Historic Cold Spring Presbyterian Church

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

I’ve never really participated in any Wordless Wednesdays so I decided to give it a try. Of course, I can’t be totally wordless so it’s a semi-wordless Wednesday.  Over the weekend, I went to Cape May with my buddy, Bob, from work. On the way there, we came across a really cool historic church with an even cooler historic graveyard.  We jumped out of the car and I snapped a whole bunch of pictures.  We also got to go inside the church but they were doing a tour and I didn’t get a chance to take any indoor pictures.

Check out the rest of the pictures after the break.  You can click on each picture to make them larger and see the details…

Pig Roast at Cork Restaurant in Westmont NJ was Outstanding!

This little piggie went...to my plate!! (Yes, that's my finger at the top of the picture.)

If you have been following my blog even just a little bit, you should know that my favorite restaurant is Cork in Westmont.  It’s also Heather and Aaron’s favorite restaurant.  We go there regularly and usually dine there during special occasions like birthdays and holidays.  They’ve recently put out an exciting, new menu with cool new things like homemade potato chips, fried pickles, shrimp and grits, and lots more.  One particular item that caught our attention was the Sunday Family Style Pig Roast for $15.00 per person.  We love us some pig and a pig roast sounded awesome.

The Sunday Pig Roast is a once a month event and Cork had the first one tonight (7/19).  Reservations are required.  Heather and Aaron were there for cocktails last week and decided to go ahead and make reservations for the three of us.  Fortunately we were one of the last ones to get in on the deal as the pig roast had sold out. Boy, were we lucky…

Memes and Other Words to Meditate on

I was recently over at Linh’s blog, Girl in Georgia, reading her latest post regarding a “words” meme.  Apparently, she had been visiting her friend Leigh’s blog and stumbled across a particular word meme post she liked. Isn’t this how these meme things work, anyway? It’s like those old shampoo commercials where you tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on.

And so, the meme works in this way.  The person who writes the post has been provided 5 words that somehow relate to them from a blogger who had previously written a words meme post.  The new blogger must write about (meditate about, whatever that means) how they relate to them. Gosh, this is sounding complicated. This is how Linh put it:

Reply to this post… and I’ll give you 5 words that remind me of you.  Then post to your own blog with your meditations on those words, inviting others to ask you for words.

So if you’d like me to give you 5 words that you then have to post about on your blog, read through to the end and leave a comment.  Actually, you can read through to the end even if you don’t want me to give you 5 words.  (I usually don’t participate in memes but I decided to throw caution to the wind.)  Linh gave me these 5 words:

Strong  Honest  Genuine  Thespian  Father

Yikes. There are some pretty deep words here. Well, here we go…

Random Stuff – Gay Slurs, Friendships, Engagements, and No-salt Diets

I seem to be having an issue with writing a new post for my blog lately.  I’ve been feeling a little bit ambivalent regarding everything and I am not quite sure why. Actually, I think I do know why. It’s a stupid little pattern of apathy that I have been fighting since I was in my teens. So what made me write now? Well, I was walking the dogs a few moments ago and it’s quite dark.  As I crossed the street and walked over the railroad tracks to the strip of turf where the dogs do their business, a car drove up to the nearest intersection.  Stopping, it then turned right and just after it passed me, one of the riders yelled, “faggot.”  Actually, it was more like a squeal–a gritted mouth shriek that sounded like someone who was trying to talk and force a bowel movement at the same time.

It was really a cry–a desperate kind of “I had to yell a gay slur at you or it was gonna kill me, cause gay guys scare me cause the thought of gay sex sort of excites me and that scares me” kind of cry.  And he waited until he was past me and then yelled it out, like an after thought or as if he had to wait so I couldn’t see his face. Or maybe he was afraid I’d yell something back at him like, “Stop and let me do you, you hot straight guy” because we all know that gay men want to do straight men, especially when they yell homophobic slurs at them while they are walking their dogs late in the evening…

To be quite honest, I was a little leery when Molly over at POM Wonderful sent me an email offering to send me free bottles of their pomegranate juice to try with no strings attached. Hey, I’m all about free stuff. Free is my favorite color and flavor, and it always seems to fit perfectly. BUT (and this is a BIG BUT), I was a little afraid of pomegranate juice. Would I like it?

My daughter, Heather, has been nagging me to try pomegranate juice. She’s all about healthy. She insisted that pomegranate juice was the Dr. Pepper of juices. (So misunderstood) Besides, it’s loaded with antioxidants. It’s good for your heart and prostate and even improves erectile function. (No comment) With all that in mind (and since it was free), I agreed to try the samples. Even though it was “no strings attached”, I decided that I would blog about my findings, regardless of whether I liked the stuff or not. Shortly afterwards I received a package of eight 8 oz double-bubble shaped bottles full of a very dark red juice…

Merryfield's Bar in Oaklyn, NJ. Amazing Food at Unbelievably Low Prices

Amy and Juan. But not at Merryfield's cause like a big dope I forgot to bring my camera.

I went to Merryfield’s Bar & Lounge in Oaklyn, NJ with Amy and Juan yesterday and had the most amazing meal for practically nothing! In case you weren’t aware, this is where my daughter is a waitress. I go there often for their awesome wings, $3.25 Blue Moon drafts, Monday night $6,95 dinners, $7.95 oysters on a half shelf, and literally dozens of delicious food specials. They don’t have a website but you can read reviews here or here.

Over the 3 day holiday weekend, Merryfield’s was running a couple of cool specials: 3 Maryland-style, hard shell crabs for $10 and a 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 lb. steamed lobster with corn and potato for $15.95. Great meals at super great prices. Heather worked Friday and said that she had a hard time selling the specials because people already have their favorites and that’s what they like to order. People are strange or at least set in their ways…

You're Appreciated! Brown Eyed Gal Wins My One Year Anniversary Contest

It was a close race but Danielle over at Brown Eyed Gal won the Super Deluxe Out of the Box Sampler in my One Year Anniversary Contest. Congratulations Danielle! Her prize ships out July 1. (They go on sale July 1st so if you want one, you better hurry over to their website before they sell out. I order one for Heather every month.) Danielle was so excited when she won that she wrote me this in an email, “YOU have made my day!!! WOW…Im just so excited I can hardly stand it. (it is about 2am here in MI and I almost woke my husband and son up! LOL)” I’d say that almost waking up the hubby and kid at 2 am would definitely count as pretty darn excited.

What’s even more exciting is Danielle’s blog, Brown Eyed Gal.  Her subtitle is “a little bit of this….and a lot of that!” I love the way her blog looks, especially the colors. The ruddy oranges, soft blues, muted olive greens, and the clay-like tan colors in her blog are earthy tones often found in southwestern motifs, yet the blog design has a scrapbook feel to it. The header font looks like buttons and I really like the balloons and bluebird on a branch that remain stationary as you scroll down the blog.  It’s clean, pretty, and easy-on-the-eyes…