Geneva on the Lake 2012
Friday dawned chilly and windy. We all decided to have breakfast at the Sunrise Cafe, a neat place with good food, though you have to endure a few insults to get it. Their motto is "eat-pay-leave"! The ribbing is all in good fun, though, and the proprietors and waitresses are good people who really do care. I had a simple breakfast of eggs, bacon and a muffin, but I had to snag some of Aurora's huge pancake...they are really very good!
Today we spent some time on the strip with family. Great Aunt Sil & Great Aunt Lydia, with their husbands, had made it up for the day and wanted to see their great-nephew and great-niece. So we headed on over to the Firehouse winery first, where Beth had already started to down a couple glasses of wine. There, we waited while the whole family gathered, and took an extended-family picture in front of the ferris wheel behind the winery. The ferris wheel is the last ride left of what used to be a small amusement park by the lake.
We then left Liam with his great-aunts and GramB and headed over to Times Square to get some food. Times Square is famous for their enormously large piles of fresh-cut fries, prepared to order, and enough to feed several. The portion size has dwindled since I first had an order a few years ago, but it is still a more than generous helping that two people would be hard pressed to finish. However, there were about eight of us working at it and the fries disappeared in short order.
I was still a bit hungry after, so I went to a stand on the edge of Times Square where I had seen advertised 'Frozen Chocolate-Covered Cheesecake on a Stick' for $3. It sounded delicious, and it was. It was so very, very delicious. After that the group kind of broke up, and I headed with Marty & Steve to the Swiss Chalet to work on our Crawl tickets some more. We each had a drink (Mmmm more Three Olives Loopy) and then Marty gave us a couple tickets that just had one bar left on them that we could finish later and get our shirts.
I was headed back from the bar by myself to feed and care for Liam when I happened across a tiny black & white kitten just sitting in the middle of the yard, meowing and looking fragile and helpless. I reached down to pet him and he was real friendly and cuddly...he hopped up into my lap and promptly lay down. He looked so young, not more than a few weeks old, and he looked in a scraggly way - his ears were crusty around the edges, I could feel his ribs, and he gave a little cough every so often.
I felt a strong pull to take care of this kitten. I had seen other stray cats hanging around all week, but they all seemed able to take care of themselves, and this one seemed that it wasn't going to make it on its own. So I called Steve over to take care of the kitten so I could take care of Liam. Steve and his cousins Kerri & Kelli loved up the kitten, and gave him some tuna fish from a pouch, since that's all we had available. We set out a towel, some water and some more of the tuna in front of our cottage to entice it to stick around while we decided whether to keep him or not.
He was just so friendly and loving, and was very tolerant of young children (we found that out thanks to Aurora). I knew I would feel horrible about myself knowing the kitten probably wouldn't make it and ignoring his plight. Steve liked the kitten too, and supported my thought to take care of him and make him one of the family. Since the kitten was male, that made the decision a little easier since two males are better in a household than two females.
But Beth knew of a house where batches of kittens were dropped off with some regularity, and after awhile she took the kitten over there to see if they knew about him first. Turns out the family knew the kitten and had been wondering where it had gotten off to. He was one of a batch that had been dropped a couple days previously and they were planning on keeping this one due to his disposition. So, alas, no new cat for us.
Dinner was a victory for Marty..this is a neat story. At the Sandy Chanty, there is a "Claw" machine, but instead of stuffed animals and toys, the claw reaches down and picks out live lobsters at $2 a try. Marty was just planning on having some of their New England style clam chowder, but on a lark he tried the lobster machine for the first time. Against the odds, the claw reached down towards the lobster he aimed at, picked it up, and dropped it off in the chute. The proprietor cooked it up right then, and Marty enjoyed a $2 lobster & pasta dinner. I was just so geeked for him, because he's always so generous by buying us meals often, and it was nice for this to happen to him in return.
This evening, Steve and I were able to leave a sleeping Liam under the watch of Jessica and James while we went out to spend some time on the strip. We stopped by The Pickled Pepper for a drink and to enjoy some mozzarella sticks, then we headed down to High Tide to finish the crawl and get our shirts. I asked if they had any Key Lime Pie flavored Pinnacle vodka, and the bartender said she didn't, but she knew how to make a drink that tastes just like Key Lime Pie.
I gave it a shot, and boy was it GOOD! It was tart and sweet, and very alcoholic. I was so impressed I asked for the recipe and she gave it to me willingly. Turns out she was a generous bartender, and even though the drink involved four shots of alcohol, she charged us only $5 because she said she feels bad when she charges more for a drink like that. We have since bought the ingredients and make our own key lime pie drinks at home.
On our way back with our new shirts in hand, we noticed that Whip's magic shop that is "Open when we're here, closed when we're not" was open. Steve has fond memories of when he was a boy, going in that shop and watching the magician on duty perform tricks for hours. We reminisced with the magician's brother for some time (the magician had since passed away) and Steve ended up getting a new deck of "stripper" cards (not the naked lady kind) at a reduced price since he was an old customer. People like it when their family members are remembered fondly.
Today we spent some time on the strip with family. Great Aunt Sil & Great Aunt Lydia, with their husbands, had made it up for the day and wanted to see their great-nephew and great-niece. So we headed on over to the Firehouse winery first, where Beth had already started to down a couple glasses of wine. There, we waited while the whole family gathered, and took an extended-family picture in front of the ferris wheel behind the winery. The ferris wheel is the last ride left of what used to be a small amusement park by the lake.
We then left Liam with his great-aunts and GramB and headed over to Times Square to get some food. Times Square is famous for their enormously large piles of fresh-cut fries, prepared to order, and enough to feed several. The portion size has dwindled since I first had an order a few years ago, but it is still a more than generous helping that two people would be hard pressed to finish. However, there were about eight of us working at it and the fries disappeared in short order.
I was still a bit hungry after, so I went to a stand on the edge of Times Square where I had seen advertised 'Frozen Chocolate-Covered Cheesecake on a Stick' for $3. It sounded delicious, and it was. It was so very, very delicious. After that the group kind of broke up, and I headed with Marty & Steve to the Swiss Chalet to work on our Crawl tickets some more. We each had a drink (Mmmm more Three Olives Loopy) and then Marty gave us a couple tickets that just had one bar left on them that we could finish later and get our shirts.
I was headed back from the bar by myself to feed and care for Liam when I happened across a tiny black & white kitten just sitting in the middle of the yard, meowing and looking fragile and helpless. I reached down to pet him and he was real friendly and cuddly...he hopped up into my lap and promptly lay down. He looked so young, not more than a few weeks old, and he looked in a scraggly way - his ears were crusty around the edges, I could feel his ribs, and he gave a little cough every so often.
I felt a strong pull to take care of this kitten. I had seen other stray cats hanging around all week, but they all seemed able to take care of themselves, and this one seemed that it wasn't going to make it on its own. So I called Steve over to take care of the kitten so I could take care of Liam. Steve and his cousins Kerri & Kelli loved up the kitten, and gave him some tuna fish from a pouch, since that's all we had available. We set out a towel, some water and some more of the tuna in front of our cottage to entice it to stick around while we decided whether to keep him or not.
He was just so friendly and loving, and was very tolerant of young children (we found that out thanks to Aurora). I knew I would feel horrible about myself knowing the kitten probably wouldn't make it and ignoring his plight. Steve liked the kitten too, and supported my thought to take care of him and make him one of the family. Since the kitten was male, that made the decision a little easier since two males are better in a household than two females.
But Beth knew of a house where batches of kittens were dropped off with some regularity, and after awhile she took the kitten over there to see if they knew about him first. Turns out the family knew the kitten and had been wondering where it had gotten off to. He was one of a batch that had been dropped a couple days previously and they were planning on keeping this one due to his disposition. So, alas, no new cat for us.
Dinner was a victory for Marty..this is a neat story. At the Sandy Chanty, there is a "Claw" machine, but instead of stuffed animals and toys, the claw reaches down and picks out live lobsters at $2 a try. Marty was just planning on having some of their New England style clam chowder, but on a lark he tried the lobster machine for the first time. Against the odds, the claw reached down towards the lobster he aimed at, picked it up, and dropped it off in the chute. The proprietor cooked it up right then, and Marty enjoyed a $2 lobster & pasta dinner. I was just so geeked for him, because he's always so generous by buying us meals often, and it was nice for this to happen to him in return.
This evening, Steve and I were able to leave a sleeping Liam under the watch of Jessica and James while we went out to spend some time on the strip. We stopped by The Pickled Pepper for a drink and to enjoy some mozzarella sticks, then we headed down to High Tide to finish the crawl and get our shirts. I asked if they had any Key Lime Pie flavored Pinnacle vodka, and the bartender said she didn't, but she knew how to make a drink that tastes just like Key Lime Pie.
I gave it a shot, and boy was it GOOD! It was tart and sweet, and very alcoholic. I was so impressed I asked for the recipe and she gave it to me willingly. Turns out she was a generous bartender, and even though the drink involved four shots of alcohol, she charged us only $5 because she said she feels bad when she charges more for a drink like that. We have since bought the ingredients and make our own key lime pie drinks at home.
On our way back with our new shirts in hand, we noticed that Whip's magic shop that is "Open when we're here, closed when we're not" was open. Steve has fond memories of when he was a boy, going in that shop and watching the magician on duty perform tricks for hours. We reminisced with the magician's brother for some time (the magician had since passed away) and Steve ended up getting a new deck of "stripper" cards (not the naked lady kind) at a reduced price since he was an old customer. People like it when their family members are remembered fondly.