Where It's At

Busy beavers are we in Western New York.

Jamestown has been the location of several events since Memorial Day weekend.

1. Lucy-Desi days came and went - though we skipped town after a late-night improv set.
2. The Gus Macker tournament took over 3rd street for a few days as did the...
3. ...Wild Rib Cook Off, which expanded this year.
4. Yassou - St. Nicholas' church's annual Greek festival took down its tents today. PGirlJr. and GalootJr. each took several turns on the dancing platform. Icing on the cake is the church only being 8 blocks away from our house.

The Sopranos ended its run a week ago tonight. I've only seriously watched the show for the last two seasons, but loved every minute I saw, including the final episode. Without getting into spoilers, I will say that the last five minutes of the show were gripping, and I was immensely satisfied with the ambiguous nature of the conclusion. I'm sick of reading t.v. critics trying to rally people behind them by claiming that David Chase let the fans down. As if all of the bitchers out there could agree on an ending to the story.

Father's Day was cool. PGirl and GalootJr. surprised me last night with the gift of a new DVD player. This one upgrades regular images up to near the quality of High Def - which our newest TV is equipped with. We watched "For Your Consideration" on it. Very funny movie. This morning we had breakfast with the Silver Fox, The Greater Spy and his family. Then we headed down to visit with The Organ Grinder and Saint Eileen for some lunch and dessert. All is well!

PSlea and Monkey visited with the kiddoes last week. Having them around was a blast. Reminded me of when my Uncle Bill, Aunt Maureen and their 3 kids lived with us in Long Island 30 years ago. We did birthday parties for PGirlJr. and my niece, attended a ballet recital for PGirlJr., did an improv show, cooked in, ordered in and more. Monkey and I finally had a boy's night out with The Greater Spy, Ian and Kip, doing the Jamestown pub crawl until the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Billiard balls were played and darts were thrown (including one plastic one at my hand, due to a sadistic tradition that The Unexpected Guests have). Can't wait to see our Illini brethren again!