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Mom & Dad Visit

Thu., December 23, 2004

Mom and Dad braved that really nasty Midwest storm and drove to New York to visit me for the holidays. It wasn’t a fun trip, with snow and ice in Ohio, blinding rain in Pennsylvania, gridlock to cross the George Washington Bridge, and then, because that wasn’t quite enough, Dad nearly knocked the passenger side side mirror off his Taurus by clipping it against a movers’ van that was taking up most of W. 85th Street. After arriving in the apartment, he took a swig of scotch directly from the bottle and felt a bit better.

For dinner, I took a rare trip to the East Side with Mom and Dad to Blue Smoke, an upscale BBQ joint that was recommended by Andie’s friend Carolann, who’s from Texas. The BBQ was pricey but spicy, tender and mouth-wateringly good. Dad discovered that a woman at the table next to us was from Shaker Heights, which was an odd coincidence.

For drinks afterwards, we went back uptown on the West Side to Vintage, which sells only wines from New York State. There’s a small wine bar in the back and we partook of the 5-for-$5 deal, where you get to choose any five wines on their menu for $5 total. Whatta deal! Even moreso because they were supposed to be one-ounce pours, which with our generous server, seemed to grow significantly with each round. She even gave us a sixth round free, attempting to trick us into thinking it was only the fifth (only Dad called her on it because he had been taking notes about each of the wines). We finished up with some tasty ports and walked home.

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