep on his back. But first the kitten would dig into the dog's back with her claws while it was fluffing up her furry bed. The bulldog would wince and flinch until the kitty got settled in, and then he'd get this look of perfect contentment.

I tried to find that video on YouTube, but it's been removed due to the usual legal issues. Good ol' Wikipedia relays that the dog's name is Marc Antony (or Marc Anthony) and that the kitten is named Pussyfoot (or sometimes Kitty or Cleo). They appeared in three cartoons together in which Marc Antony dotes on Pussyfoot while protecting her from harm. The article also reminded me that in the first cartoon in which the animals appeared together, Marc Antony's female owner demanded he not bring anything else into the house, "not one single solitary thing!" So he spent the rest of the cartoon, called "Feed the Kitty," trying to hide Pussyfoot from his owner while rescuing the kitten from a series of mishaps.

Joyce then reminded me of the cartoon duck, Yakky Doodle, whose best friend is a bulldog named Chopper. And how Yakky Doodle saying Chopper's name is pretty much the cutest-sounding thing ever. Check out the first cartoon in which the two appeared—"Out of Luck Duck"—here.

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New nicknames for Rudy: Mr. B and Slick

New nickname for Emme: Princess Honey Bear

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Rudy dozing between the living room radiator and Emme's food dish

And Emme on the other side of my cheapo Ikea coffee table

UPDATE later on Aug. 2: I forgot to mention that on Friday, the female half of a straight couple with a cute little girl (though the husband was the cutest one of the three of them; woof!) told me that Rudy was "the cutest dog we've ever seen." Suck on that, all of you 11-biscuit-receiving puppies on TDP! :-)

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My slothful dogs on my rumpled bed this morning