Sunday, June 24, 2007

Travels With My Blog

This is the birthday flower I got from G, L, M & S in Newport! Isn't it CUTE?
Just so you know, I am currently reporting from Newport, having arrived here yesterday after a very pleasant stay in Baltimore with my cousin and family plus SNOWY, their totally darling little Maltese -- he looks like a curly white lamb except of course for his button-black nose and pink tongue! He barked himself hoarse when I arrived and then became extremely friendly (though he continued barking, because he wanted to play).

My cousin's elder child celebrated her 13th birthday with a day-spend at home with six other girls, a pizza-extravaganza for lunch with a chocolate-chip cake made by her Mum, followed by the Nancy Drew movie -- however, my cousin, his nine-year-old son and I peeled off to see a DIFFERENT film -- The Fantastic Four, starring Jessica Alba looking super-pouty at all times, even when she's smiling.

Friday evening we went out to the harbour, where the birthday girl had her first Frappucino -- my cuz and I had our millionth and millionth-and-a-halfth respectively -- while the other two had icecreams from Marble Slab. I blush to confess that one taste of the icecream convinced me that we could well afford to share another single scoop -- and she came back with a giant serving, that required the combined efforts of all three adults to finish! It was butter pecan with extra pecan (and something else too, but I've forgotten what).

In the morning on Saturday, I got a gift from the family -- THE ideal gift for me: a pocket-electronic Crossword Puzzle selection from the New York Times!! Naturally I opened it right away and we attempted to solve the first of the puzzles en route to the train station, but didn't get past the first few clues because I was too distracted by worries about time. My train was scheduled for 9.52 and we got to the station a shade past 9.30 -- and I still needed to pick up my ticket. BUT ... I needn't have worried. Through the marvels of technology, it was a breeze: I had already bought the ticket online the day before, so now all that was needed was for me to pop my card into the ticket-machine, confirm that the information contained in the reservation was correct and -- out came the ticket! It was totally cool.

The journey was a little over six hours long, passing through New York, New Haven et al, arriving in Kingston, Rhode Island on time, at 4.15. I was collected at 4.30 -- got home at quarter to five and then, not much later the five of us walked down to a Hibachi restaurant near the waterside, to have MORE DESSERT!

That was, of course, post-dinner, which was a yummy bar-B, outside in the front yard, with hamburgers and a highly recommendable shrimp item -- individual servings of fresh shrimp, loosely wrapped in foil, with garlic paste, pesto and butter (but you can add whatever you like to the packets) then left on the grill to cook -- along with pasta and salad. For dessert at the restaurant I had mixed berry cake, S and M had something called a "bombe" which was three flavours of sorbets brought together within a thin shell of white chocolate, L had a green tea sorbet and G had a chocolate mousse cake. I also got a gift package of very cute stuff -- optical-illusion card, optical-illusion notebook and optical-illusion novelty pen, with a box of very cute matches with ERASERS instead of striking heads and a tiny fold-out silver-foil lotus (well, actually, I think it's a Night Blooming Cereus) -- you have to see this to understand what I mean -- it starts out looking like a small flat item which unfolds to the size of maybe a five inches across, complete with a corolla of stamens inside!

After this feast we wandered slowly through the tourist-traps by the waterside -- the sky was still very light, at 8.30 in the evening and the air was just like pale iced tea with a touch of lemon in it -- delicious.

I'll be here for the rest of the week, so if I'm industrious, I'll blog the events of the day as we go along. If not ... I'll ... ummm ... probably be sleeping!

Happy Whatever! It's great to be 54.

OH! And the RAINBOW SWEETS telephone number: 802-426-3531 -- remember: some items can be ordered over the phone ...

3 comments:

zigzackly said...

tik tik tik prezzies tik tik tik tik tik tik treats tik tik cake tik tik tik click.

*whack upside o' head*

erm. happy birthday?

Unknown said...

O Wise, most intelligent of Griffins! Yes indeedy, it is that day of days -- or was, anyway -- on Saturday the 23rd, last week. I realized some time after posting that post that I had omitted to mention the reason for prezzies and kuchen ... but figured that the only visitors I have are SMART visitors. They'd work it out. Well done! Have yourself a virtual cookie, will you? And ... thnx!

30in2005 said...

Happy to you! Sounds like a good one was had by all, what with the gallons of ice cream.