Author Archives: markorton

December 2011

Tuesday – 12/6/2011

Met with prospects who turned out to have two businesses. I will probably work with the husband on a drop off food business focused on weekenders.

Then to Chamber of Commerce for meeting of the Hudson Business Coalition. Dave Colby, Alan Coon, Chad Weckler, and Laurie Selden all in attendance. Talked about rejuvenating the Signage work.

Finished up work on Taste of the Caribbean business plan.

Talked with Danny Brundage about eCornell job opportunity.

Got sub from deli. Took nap. Very full.

Walked up to Taste of the Caribbean to deliver business plan to Ann Marie Furbert. Raining.

Ran into David Drake. Now I will have to go to Trivia Night.

Played trivia with Laurie. Still a very strange person. Complicated family life..

Got General Tsos chicken on the way home.

NO ENTRIES beyond this one.

Seen in Hudson

We are off visiting children and grandchildren in Hong Kong. This includes a beach stop at Gili Trawangan Island off Bali (actually Lomboc Island). How far to come to be reminded of Hudson. Here are bags of Holcim cement being delivered on the beach with steel and other construction materials.

Enroute to Hong Kong

During the first couple hours of this 16 hour flight I watched The French Connection. This is probably the fourth or fifth time I have watched this movie, though not perhaps more recently than five years ago. The movie really stands up.

One small revelation is that my recent lust for a fedora (thanks to that all around maven of the hip, David Drake) has been replaced by the need to get a hat like Popeye’s (not the spinach eater).

Karen informed me that this is actually Hackman’s hat, not the invention of the wardrobe dept.

Dinner, pot roast, I always get potted food on airlines, much less likely to be anything more than potted, was incongruously accompanied by a fortune cookie. The message is propitious,especially in light of my conversation in Berkeley Heights in the morning before departing for the airport.

Mr. Wonderful aka Santa Claus at Hudson’s Winter Walk

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Several weeks ago Mr. Wonderful, in a moment of irrational exuberance at a BeLo3rd meeting about Winter Walk, volunteered to be Santa Claus. The Tanzey girls immediately volunteered a Santa suit, assuring me that “my husband is bigger than you” in answer to the question, “Is the suit big enough”.

wig from Matthew Tudor-Jackson

The Santa outfit was inexplicably lacking a beard. A quick call on the local Web for help brought this offer from Matthew Tudor-Jackson up the street (left).

My first reaction was that this was something from a run amuck costume show for Louis XIV. On further consult with the fashionistas of BeLo3rd it was determined to be BeLo3rd!

So, I was ready for my outing as Santa for Winter Walk, December 3rd.

I dropped the big wig and just went with the ZZ Top length mustache beard combo.

You can see more pictures of this at the Davis Orton Gallery news page.

I was very busy with lots of little kids and not a few babies for three hours. I was amazed that the Santa myth continues merrily along despite the enormous seemingly every larger maw of commerce.

I discovered that kids in the 3 to 4 yr range know who Santa is but don’t know yet that they are supposed to tell Santa what they want for Christmas. I stopped asking and quickly moved the conversation to the imminent arrival of a candy cane. I guess that 3 and 4 yr olds are a blind spot in my life’s experiences.

7 to 10 yr olds wanted lots of electronic games and Ipod Touches (very specific about those). 11 to 12 yr olds wanted a phone. I foolishly asked the first few if they wanted a cellphone? They looked at me quizzically until I realized that they did not know that phones used to have wires coming out of them. What most surprised me is the persistence of some old toys. A significant number of 4 to 6 yr old girls asked for Barbie dolls and accessories. Only one girl requested an American Girl doll. Their male counterparts asked for trains. Bicycles and scooters are also still popular.

One girl, age 12, (I asked each for their name and age) told me that she wanted a Merry Christmas for her family. I asked how many were in her family, “Two, Five, how many?” She thought for a moment and said “Forty”. “Oh, a merry Christmas for the extended family?” “Of course.” she replied.

November 2011

Tuesday – 11/1/2011

Drove to Boston to meet with Anthony Mancini at Bernstein. Big outcome is the need to look into Medicaid planning.

Had dinner with Ruth and Paul Richards in Needham. Food not very good. Conversation ok if predictable.

Stayed at Esther Hanig’s pad. Loud TV. Lots of ads we don’t usually see.

Wednesday – 11/2/2011

Took Karen to Griffin Museum for her class. Long drive down 93 to Mass Ave then down Washington Sts and Hyde Park Ave to Sprague St. and meeting with Mike Beach and Peter Flowers.

Mike’s mother had died the night before. Talked about mothers and death for a while. Then we looked at some of their recent work including photo laden process documentation for some transducers. Pete arrived late and I left early. Assume Mike really needed to get on with his personal stuff.

Visited Honan Alston Public Library. Took lots of pictures and talked with Librarian about this ten year old building. Very attractive, airy open floor plan. Some down sides but mostly a successful space.

Drove over to Cambridge for lunch with Linda Larson. Fixed little things on her computer until Karen showed up. Lunch at the Dolphin Restaraunt. Good foods. Linda talked as always. Plans with Karen for trip to NYC in January.

Went to New Balance store. Bought annual new sneakers and a pair of wind pants for outdoor running. Must try to run outdoors until much colder.

Stopped at Trader Joe’s to stock up on simmer sauces and other canned goods…waiting for Esther to arrive to go out to dinner. Karen is at Soup Group.

NO ENTRIES after these for month.

Thanksgiving and Other Goofiness in Berkeley Heights

The Warm Up

Karen and I made our annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage to Berkeley Heights and the Morgan-Ortons. This year we went via Roosevelt Island in NYC to drop of exhibition prints from our October show Street Photography / Surveillance with Bojune Kwon.

Ed went upscale on the wine for this meal

Wednesday evening dinner was cooked by Mr. Wonderful who brought back an old favorite for a re-run, meatloaf. This is the same meatloaf that was the subject of several earlier postings here. Of course all of this attention on a dish which has no recipe necessitated some head scratching. Once I got started in Meredith’s kitchen (I know that Ed makes rice and beans and other delicacies there, too, but this is Meredith’s kitchen) she hung around to kibitz. This lead to the discovery, not surprising given her penny pinching propensities, that she added oatmeal to her meatloaf too. The Wheatena I include was a novelty for her but I left out the carrots that hers included. Since my earlier jiggling of the memory banks I recalled that I also added either canned diced tomatoes or tomato juice to give some fluid for the cooking of the oatmeal and Wheetena. Spices include variably, basil, garlic, red pepper, black pepper, Worcestershire sauce, Pickapeppa, and catsup. Actually, the catsup is a required sealant for the surface of the meatloaf.

meatloaf and kasha varnishkes

Not to get carried away further with TMI (where is Nyla when I need her steadying editorial hand), I also made a dish that was a real novelty for the Morgan-Ortons, kasha varnishke. My original plan was to make a basic Russian kasha, but Karen demanded the Jewish variant familiar in the US. I followed a recipe (this happens occasionally) at yourjewishmother.wordpress.com.

Thanksgiving Day

Since Meredith has to put in an appearance at the annual football contest between her high school and the local rival New Providence HS, we arrived fashionably late half way through the second period and departed after the half time extravaganza marching band foolery. Always the opportunist, Meredith stopped to feed the fish in her classroom after filling up on the the adulation of the crowd. marching-band

Before we could get Ed to peel a few potatoes, the following goofiness broke out:

Andrea, Noah, and Nyla arrived. Then next door neighbors Roland and Andrea. The feast was ready to begin. Karen took this panoramic shot over dessert. (Click on the image to see it full size)

Novelty Item

We had not noticed this little bit of wit from Meredith earlier. This inspired by one of Ed’s bad habits. Strikes many that there must be many more of these hidden about and to come. Ed has a lot of bad habits.

This is just to the left of the front door.

cigar box closed cigar-box-open

Trivia Night at The Spotty Dog – The Turkeys Don’t Win

In a warm up for Thanksgiving we went off to Trivia Night at The Spotty Dog. Between Karen’s teaching and other intrusions we have not made it to very many Trivia Nights this Fall. We gathered up Judy Garvey and sallied forth. Once at the The Spotty we found lots of people milling around as usual. We teamed up with Enid Advocate for our fourth.

We named our team The Turkeys. This proved prescient. Despite much heckling on our part, Karen’s dispatch of a glass of wine to the floor, and much more laughter than justified by our performance, we squeaked out a place somewhat above last. But, as the saying goes, much fun was had all around.
Trivia Night at The Spotty Dog

Trivia Night at The Spotty Dog - Enid doing the work while we goofed.

Truck Pizza Delivers at Basilica – mystery melts away

Almost immediately after my previous posting, “Mystery Pizza Truck – still somewhat of a mystery“, my Facebook page lit up with comments from Gary Shiro at Hudson Opera House and Peter Pehrson at Acres Food Coop about the future whereabouts of my mystery. Gary informed that Truck Pizza will be at 347 Warren St during Winter Walk on December 3rd. Peter delivered the news that Truck Pizza would be operating that very evening at the Basilica.

So, off I went last night, arriving fashionably late at 8PM for a party that began at 5:30.

Sam Starr and crew were right there inside the truck in front of the roaring oven. Being late I didn’t get a chance to taste the featured pizzas, but Sam whipped up a couple. I took them home. Karen and I gobbled them up. We give them a big thumbs up. Karen particularly liked the slightly burned edges. The crust was very thin and crisp. Total cooking time about a minute. Just as Sam had told me early in the summer when we first talked about this venture.