Crossing those roads (longish post)

Yay, gotta love 'em. Crossroads are a good thing. Just think if roads never intersected. How could you ever get anywhere new?

So, some of you may have noticed that my blogging has been a bit on the sporadic side. It is. I have been otherwise focused. And will probably be otherwise focused for a while to come. Not that I don't enjoy writing blog posts, I do. It is just that sometimes the day gets away from me. I get up too late, I do too many other things, whatever. It just gets away from me. And I find myself at 5 in the evening with no blog near completion. 5 is when the day is sort of over for me. At least the writing/creative part of the day. Not that cooking isn't creative - it is, but I am not really in front of my computer from 5 until I go to bed - around 11 or 12 or later. So if my post isn't mostly complete by 5, it just isn't going to be done.

I don't mind posting half-assed posts as you may have noticed. Though I do like to post three-quarter assed posts whenever possible. You know the ones - the ones that are thoughtful, feel as if they have been looked over and edited a smidge. With pictures. The not totally boring ones (every 17th or so). Sometimes, though, even the half-assed ones don't get written on time. I love me some cheese...

Speaking of crossroads, which is where this blog started, I am now at one in my iPhone work. I have done a lot of tutorials, read a bunch of books and just am a little stymied for what to do next. I now have four ideas for applications to create and that is boggling my mind a little. I like all of the ideas and I like being able to flit from project to project - at the same time, I sure would like to be able to focus on one of them. My fickle mind has its good points and its not so good points...

The past couple of days have been good. Well, most days are good. Just sayin'. Sorry I haven't written...

Anyway, Monday, mom and I went to the post office and got more stuff for her to huff, er, snort. As I may have mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the Ears, Nose and Throat Physician's Assistant gave mom some nasal spray that was supposed to help her stop blowing her nose so frequently. I think it is working. Unfortunately, there was only 5 days worth in each of the containers she gave us. And that won't last until we get back to the doctor's office in April. So we stopped in to see if we could get more samples, or a prescription. We got samples! Woo hoo! We also went to the post office, which is always a pleasure. At least it is in Geneva - nice clerks!

It is an uphill battle here at Chez Schoen-René, trying to keep the house minimally organized. I know I am not doing enough on a daily basis. Just thinking about it is mind numbing, and actually doing anything about it just takes so much effort. And mom does such a good job of making piles...

One of mom's nests - I neaten it, and two days later...

Dinner Monday was beef (which is supposedly now horrendously bad for your health) with twice baked potatoes (sour cream is the answer), broccoli and artichokes. Yay!

Yum!

Tuesday was Beer Tuesday, amongst other things. Mom and I also went for a little walk in the yard. Who out there loathes yard work? I know I do. I cannot think of a bigger waste of time. I just get no joy from it at all. Not the smallest iota. I have done a lot of yard work over the years, for mom, for neighbors, for not so neighborly people - for free, for a pittance, for pay - and I hate it. And mom thinks that because she enjoyed doing it in the past (or if not enjoyed it at least she cared about it and did it) that I should do it. Ha. Not going to happen. She was damn lucky that I took her for a stroll around the house. We found some daffodils for her to put in a vase. And we found a dead crow. (we didn't put that in a vase...) Yay! She asked me what I was going to do about the dead crow (and a lot of other things) and I said that I was going to do nothing! Sorry. Just not going to happen.

Mom. Outside!

Yay, dead crow!

Next stop, Beef and Brew for beer Tuesday. I have had to change my schedule to accommodate changes to staffing at the Beef and Brew. My favorite server, Lorraine, is taking Wednesdays off now, so I have changed my beer day to Tuesday. And yesterday, I took pictures of the beer menu - so that I can go through it and cross off what I have had. That ought to make it easier to pick what I still need to have. Yesterday's beers started off badly. Has anyone had a good experience of Duchesse de Bourgogne? I thought it was terrible. Kind of like a sour. Kind of like a Gueze. Just icky. And it left a bad taste in my mouth for my next two beers as well - Sled Dog (a dopplebock) just didn't taste right. And lastly a beer from Syracuse - Empire Amber - which again tasted off. Oh well. Not every beer day can be exemplary!

And today is another day. Go figure...

Bluettes mom calls these little flowers

Look, buds! Pussy willow?

I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but there are new shoots on the Christmas Tree! Maybe this one will survive!

Maineward Ho!

I just like saying things like that - Ho! First, we had to get out the door - which was pretty easy, all things considered. Everyone in the house got up and got their acts together and we hit the road by 10. E&B went to get breakfast and we started our drive by stopping at the ATM. Yay money! (No, I don't love money, but in a world where it takes money to do just about anything other than sit around, it is good to have a bit.)

The drive to our first stop, was, well, miserable. Not as terrible as it could have been, I mean, no accidents or major slow downs or anything. Just a good deal of rain - fluctuating from drizzle to deluge. Yay! And the GPS took us through a lot of little towns and back roads to get us to beautiful Glens Falls, NY.

It sure looked like a lovely town, at least the bit that I got to see on this trip. We stopped at Davidson Brother's Brewery and Restaurant, a brewpub. Yippee!

I liked Davidson's a lot. If I lived in the area, I am sure I would join their beer club - big glass, less expensively! Yippee! The food we had was good, not awesome - but we only had two little things - buffalo chips (tee hee) and a crab cake. I also tasted six of their 8 beers currently on offer. Most were good - the Scotch ale tasted a little too strongly of alcohol - the brewmaster, Jason, concurred. I liked the Oatmeal Porter a lot. If it were an imperial, I would have liked it even better. :) We got to have a nice long chat with Kerry Davidson, wife of one of the owners, a manager and a professional photographer. Our bartender, Jared, was great as well! I hope I haven't lost the little piece of paper with the url of his food blog...The beer sampler was a tad on the expensive side...

Back on the road, the rain had mostly disappeared - though it still drizzled off and on. We got to Longtrail Brewing in VT in a timely fashion. Almost missed it, though as it was down off the road. Beer garden sort of feel, which doesn't really appeal to me for some reason. Eric our server, was friendly. Our onion rings turned out to be onion strips and enough for an army! Mom and I tried to put a dent in them and didn't succeed. I had a sampler of their beers - mostly decent - the IPA was about the least hoppy IPA I think I have ever had. And the dark beers weren't very well represented - though it is summer time. Eric was kind and tossed the two brewer's choice beers on for free. Or maybe he just forgot to ring them in. In any case, yippee! There was a self guided beer tour which was, well, memorable only for its self guidedness...

I heard something disturbing. I hear that Otter Creek bought Wolavers. Then Otter Creek was bought by Longtrail. And then Longtrail was bought by one of the huge beverage companies. Does anyone know about any of this? I don't think I want to include large corporate beer in my brewpub book...

At Longtrail, I made reservations for the night at Quechee Gorge. Beautiful place! Easily a place to spend a full day walking in the area. But, alas, we have places to go and things to do and people to see, etc. So, adieu for now, dear blogettes!

Pictures from July 25, 2011:


Mom, Kerry and Me at Davidson Brother's!


A pin map of where people have come from in the US to get to Longtrail. Wow!


The Quechee Gorge is gorge-ous! :)