Connecticut Rain

I HAVE GUNS N' ROSES IN MY MUSIC COLLECTION!! What a big day for me! Lately I have been on this Guns N' Roses kick and there was no music to cure it, especially on the long drive across country. It seemed that the MidWest was on it's on kick with Aerosmith, so this is what my Dad and I listened to 90% of the time: country, Aerosmith, country, Aerosmith, talk radio, country, Aerosmith, commercials, country, Aerosmith, Lady Gaga, country, Aerosmith. Although it seemed logical to fix this kick with a few purchases from iTunes, I did not want to shell bucks out for songs I never heard of. BUT - I just went through my Dad's massive black hole of a CD collection and found the only Guns N' Roses CD he had; "Use Your Illusion I"! I found a cure!

Plus I got a new cell phone yesterday! It is a dark blue LG enV3 and it has been five years since I had a new cell phone so the first few hours with it I was pretty lost. Now I know how older folk feel when trying to send their first email or turn on a computer! But there are some similarities that my old phone had, so that made me super happy. I loved my old phone, but now it's somewhere in JFK Airport, a dump, or a hooker's breaking down hotel room in the Bronx after picking it up from the Airport. I know though at this very moment that it has indeed died and lived a very happy life except for when I dropped it a few thousand times, lost it at a horse show, poured hot boiling water on it (by accident!), and dropped it for the last time somewhere in JFK Airport. Rest in peace dear cell phone, rest in peace.

Back onto the subject of pluses, my family is going to Morrow Bay, CA for another sailing event! Although it's not a Thistle regatta, it's on the water, deals with boats, is contaminated by loony sailors, and has a vast amount of underwater wildlife! Yessss...

Okay, the main subject about this post was to cover the list I created at the bottom of the last post. Obviously I got sidetracked which I'm good at. Anyways, I will continue this post with sections so I can't get sidetracked, but we know I will somehow!

Our Host: When my Dad and I were driving across the country, I had no clue who our host was or what type of house we were going to invade for a week. All I knew was that her name was Jackie, she was a widow, and she was just a drive from the yacht club. So I began to create these images of what Jackie would look like. The only Jackie I knew who would be old enough to be widowed would be Jackie Kennedy Onassis, so I based my look around her only with a more modern look. The house? I really had no clue on what an East Coast house would look like.

So at o'dark thirty, my Dad and I finally drove up to a large, Atlantic Ocean blue, two story house that was shaped exactly like a rectangle. The two car garage was on the left, short side end of the house and the walk-way connected to the drive-way. The front yard was small and the walk-way was flanked by green shrubs and some pretty pink flowers before stopping at the entrance.

With bags in tow, my Dad rang the doorbell and we stood for a moment before the door opened and revealed our host for the week. Honestly, I was a bit taken aback from what I saw. In front of us was an older woman, probably in her early seventies and stood about two or three inches shorter than me. She wasn't thin, nor was she fat and she had white wispy hair that was cropped at the end of her scalp. Although her blue eyes were incredibly youthful, I didn't know how much energy she had until she started talking. Unlike most older folk, Jackie has an incredibly loud and joyous laugh that bounces off all the walls. She talks with such excitement and happiness that one would never guess that she has been a widow for half a decade. This was a woman who also doesn't let age get to her by walking to the yacht club everyday which is about a 25 minute trek and sails in all the Wednesday races!

Jackie's house also surprised me as well. Unlike all the posh and modern houses surrounding her house, time pretty much stood still inside. It was like I took a step into the sixties or seventies. The furniture, carpet, wall paper, and appliances were at least thirty years old. Even the sheets and medications in the cabinets were that old. The walls though were adorned with Jackie's passion; sailing. There were dozens of professional photographs of her boat, "Obsession", on both levels and many paintings and posters of sailboats. The room I slept in was on the top floor next to Jackie's and it was a bit more modern, but only because Jackie's daughter complained when she visited.

But the house matched Jackie and Jackie matched the house, so the ages of either really didn't matter to us anymore, just that we were welcomed in by such a loving and caring woman.

Black Duck: I believe this was on Saturday. Definitely not Sunday or Monday, but it could be Friday, but one of those days we had our first taste of a Connecticut restaurant! The Bagpipe editor, Kevin Arrow, wanted us to go to the Black Duck with a "few" other Thistlers. We said, sure, why not? It sounded like any ordinary bar and Kevin was super duper nice (and so was his daughter Katie), so we took off after Kevin. We found out that it was only a couple minutes from Jackies and that it was spotlighted on Food Network's popular show, "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives." That wasn't so nice. It was absolutely packed, and I wished I could have blamed it on the show's popularity, but it was also packed to the brim with Thistlers.

Like always, I immediately got distracted. The moment we walked in there was a large big screen TV in front of us and of all the things to watch, there were the X-Games! "OOOOOOO!! X-GAMES MOM!! LOOK!! X-GAMES!!" So that's what I watched during our thirtiesh minute wait for our table. Although during the commercials I did take a glance around the place. It was an incredibly mall bar/restaurant, probably less than 1000 square feet and it was paint all black. I think. There were knick knacks all around from Connecticut and such, but I really didn't pay attention to those because I was observing either the Thistlers or the X-Games.

Eventually, our family of four and the two Arrows were finally seated next to and diagonally to more Thistlers. Sometimes during the commercials I was trying to remember if I watched the episode of "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" with the Black Duck in it, but I just couldn't remember the episode. Once the menu came out and I saw the bleu cheese burger, the entire episode flooded into my memory. Usually restaurants who make burgers with bleu cheese just sprinkle the bleu cheese on top of the burger, but not the Black Duck! They actually stuff the bleu cheese INSIDE the burger! So guess what I ordered? ;)

The burger was to die for. The bleu cheese was melted just right in the burger and it was so good that I actually ate at turtle speed. I had to savor every bite because for once, the TV didn't lie! I will definitely remember that burger forever and ever. The other meal I will always remember from the Black Duck was Katie Arrow's; she ordered the $22 lobster!

Sorry folks, but I believe this post is long enough. The next post I will finish the list and create a new list because I have more photos to post! 'Til next time, rock on with Axl Rose!