Where do I begin?

So this is the entire Garden State Crew from the visit this week along with Uncle Mike in a "Jerryesque" pose in the chair.  Katey captioned this photo some old ass cousins.  Needless to say, they all had a super time with swimming, a trip to Seaside and barbecues.  As always the food  and the company was outstanding.  Present grandkids had a blast too.  

I was in charge of the four legged children and that all went pretty well until Harry attempted to disrupt 

 

Meatballs evening meal while he was cornered in back of the sofa.  An all out battle of the vittles ensued with neither one backing down until I stepped in.  Food was everywhere and I learned another lesson, make sure Harry is secure in his cage before putting out the nightly meal.   At my end all worked out well for the critters and I walked their legs off each day.  We had little rain so that was easy to accomplish.  I had a couple of social occasions mid week to break up my solitude.  Ate again at Amicci's in town.  Food was spectacular and with an appetizer of Maui bacon which was sautéed pork belly with pineapple (really healthy).   The place is really cool but loud with the bartender having the biggest voice.  Like many others, I have determined that everything is better with bacon.

After a lengthy discussion about music, friend Janine let me know she was a big fan of the Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett.  Aside from long lost friend Dan Flora, I thought I was the only one enraptured by this gem of improvisation.  She introduced me to the music of Michael Manring, an innovative electric bassist playing something called the Hyper-Bass.  It is an invention of Joe Zon that includes extra levers for alternative tunings on each string.  I listened to some of the solo work by this artist,  not completely sold yet but interested.

Friend John Considine is breaking out of the penitentiary and moving to South Florida for health reasons.  There was a nice party yesterday in our common room in his honor.  Most of my usual cronies attended.  Notably,  we had an appearance by Andy Levin our US Congressman.  He was most engaging making a minor stump speech while answering questions.  He is a Berkley guy with roots in the community.  I asked him about assault weapons.  His response was as expected followed by a promise to introduce and pass an assault weapons ban via the House of Representatives.  This of course will fail once it hits the upper chamber of congress.  

Whenever you depart a meeting such as this one,  you think, I should have asked this or that in retrospect.  The Senator from West Virginia is crippling the efforts of the Democratic Party along with 3 Supreme Court justices that are hell bent on removing rights rather than granting them.  In my mind,  these are  the rulers of our country. That's what I should have asked him about.

Thats enough bitching for today.

all for now

stay safe