Haunted Housewarming

You might want to call this a Halloween Party and I get why you would do that, but really I wanted to have a housewarming and my available Saturdays were getting closer and closer to the 31st. So I had a Vampire Party. Right before Halloween.

Here is mostly everyone:

And here’s just about everyone individually. Or in small groups. Plus a scary vampire cake that Heather made:

It was a good party and if you want to come help unstick all the bats from my wall you can. Maybe that will be my Christmas party?

Let Me Catch You Up on a Utah Trip

One weekend in October I flew out to Utah on a Saturday night, getting in late, but not too late for Del Taco. I spent the daytime of the next day with Kristen’s family, admiring the basement they live in now and the progress of the remodeling of their real house

Kristen’s family did me the gigantic solid of taking me down to Salt Lake so I could try Pretty Bird, which I found to be absolutely excellent. Like, stupendous. Better than absolutely any chicken sandwich in New York, that’s for sure. I ordered their hot chicken as hot as I could and it was hot but not as hot as I’d hoped. It’s ok. It was still delicious and the fries I found to be beyond compare as well. Five stars to Pretty Bird! (or as one niece called it, “Chicken Bird”, which is a great name, too)

Post-chicken we went to the mall and Rachel talked her folks into renting some Bird scooters. Behold, me about to be very daring.

Now, the big reason I was out there in Utah was for our friend Carol’s wedding reception. YOU WOULD THINK I’d have a lot of pictures from this party. But nope! YOU WOULD THINK I’d at least have a picture of Carol in her wedding dress. Nope! I was just too busy enjoying the party and being reunited with all sorts of good folks to remember to account for it. Well, please believe me that it was good. And see here an out of focus picture of the venue, the cake, some of the dinner (yes, Don Joaquin catering in the house), and the Lymans, who came up to see me and meet Carol. I think eventually some very high quality pictures of this party will emerge online. Somewhere.

The next morning I woke up in Park City. What a crazy night I must have had!

On the way home I checked on Grandma’s and refined my perfect In n Out order (cheeseburger animal style, hold the lettuce and tomato, add raw onions [so, yes, raw + grilled onions are on this burger]—this is the way to make In n Out not just palatable but actually very quite tasty)

I made it back to beautiful Highland in time for a little bit of church and then a quick trip to the Sizzler before flying back to New York that afternoon. No more red eyes for me!!

Let Me Catch You Up on Some New York Things

First of all, I’m pretty sure I haven’t told you that right before I went to Chicago I had lunch with our friend Andrew’s folks while they were in town. It was a real treat. I asked them where they might want to eat and Fred said “Take us somewhere spicy!” What a treat for me to hear that. Plus it was Candy’s birthday. What an honor for me to share a spicy birthday meal with them!

Now, big news, our friend Kim has moved back to New York. Shortly after returning from Chicago she invited me to join her for a Mets game . . . aaaand her work had hooked her up with luxury box seats, or whatever they’re called. And guess what: I like watching baseball games this way very much. For me there was definitely a learning curve stepping into this luxury baseball life, but if you gave me a second chance, I know I could really nail it. Also: It turns out the hallway of the luxury box part of the stadium is a lot like the hallway of a nice hospital. Everything is a smidge too carpeted for my tastes. They should make the fancy part of the stadium feel a little more like a stadium. Just a suggestion!

One Saturday evening I went down to Brooklyn Bridge Park for Alexis’s 10th New York Anniversary party. Looks like I didn’t really get pictures of anyone except Karrie and Michael! BUT I did get pictures of a surprise engagement con mariachi. Pretty cool!

Another Saturday morning I invited friends to meet me at the Cloisters to catch one of the last days of the Heavenly Bodies exhibit. Looks like I didn’t really get any pictures of my friends there except for Tara! (And Cher had even flown out from LA for it). BUT then I had everyone over afters to watch Conference and at least I got a picture of the backs of some of their heads. There also might be photos out there of everyone fallen asleep, but you won’t find those here!

One thing about the religious clothes show in the castle: Eventually I started thinking it was a Dune exhibit.

Thanks to the General Women’s Session, that night I was able to go see Ian Svenonius (in the guise of Escape-Ism) and Martin Rev on an upper floor of a great big synagogue (or temple?) in Brooklyn. It was one of the most New York things I’ve done in a good long while.

Another very New York thing: One Sunday I walked through the wrapping-up of the annual Fort Tryon Medieval Festival on my way home from church. I hadn’t been to it in a number of years. I would go again again.

And now I hope we all feel nice and caught up on New York and ready for a quick Utah weekend…