On July 12, 2022, I drove up to Elsa Frohman & Judi Grant’s house because the three of us were going to travel to Traverse City and beyond. We left the next morning after breakfast at a nearby diner. Our first stop at a road stop had some irate gulls with strong opinions.
One of the projects I’ve been doing these days when I’ve been unable to go into work (basically, we went in Monday and that was it for the week) is scanning in negatives from the Bad Old Days when I had to use film to take photographs.
A couple of years ago dad and I co-purchased a nice slide/negative scanner (plustek OpticFilm 7200) and a staticmaster brush (with polonium!) so that we could each scan in our slides & film negatives. I had it for awhile and barely did anything with it, so then I let dad use it and he pretty much scanned everything that he wanted to. So I decided to give it another go, starting with my 1998 trip to Australia & New Zealand. I’ve now got 5 of the 14 (!!!) rolls scanned, and have 120 photos thus far. Alas, I’m disappointed that the images aren’t as crisp as I’ve gotten used to with today’s goof proof digital cameras. But I’ve found a few photos that I really like so far.
My favorite so far is an odd little shot. It’s from Sydney Harbor and isn’t a typical tourist shot. But I loved the play of the colors. I fiddled about with Photoshop to see if I could exaggerate the colors some, so I’ll let you decide if I’m just odd, or if you, too, think it’s a nifty little shot.
I decided to include a shot of me sitting in front of Mrs Macquarie’s Road, just for grins. One of the few shots of me in all of the rolls, thankfully. 🙂
I’ve included two others as well.
Sydney at night.
For those who’ve seen the David Tennant movie, LA Without a Map, you’ll know what I’ve based the title of this post upon.
So yesterday I headed off to Columbus to fly Southwest to Philly.
I arrived on time and found a text message on my phone from judiang saying they were in baggage claim D waiting on me. So without checking the arrival boards, I headed for baggage claim D, assuming my friends knew where I was supposed to go. 🙂 Turns out they did, but Philly Airport sucks and took ages to get my bag to me. Bah! (And one fellow was waiting for his and saw his sock come down the conveyor belt. “Hey! That’s my sock!” Shortly after that, we saw his open bag come down the belt as well. Whoops!)
Once we were all ready, elsaf, Judi and I headed outside to wait for the Budget van. Four billion Avis vans and all the other rental agency vans went through before the Budget van finally came. The car we got (in slot A13 – you think we’d’ve known bad luck would be forthcoming) is a Ford Focus and Elsa got us a GPS to go with it. We stuck Garmin up on the windshield and programmed the destination. Well, sort of. It turns out none of us remembered to print the address off of the Vermont farmhouse we’re staying in. As hergrace was most likely on the road, we didn’t want to phone her. So we used some random Chester address instead.
And off we went! Elsa drove us out of Philly and into New Jersey. While still in PA, we had lunch at Friendly’s, and left the GPS in the car harping at us to get back on track. After lunch, Garmin decided it had a better route picked out. But wouldn’t tell us. We thought maybe she was sulking. Finally, she told us her new route. Alas, Elsa soon made a misturn, but Garmin recalculated the result. And at the same time, she had a shin cramp, so she asked if I could drive for a bit. Sure, I said, with no idea of where Garmin would be sending us next.
So we were in New Jersey, and Garmin started sending us on surface streets to get us on this new route. And then I missed a turn, so she recalculated the route and vindictively decided to send us through the Holland Tunnel. With me driving. Me, the country girl who never drives in big cities. Me, the girl who can’t do a left turn to save her life. Eep!
4 days later, we got on the other side of the Holland Tunnel. Well, it was probably 2 hours, but it felt like days. And then it directed me to skirt around New York City on 12th Avenue. Which I did. At one time, Judi suggested me pulling over and letting Elsa drive. Um, pulling over in some unknown part of New York City? I don’t THINK so.
While I was driving, we FINALLY got a call from Steph. We’d discovered during dinner that none of us had a recent phone number for Steph. Whoops! But Judi assured us Steph would eventually call us. And we all cheered when she did. We got the address of the farmhouse from her and also took down her phone number. And told her it would be after 1am before we’d arrive.
Still, I got us out of New York and into Connecticut and finally found a roadstop 12 miles into CT where we could switch drivers and get something to drink. I became a two fisted drinker after that drive with a mint shake in one hand and water in the other. Elsa then headed off through Connecticut. After awhile, she started getting sleepy, so we found (after many attempts) an open gas station where we filled up and Elsa walked around. I offered to drive again provided the GPS didn’t send us to NYC again.
Thankfully, it didn’t. I drove through CT and into Vermont. Yay for Vermont. And then it directed us to Chester, where we began to recognize landmarks from the last time we were here. We cheered when we arrived in Chester. And then even louder when we arrived at the farmhouse. Yay! Steph and her mother-in-law greeted us (sleepily) as we got out of the car. It was just after 2am. Blergh!
Steph showed us up to the rooms where we were going to stay and then we chatted in the hallway for half an hour or so. Then finally slunk away to sleep. Ah, sleep. It is of the good.
Alas, I woke up at 6:30 then 7:30 and finally got up at 8:30. But apart from many many typing errors while writing this, I think I’m awake. Today we intend to have a great day with Steph. 🙂
I checked into the airport earlier today while still at judiang‘s. And right before we left, I checked flight info & all was good. So then I take the red line to Jackson and the blue line to O’Hare and when I arrive, I discover my flight has been cancelled. No matter, they had already booked me on the next flight to Columbus, which is at 6:35pm CDT. I decided to take advantage of O’Hare’s widely advertised wi-fi. It’s $6.95 for the day, so consider this my most expensive post on LJ. (I also e-mailed the folks & Judi while on this.)
Anyhoo, here’s hoping my luggage and I shall be reunited in Columbus! And I get to see my kitties tonight. Yay!
Wow, it’s always wonderful when I get together with elsaf & judiang (and sometimes hergrace can join us too). We know how to celebrate the joy of FOOD.
We started out the day slow. Elsa was up first, then me. I played CoH for a bit (on Judi’s PC) and then worked on my LJ post. While I was finishing that up, Judi showed up. Wow – Judi was awake and we didn’t have to get her up! We then got ready and headed up to the penthouse to exercise for the second day. I played with the two bikes and the elliptical trainer. Shame the regular bike has a dead battery cuz it would be neat to try some of the settings.
After exercising, Judi was still nearly comatose, but we promised her latte after brunch. Elsa drove us to Chinatown to our regular Dim Sum place, Three Happiness. Once again, Elsa showed enormous restraint, sticking to steamed dishes (and having the smaller half of one of my sesame rolls). We still ate well, despite the conscience eye on avoiding excess. The little steamed items are SOOOOO GOOOOOOOD. And damn, but those sesame balls are wonderful. Judi got 3 more right before we had stuff tallied up and took 2 home with her.
Elsa then drove us to Target where we found a few essentials (and Judi and I magically caused a Starbucks to suddenly appear so that she could get her hazelnut soy latte), and then to Dominick’s (which I haven’t been too since that fateful day when Judi made alryssa, tiger5 and I walk across the Long Ass Bridge the night before Thanksgiving. I can still hear Carole saying “I’ll pay for a cab! I’ll pay for a cab!” the whole way there & back, with Judi completely oblivious. Heh heh.) Dominick’s thankfully had the phyllo dough that Elsa needed for one of her dishes for the evening meal. Oh, and I picked up 3 bottles of white wine for Judi. A Chapel Ste. Michele (sp) Riesling, Turning Leaf Pinot Grigio, and Fetzer Gewürztraminer (my mom’s favorite). We put the Riesling in the fridge when we got back, but the other two are now on Judi’s new wine rack (one of her “garage sale” purchases of the day before).
The rest of the day has been spent with Elsa furiously making Yet Another Ultimate Judi Birthday Supper and me cleaning dishes. And once again, Elsa has topped herself. She truly rocks.
While light classical music played on Judi’s TV (digital cable, you know), dinner started with an appetizer of grilled shrimp with pineapple salsa. The soup course was next with the mushroom soup (with sherry) which she’s made before and which I love. For salad, she had arugula with a lemon vinaigrette and goat cheese souffle in phyllo cups. There was a small break while I cleaned a few more dishes and the lamb rested after being removed from the oven. Then we continued with rack of lamb with mushroom sauce (morels – yummy), asparagus, and rice pilaf with brown & wild rice and wine soaked cranberries. Very tasty. By now we were nicely full from a fabulous meal. It was time to open presents.
Judi got nice sheets and a mini food chopper from Elsa and noise-cancellation headphones from me. Oh, and a photo of David Tennant for her to squee at. I’d also scanned in the other DT photos that I recently bought in an eBay auction and gave her a CD of that. (The things I buy when I’m shopping for Sylvester McCoy photos!)
After present opening, I vegged for a bit and finally got the strength to finish cleaning the kitchen. But before I was done, we messed up my table again in order to eat CHEESECAKE. Yup, Elsa once again made her wonderful cheesecake. Very yummy. Judi had the biggest piece of the three of us, and then proceeded to have a sliver more. But hey, it’s her birthday and if you can’t live it up on your birthday, when can you?
Dessert over, I was able to finish cleaning the kitchen, and now I’m here, dishpan hands typing this entry. Believe me, it was worth all the cleaning. 🙂
ETA: that bit about Starbucks – just remembered it. Heh.
Yesterday morning, elsaf and I got up at the same time. judiang, however, had gone into hibernation. Still, she eventually got up and we forced her to exercise up in her apartment complex’s exercise room. It’s fun watching a near-comatose woman exercise. Today we intend to torture her again – even though it IS her birthday. Maybe especially because it IS her birthday.
When we returned from the “gym” (which has some very nice pieces of exercise equipment), we still had 10 minutes to spare at the city equivalent of a Garage Sale. Someone in Judi’s apartment was having a Moving Sale. So we popped up to room 1606 and poked around. The couple were young & very nice. They are moving out Friday and heading off to Switzerland. Cool beans. Their two little ones were off at the grandparents, so couldn’t protest when Elsa bought their TV and DVD player. Judi bought a lot of bakeware (which I fear will only ever come out when Elsa’s around) and I managed to avoid buying anything. Well, at this place. Money would be leaving my wallet soon enough.
Lunch was at the Indian Garden, which promised us nervana and nearly delivered. We all got the buffet because Judi FORCED us too. (Well, actually she was just telling the server that she wanted the buffet, but he thought she was speaking for all of us.) There were many good things on the buffet. Basmati rice, dal makhani, saag paneer, samosas, chili chicken, etc. etc. There were two dessert items, one made of carrots (which the girls originally thought was made of sweet potatoes) and the other made of goat cheese soaked in milk, sugar, and pistachios. The food was very good and I think I had the best aloo gobhi I’ve ever had. (I prefer Jeet India’s saag paneer & dal, but you can’t have everything. Heh heh.)
After our very filling lunch, it was on up Michigan to Intimates. This is a store where they have professional bra fitters. We made appointments and then moved back down Michigan to the Borders that we passed.
At Borders, they had several books in a 3 for the price of 2 sale. Damn them! Damn them all to heck! I found 2 books right off the bat, then went looking for a third. Eventually I found a possible one when Judi then said there were other 3 of 2 displays in the store. Of course, at the next display, I found 2 more books. Damn! Some more searching found me a third for that set too.
The books that I sprung for were:
Stupid book sales!
We returned then to Intimates to fullfil our appointment and the rather amusing incident is something that I have shared with just the girls, hergrace, and the lovely women in my family. The rest of you will just have to imagine it. Heh heh.
Anyhoo, it was time to return to the roost. I’m sure Lance was crossing his legs when we got home. While Judi was walking him, I was busy downloading some very important torrents… The new Doctor Who ep and it’s corresponding Confidential. Once Lance was back, the three of us walked off to Grace O’Malley’s for supper.
Since I was in an Irish pub, I decided I needed to have a reuben. I also ordered the Guiness cheese soup for starters. The girls split a grilled salmon meal which they claimed was very good. (I’m not into salmon, so it could have been heavenly and still not tempted me.) The soup and reuben were great, though the fries were only so-so. Since Judi’s birthday was just looming around the corner, she decided she was gonna have dessert, damnit. So we ordered the 4 layer cake (with ice cream). Elsa got the tip of the cake and Judi and I had the rest. (Judi and I have been so proud of Elsa, who has not succumbed to our excesses. Today’s dim sum will be the ultimate test for her. If she passes, she is, indeed, the rockingest dieter that ever lived.)
Once we came back home, we had a few moments of technical difficulty regarding making the CDs for the evening’s viewings. But Judi finally convinced her CD/DVD recorder to finally make the CDs of Doctor Who & Confidential. So we all gathered on the sofa to watch. Even Lance joined us and kept running back and forth across our laps so that he could sit with all 3 of us at once.
Although I will miss Rose, I am loving Martha. It’s about bloody time there was a cute black girl as an assistant. And Freema is just perfect for the role. I’m looking forward to series 3 of Doctor Who. Woot! As far as the Confidential goes, I must admit that I prefer the Cut Downs that show up on the DVD sets. This went on too long and repeated too much. No matter, when I’m on me own, I don’t actually watch the Confidentials (mostly so I won’t be disappointed when I buy the DVD sets later.)
Anyhoo, yesterday was a blast and today should be as well. Once Judi gets up, we’ll drag her to the exercise room. Then we’ll stop for a hazelnut soy latte so that Judi can wake up enough to enjoy dim sum. Elsa’s plans are to make us a fabulous supper (and hopefully we’ll find some filo dough today!) And then Judi gets to open her presents – thankfully the one that I ordered from Amazon arrived yesterday – woot!
I guess it’s better than being windy in the sleepy city…
For me, it’s after 2am. But here in Chicago, it’s just passing 1am. Funny, that.
I flew in after work today and managed to completely miss supper during the travel. judiang met me in the baggage claim @ O’Hare shortly after I arrived & got my luggage. Then we waited for our chauffeur from Detroit to arrive. Judi and I both agreed that only someone insane would drive to O’Hare, so we’re thinking of sending elsaf off for testing. Still, Elsa arrived and we headed on to Judi’s apartment.
We unloaded the ingredients for Elsa’s latest culinary excursion (for Judi’s b-day) and started up the grocery list for things left behind or unavailable at the time. Then, shortly after 10pm, we finally headed off for supper for Trina.
We wound up going to Judi’s old neighborhood (which isn’t far from her current one) to Hackney’s. I had fish & chips, a nice light supper for the post 10pm hour. Yummy! And Judi insisted I have an amaretto sour, so who am I to argue? The girls got gumbo since they’d both already had supper. Neither of ’em could finish it. But I finished my fish & most of my chips.
On our way back, we stopped at Jewel for the groceries we needed. Since Judi had Elsa’s car available, she loaded about a month’s worth of groceries in addition to what we needed for the weekend. Then we returned home to set up Judi’s new wireless router. Thanks to sneakernet, we got the very complex WEP key to all of our laptops. Go us!
Anyhoo, I’m zonked, so will be heading off to bed as soon as I finish this post. Should be a fun weekend with me friends!
Yesterday morning, elsaf walked to her local bakery to get us some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. As usual, I was second up and judiang eventually dragged herself out of bed. We had a nice lazy morning after breakfast, just geeking and eventually packing. When it was nearing 1pm, we drove to Panera Bread in 2 cars. We had a relaxing lunch of broccoli cheddar soup in sour dough bread bowls. We knew that when we were finished with lunch, we’d have to part company, so we chatted for as long as we could. Then we left Panera, hugged, and drove off our separate ways. Elsa back to her place, Judi and I down south to my home.
Thanks to the iPod Transpod that Judi had given me for Christmas, we listened to her iPod for the drive home. We only had one stop along the way where we discussed feminine things as you see in commercials. It was quite funny. I also got to pick on Judi’s 23 versions of “O Holy Night” in her playlist. Spread out over 500 songs, it might not have seemed a little excessive. In a playlist of 95 songs, it got a bit, um, repetitive. She also seems to like “The Little Drummer Boy” a lot as well.
When we got to Troy, I stopped at Penn Station to get us supper. I got my usual Philly cheesesteak, got Judi a club with no ham, mom a regular club, and dad the Italian sub. Plus a large fries. Once in town, I got some beverages from the gas station (including blue Gatorade for Judi who had thrown out her shoulder playing some pretty mean Air Piano during one of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra pieces and was having muscle cramps because of it). We arrived at the parentals with food and had a nice supper in their kitchen.
After supper, Judi and I headed to my house (where I’d already been to cuddle my kitties) and I showed off my flatscreen TV by playing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Ah, some mad David Tennant! What fun! Near the end of the film, mom called to say it was time to pick up Amy & Rachel, so I headed next door and we three rushed off to the airport to pick up the girls.
They arrived on time and we exchanged hugs. Then we waited and waited and waited some more for the luggage to come out. When their baggage carousel began to spin, I predicted to Amy “4th and 12th.” Well, neither of their bags showed up 4th or 12th. Indeed, it was more like 4th from the last and last. As soon as their last piece showed up, the carousel stopped. Heh, what timing…
We returned home for cookies and milk. I dragged Judi over from next door because calling her on my phone did no good. “Trina, you had 2 phone calls just now.” Um, yeah! Silly gurl! 🙂 The cookies, milk, and conversation were all a nice wind up to a busy day for all.
Bedtime for Judi turned out to be Kitten Hell. The kitties had never seen the sofa open out into a bed and spent most of the evening playing under the bed, rolling things back and forth. They did eventually join me in bed to sleep, but they aggravated Judi enough so that she didn’t have the world’s greatest night sleeping. Still, we managed to get over to mom & dad’s shortly after 9am. Dad made everyone Egg McMikey sammiches, which, as always, were very yummy. The girls went back to bed, Judi fell asleep on the sofa, and the parentals headed off to the grocery. So I have returned home for a little waiting for the sleepy heads to return to the land of the living.
Tonight, we have our “traditional” Christmas dinner of chicken casserole and will then open presents. Mmmm, presents! I love presents!
We had another nice slow start today. (I *love* vacation!) And today, elsaf made us French toast – yay! (I love French toast even more than pancakes, and that’s saying something.) And more sausage to eat with syrup. judiang, as usual. was the last one up.
Much of the afternoon was spent geeking and waiting around to find out when the National Day of Mourning will be. This has no bearing on me or Elsa, but Judi is a Fed and thus it is of great importance to her. And now we know – her day off will be Tuesday. Perhaps she will rant about the irony of that date in her LJ. Perhaps not.
Elsa made us roast beast sammiches for lunch. She and I had earlier walked to her local bakery to get some bread. It was pumpernickle rye, which Judi and I turned down for our sandwiches. What can we say, we’re White Bread Girls. 😉 The sandwich was great, and we had it with Royal Riviera pears from Harry and Davids. It was the best pear I have ever had – so juicy and succulant. Thanks to Elsa’s mum for getting a Harry & David set o’ items for us.
Judi decided that she needed to go to Best Buy again, this time to get stuff for herself. So we stopped there on our way to our Holiday Movie. She picked up two mice, because one mouse just isn’t enough… (Actually, she needed a wired mouse for her laptop and decided to get a wired mouse for her PC for when her wireless one gives her grief and I pick on her to “get a real mouse.”)
Our pick for Holiday Movie was Happy Feet. The only trailer we saw that was anything good was Harry Potter 5. And the movie? So cute! And such a great rythm. I had happy feet while I watched it. Penguins are of the cute! Go penguins!
We finished our fun evening out by having supper at La Shish. We ate at one of the restaurants last year and Judi wanted to go again this year. They make very yummy Middle Eastern food. The girls got the shish combo for two and I got the garlic & almond ghallaba. Judi and I also got smoothies – her a papaya and me a mango. I’d gotten the ghallaba last year and enjoyed it enough to order again this year. Maybe someday I’ll get a shish kabob. 🙂
Our evening was cut short by poor Elsa getting a bloody nose (she got one yesterday at breakfast too, poor dear). She had me drive home and I did so quite safely cuz I’m a good driver. Despite what other people say…
When we got back, we watched The Ruby in the Smoke and ate ice cream. I had Been & Jerry’s chocolate fudge brownie while the girls had B&J’s Cookie Dough ice cream. Good eats and good show. Now we’re watching last week’s Torchwood and I’m writing this.
Tomorrow, our threesome breaks up when Judi and I head on back to Ohio to continue my Christmas celebration. And shortly my birthday celebration. Yay for celebration! Yay for presents!
Today started nice and lazy with me sleeping in until 9 and judiang sleeping in until 10. elsaf, however, had been up since 7-something. She assures us she had a restful sleep, so that was good.
Elsa made us a breakfast of pancakes and sausage. It really hit the spot and did a great job of keeping us sated until suppertime. We decided to do our gift exchange then. The presents were all nicely displayed in front of the TV (for lack of a tree – hey, they both start with T). And we began with Elsa’s birthday present from Judi. (For those of you keeping score at home, you may have realized that Elsa’s birthday is in August. So Judi was a little late…) The gift was an iPod transponder for her car. (Hmmm, looks like something someone would buy at Best Buy!)
Next it was time for the Christmas exchange. It turns out I, too, got an iPod transponder. Cool! She also got me a children’s book by Neil Gaiman. Thanks Judi! Elsa gave me the DVD of Ghost Light (What do you mean “don’t you already have that??? OK, so I hadn’t gotten the Region 1 version yet… But now I have it so YAY!) Thanks Elsa! Elsa liked the 3-tiered spice rack and gift certificate to The Spice House that I got her. Judi was excited for the Complete Peanuts 1959-1962 which I got her. Elsa also received a Southern Living Cookbook and meat pounder from Judi and Judi received 2 Sims 2 Expansion Packs from Elsa. A nice haul for all of us. And Elsa gave me my birthday gift, but I shall wait til Monday to open it. Woot! Thanks in advance, Elsa!
We had a few things we needed to get for supper after a quick stop at Elsa’s parent’s house. And one of the places we stopped was the butcher’s shop near Elsa’s house. Now, I dunno about you, but butcher’s shops are something that we still have around my neck of the woods. And obviously around Elsa’s neighborhood. But Judi was surprised. She thought they were extinct and thus had to take photos when we got in there. Heh, silly girl! Hopefully she’ll post at least one of ’em in her journal tonight.
We cleaned the kitchen when we got back and then Elsa began making the steak & ale pies for supper. She also started on the custard for the trifle she was making as well. Judi and I took it in turns to stir the custard and it thickened just when Tom and Ardath (Elsa’s bro and sis-in-law) arrived with the dogs. (They have 2 dogs, Rosie and Casey, and they’ve been taking care of Ollie while Judi and I were here since he gets exited by visitors. Only Floyd has been with us on our trip thus far.)
Tom had made shepherd’s pie and Ardi had brought some home-made toffee. A Wassail mix finished off the meal and we had a nice English supper of steak & ale pie, shepherd’s pie, wassail, and raspberry trifle. Wonderful meal and my hat off to all the chefs.
After supper, Tom took the dogs for a walk while we fixed the technical difficulties we were having with our viewing of The Runaway Bride (the 2006 Doctor Who Christmas special). By the time Tom was back with the critters, the VCD was done and we watched the special. We laughed and cheered and had fun with the silly story. Quite an entertainment for our group.
To finish off the evening, we all pulled Christmas crackers and read the silly jokes and put on the silly hats. Then Ardi passed around the toffee and we munched. Then she treated the doggies to doggie berry cobbler. (It’s canned stuff that they all simply adored and sat patiently for their turn at the spoon.) Lots of munching going on at that point.
At 10pm, Tom & Ardath and the pooches (all but Floyd) headed on back home. Elsa and Judi are cleaning the kitchen. And I’m sitting here writing all of this. And with a “and that’s that!” from Elsa, I think they’re done.
Yay! What a fun day we’ve had!
