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Hi,

A milestone, I made garden quiche for b’fast this morning and was able to peal an apple for the parfaits.  I also was able to do all the dishes and prep things, more or less one handed.  The unfortunate part is I’m getting a little water where my cast crosses my palm and I’m getting a little bit of an odor.  I’ve been very good with showers and stuff, so the whole cast isn’t smelling.  I’ve known some people that got their cast wet and you really didn’t want to be in the room with them.  Ten more days!

I’ve never done cursive with my left hand, I’ve always printed (or something I call printing, others frequently call it illegible).  Printing with my right had has been a challenge, initially just forming each individual letters took time and concentration.  Now I have somewhat of a flow.

I went over to Calvary Methodist Church last night for their Soup Night.  It’s a fund raiser for the church and the food bank they hold the first Thursday of the month.  It’s run by my good friend Lisa from The Fabled Table.  She keeps telling me that she wants to start a blog, but Mike won’t let her.  Anyway, I ran into friends of mine there, Carl & Tim from Galveston Road and Greg from the Mexican War Streets.  I sat down with them and Carl said Tim reads my blog every day (that I post) during his lunch and complains when I haven’t posted in a while.  🙂  If you ever get a chance to attend Soup Night, you definitely should.  Lisa always does a nice job with the food (nothing fancy, very inexpensive), but you also can go up and see the sacristy.  Calvary has three huge Tiffany stained glass windows and the interior was actually designed my Tiffany.  Which shows the money that was here then, that they could convince the premier jeweler of the time to design the interior of their church.  They’ve recently spend $5mil renovating the church.  The seat cushions are the original from the 1800’s.

Wednesday, the Warhol had a preview of their new show on Marilyn Monroe “Some like it hot, some like it cold”.  Quite the collection the Warhol owns on Marilyn and some very nice loaners from other collectors.  We came in and there was an introduction by the Carnegie’s Developer of Corporate Relations (I hope I got her title correct), Judy and her wonderful staff.  We then broke into three different groups that were lead by museum staff that explained the exhibit.  I was lucky enough to be in the group with the museum’s curator, Eric.  Very knowledgeable and interesting person.  He gave us quite the insight.  I knew Andy Warhol was somewhat obsessed with Marilyn, but he pointed out something some art experts propose.  Andy had been a struggling artist for years, tried a new pop art style and a contemporary had just done the exact same thing and Andy’s idea was immediately shot down.  That’s when he came up with the Heinz catchup bottle and Campbell’s soup can. These catapulted him to fame and he really pushed the envelope with his work.  He sort of figured that he was as successful as he was going to with art.  Marilyn’s popularity was exploding and he became obsessed with fame, hence his obsession with her.  They never did meet.  Interesting perspective.

We then went up to the newly reopened Penn Brewery.  They are again making their own beer on site and they carry a nice selection.  The staff are nice and the building is interesting.  They do need to work in their food though.  I’ve never been a big fan of their potato pancakes.  They haven’t improved and they were in a chafing dish and were actually cold.  This was a private party for a bunch of corporate sponsors for the Carnegie.  I’ve done tons of banquets (I was the Banquet Manager at the Crowne Plaza in Nashville and we did over $4 million a year in banquet revenue alone).  You want to treat all banquets as special, but when you have a bunch of corporate decision makers (and blogger s 🙂 ) you really should be on your toes.

On my constant rant about corporate greed, I was happy to see Citibank shareholders up in arms about executive compensation.  I don’t remember if it was Citi or another big bank, whose CEO received $24M in compensation.  That’s just wrong.  and on a really weird one, Chesapeake Energy stocks dropped 5% after Reuters reported that it’s CEO borrowed as much as $1.1B against his take in thousands of company wells.  $1.1BILLION, what, he needed a new car?  🙂

That’s about it for now,

ed

Hi,

Had a small wedding this past weekend.  It was catered by M Catering of Monroeville.  They did a real nice job, the couple from England wanted a Southern menu and it was a nice change.  Service and food was great and the guests had a great time.  The bride opted for a retro style in dress and music and even brought in a swing kind of band.   It was brilliant.

The dinner portion was over and I was in the hot kitchen making baked oatmeal for the morning’s b’fast when Rich, the owner of M Catering walked in.  He noticed my slicing knife and asked me if I went to P.I.C.A. (Pennsylvania Institute of Culinary Arts) and I said yes.  He called Christian, his sous chef, in and we started talking, all three of us attended P.I.C.A. in the 90’s.  We started talking about the school, culinary and other things.  (One great idea was they serve a strata like I serve my baked oatmeal-I will be trying that out soon).  It made me realize what I miss about the corporate world.  One of the things I loved about working in the casinos in Atlantic City was the interchange of ideas among my peers.  In particular during those times, the casinos had deep pockets and gave us quite a bit of freedom in creating products to out shine our competition.  My peers and myself also shared an alternative life style of being busy when everyone else was off (and vice versa).  Most of my current circle of friends and associates are not “foodies” and work 9 – 5 Monday through Friday kind of jobs.  It’s an adjustment.

It’s started again.  Several months ago, my phone would ring and odd numbers would appear on my caller ID.  When I answered the call, no one ever spoke and the connected was severed.  This would happen twice a day, one at the same time in the morning and the other at the same time in the afternoon.  As long as I answered the phone, these calls kept coming in.  I quit answering these calls and they eventually quit.  This morning I got a second call (one yesterday at the same time) and is the last I will answer.  I wonder what this is all about, it’s too structured to just be a random occurrence, and with it stopping after I quit answering shows it’s monitored.

Phipps Conservatory is starting the third, and final, phase of their expansion this week.  First they did the lobby, then the Tropical Forest.  This latest expansion is going to be an environmental and educational center will take about a year to finish and the price tag on this is about $8M.  The purpose of the building will be for research and educational classes.  They naturally are shooting for a platinum certification from LEED.

I’ve been using the same mixture of unscented mineral oil and lavender for months now.  Months ago when I first experimented with this method of creating pleasant scents, I tried both this combination and vodka, distilled water and lavender.  The alcohol based mixture only lasted a couple of weeks.  The bottles of mineral oil mixture are still nearly full.  You just need to remember to keep turning the wicks every few days.  And they do give off a nice subtle scent.

I’ve been bringing  my outside plants in and finished yesterday.  Today, I’m cutting the elephant ears down and tomorrow Derronda’s going to help me dig them up.  It’s been going down into the low 30’s, upper 20’s on a regular basis and the cast doesn’t come off for a week, maybe two.  I’ve been getting more used to the cast and growing mobility with it.  I did a full hot American b’fast this past weekend and it worked OK.  Derronda’s a great help with prepping for b’fast and her and Alyce have been washing my pots and pans and even the dishes on slower days (busy days, I’m the one armed dishwasher operator).  🙂

Speaking of mulch, which I wasn’t, :), I’ve been raking the leaves onto that brick patio thing in the grassy area of the Courtyard.  I then take my lawn mower and shred them.  It greatly reduces their volume and will aid in their decomposition.  Also, since it’s so dense, the wind doesn’t blow the leaves around like piles of leaves do.  I like it.

OK, pull out the soap box, the election is in tomorrow.  First of all, I think both democratic and republican parties are useless.  I lean towards a democratic bend, so if you have a problem with this, this is the last paragraph and you can stop here.  I have never voted a straight democratic ticket.  The gap between the rich and poor has significantly widened in the last eight years, and the republicans are kicking and screaming about Obama wanting to increase taxes.  He doesn’t want to increase taxes, he just wants to stop giving discounts to the rich.  On a state level, the republicans are saying Onorato wants to raise energy taxes.  He wants to tax a new industry that’s not being taxed.  The thing about elections that has bothered me for years is they campaign ripping their opponent apart instead of building a platform we can base an intelligent  decision on.  Now that the supreme court has opened the flood gates to blind funding of campaigns, this year is the worst I’ve seen.  The democrats are guilty of this as well, but the republicans or republican supporters are so out of control with the lies and twisting the facts that as much as I hate the thought, I’ve been thinking of voting a straight democratic ticket.  I would rather vote all the bums out, but if I vote that way and give the republicans both house and senate, we could end up in even worse shape. In two years, I haven’t seen the republicans offer any alternative to what Obama’s been pushing.  They just keep saying no, and they’re not even civil about it anymore.  I abhor the wall street and bank bailouts, but something had to be done.  I do believe the country was on the verge of financial collapse.  Was it the right thing?  I don’t know, did the republicans offer an alternative?  No.  I just heard a quote (which I’ve heard in the past) from republican chairman that their agenda is to take over the house and senate.  Why not have an agenda of pulling the country out of the mess we are in with a solution that’s a compromise?

OK, I’ll stop, thanx for bearing with me,

ed

Hi,

Just a quick note on yesterday.  The good news from the orthopedic surgeon is he’s happy with the progress of the break.  The bad news is he wants the cast on for three more weeks.  I have a small wedding this weekend and the Scott Church Photo Workshop next and will have to provide full hot American breakfasts for both of those events.  That’s going to be quite the challenge.  Also, I have to  winterize my gardens before a hard frost and can’t do that with a cast.  I’ve been watching the 15 day forecast closely, and so far, so good.

Apparently that storm yesterday sent an electrical surge that set my fire alarm off.  As I’m running around making sure there wasn’t actually a fire some where, with the alarm screaming in my ear, talking to the alarm center, the installer of the system and hearing a fire truck approaching, one of my guests was fallowing me around asking for directions, for a flash light and water pitcher.  🙂

That’s all for now,

ed

Hi,

I’ve written about these people a couple of times in the past, Urban Tree Forge.  This is the group out in the Lincoln-Lemington area of the city whose founder, John Metzler, was tragically killed by a run away rental truck last spring.  This is a group that gets trees cut down in the city and recycles them in the most innovative ways.  They make works of art, furniture, flooring, anything they can think of to keep these past city residents from going in a land fill. There was an article on them a few days ago in the Trib, John Eastman, who is leading this artist-run manufacturing organization, says they decided to continue in John Metzler’s memory.  They’re having a show this coming Friday at Guardian Storage Solutions at 2839 Liberty Avenue.  It’s a fund raiser for Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest, the organization that is trying to plant 20,000 trees in Pittsburgh.  They plan on having the Mon City Ramblers and cellist Gordon Kirkwood.  They’re going to have food, drinks and an artist’s market.  One of the things that will be there is bunk beds made from salvaged city trees.  How cool would that be to put your child to bed in a bed of the forest.  They had a few pictures of some of their pieces and they are exceptional.  Admission to this fund raiser is about $30.  If I didn’t have a wedding and am sold out this weekend, I’d definitely be there (I may be able to squeeze out, Derronda’s working.)

There’s a REALLY cool store in Pittsburgh, but you can’t go to it.  Spector Studios is over in Sharpsburg and they hand craft costumes.  They don’t have an outlet store, they only sell on line or through several  retail outlets.  Their products aren’t cheap, but they’re all hand made here and of exceptional quality.  Their resident artists are involved from conception, through all phases of production.  One of the reasons they are here is they recruit Carnegie Mellon University art graduates.  They were voted one of the best places to work in Western Pennsylvania (next to The Parador, of course).  🙂

They’re filming another movie here, In a New York Heartbeat is filming out in the Shadeyside/Squirrel Hill areas starring Eric Roberts.  I think they’re only filming parts here, the majority elsewhere.

Phipps Conservatory, my favorite space in the city, got a corpse plant.  A very interesting plant from Sumatra.  The entire visible ten foot stalk is actually a leaf with leaflets on top.  A huge purple and lime green flower will come and it emits a foul odor, hence it’s common name.  For some reason, it’s only on display Thursday through Monday in the main lobby.

Well, in about an hour I head to the orthopedic surgeon to find out the fate of my left hand, with me luck.  🙂

ed

Hi,

The hand’s doing fairly well.  It’s just pretty frustrating, I must wash my hands 20 times during b’fast and only being able to wash one and part of the other kills me, I can type with all fingers of my right hand and just one finger on the other (and this causes me to look at the key pad and this really slows me down), yesterday a screw came out of Ruellia’s bedroom bi-fold doors and it took me over a half hour to fix it (this happens regularly and it normally takes me five minutes to fix it).  The good news is today writing out my reg forms for in coming guests are actually legible, it just takes me twice as long to do them.  I’m pretty set at this point that I will continue using my right hand, even when the left is healed so I can be truly ambidextrous.

Service is very important to me.  I think it shows in how I run my Inn.  I’ve been in hospitality all my life, and really appreciate it when I come across that in my vendors.  I bought all nine fireplaces in the Inn from a crazy lady that opened her shop when she wanted, closed it when she wanted, went to lunch when she wanted.  She was very nice, but was winding down her business and really didn’t care anymore.  Two of the remotes for my fireplaces broke and one of the receivers.  I can’t go to my crazy lady anymore, so I found another distributor for my Monessen fireplaces.  Comfort Living Fireplaces right down Ohio River Blvd are great people to deal with.

Speaking of customer service, Steve Bondarenka was here yesterday.  He’s a Registered Master Plumber that’s done work for me in the past, he’s my fourth Master Plumber I’ve had. His first time here was to unclog a clog underground from a drain spout.  He his work was fine, but then called me the next heavy rain we had to be sure his work worked.  Pretty amazing.  I had one Master Plumber that got a ton of work from me when I first bought the place and was always asking for money.  If you know me, I don’t have a problem paying my bills.  He was continually asking for the balance before he was done.  I had one Master Plumber that did shoddy work.  And the other one had done some work for me and I referred him to my sister for some work.  When I had hm go out to Betty’s to clear a drain, he bragged he was charging me what Roto Rooter charges.  I have drains snaked many times here and in Florida and Roto Rooter has always been the most expensive and the quality of work depends on who they send.  Steve doesn’t seem to have a web site, so I reluctantly will pass his phone number out 412.670.5931, just tell him I sent you if you call him.

Do you know something that I find funny?  When some people call for a reservation, I ask them for a lot of information, their name, the first name of their traveling companion, snail mail address, dates of visit and guest room.  We go through all that and then when I ask for a credit card number, I tell them I accept Visa, MasterCard and AMEX.  At that point, they ask me if I’m ready.  I’ve just written a bunch of stuff down, why would I not be ready? 🙂  Just one of the little quirks I find amusing.  I guess what they say about it not taking much to amuse small minds is true.  🙂

I may get addicted to just serving continental breakfast.  It is sooo much easier.  I’ve had time to read the newspaper and instead of nibbling unhealthy, I’ve been having oatmeal.  Evening prep is a cinch and I’m cleaned up in no time.  But, I actually do enjoy cooking and varying my b’fasts.  I can’t wait until my hand is better.

Talk to ya soon,

ed

Hi,

A follow up on Gee’s Bend Quilters.  I was talking to Dave, a regular from North Carolina this morning at breakfast.  He was really moved by these wonderful women and talked to them at length yesterday.  They own part of a plantation in Alabama, where their ancestors were slaves.  The men that owned them (Joseph Gee and his partner Mark Pettway) were benevolent slave masters (oxymoron).  He treated them well, by the standards back then.  When they were freed, they worked as tenant farmers and eventually bought part of the plantation and set up their own community.

These lady’s are very religious.  They had an 8:30 flight Sunday, so I made b’fast for them at 7.  After b’fast, they sang a hymn of praise and thanx (to me also).  It was so sweet.  Unfortunately, I had newly weds in the guest room directly over us.  I couldn’t ask them to stop, and I was acutely aware of who was in the room over us.  When he came down, he made a comment about their night was fine until they heard the singing and thought they were in church.  When I explained what the singing was about, he was cool.

Well, that’s it for tonight.  good night,

ed

Hi,

Good news, I saw Dr Christopher Schmidt Thursday from Allegheny Orthopedic Associates.  He’s the doctor that did such a nice job replacing Betty’s shoulder last year and he doesn’t think I’m going to need surgery.  He thinks I’ll heal on my own in four weeks.  He wants to see me in two weeks and as long as the bone hasn’t shifted, I’ll be fine.  Also, they re-wrapped the hand and I have much better control of my hand.  I’m up to typing with several fingers.  And I think my right handed printing has improved another grade level, I  may be up to fifth grade.  🙂

The Young Men and Women’s African Heritage Association is a non profit group over here on the Northside does a really important job with disenfranchised youth.  One of their programs is teaching quilting.  They brought  Gee’s Bend Quilters in for a show over at the New Hazlett Theater this past week.  What a nice group of older ladies.  And quite the quilters also.

I’m going to weigh in on the city’s option of leasing the parking authority to a for profit group to get money to get our pension fund up to where it should be, I’m for leasing  it.  I have called 311, the mayor’s help line, the president of city council and my city council man with suggestions for revenue enhancement.  All three went to voice mail, none have responded.  There’s a $1.5 million reconstruction going on my street with new side walks, period light fixtures and moving the utilities to the alley way. They finished my side of the street last year and then ran into problems with moving the utilities.  For a year there’s been parking meters on my side and none on the other side of the street.  They can’t install the high hat lights until the utilities are moved, so there’s maybe a dozen at most meters they can’t install (the ones attached to the high hats).  The other two to three dozen could have been generating revenue for a year now. The meters are already paid for and sitting in some warehouse!   Since this pension crisis evolved and they’ve been talking about leasing our parking assets, I’ve noticed missing parking meters all over the city with cars parked there.  That’s like me sitting with empty rooms and not selling them.  I go into one of my guest rooms to do projects only when I have several others available.  I’m not going to risk being able to sell a room because the only room available is under construction.

My other recommendation to my “city fathers” was to blitz the Northside on game days with parking enforcement like they’ve been doing over on the Southside on weekends because of all the drunks.  I’m not against the Steelers or their fans (including me).  It’s just if you break the law, there should be a penalty.  If the city is in need of funds, this would be a gold mine.  The city could easily recoup the cost of police and parking authority salaries and then tons of cash through ticketing and towing.  While we’re on this subject, my idiot neighborhood association pays off-duty officers to patrol the neighborhood (thousands of dollars a game) to do a basically ineffective job.  The worst part is this is a function the city is responsible for anyway.

While I’m complaining about my neighborhood association, they’re talking about supporting the Central Northside Association in their efforts to slow down traffic on North Avenue.  People speed to make the next green light.  They want to remove traffic signals and replace them with stop signs.  Instead of being hateful, and incurring the expense of removing lights, buying stop signs, etc, why not time the lights so if you travel at 25 miles an hour you hit them all green?

Well, it’s half time and I’m going to focus on the rest of the game.  Not to mention my left hand is getting tired.  I can type with all my fingers on my right hand, but have to do one finger on my left as well as hold it at an odd angle.  I even have a kink in my neck from this.

See ya,

ed

Hi,

We’ll call this blog useless.  That’s what I am right now.  I took da boiz down the park for a swim and as we approached the pedestrian bridge (ie narrow), there was a lady standing on the bridge with her dog on a leash.  My boys were on their leashes, but they are long leashes.  So I wrapped the leashes around my left hand so they were forced to be close to me.  As we passed the lady and her dog, both my dogs jumped toward her dog.  I heard a bone snap in my hand.  Since we were at the lake already, I let Razor do his swim thing (I couldn’t go to the ER, I had guests checking in that afternoon).  After my last guest checked in, I went to one of those urgent care clinics and yeps. the bone is broken between the knuckle and wrist.  I have an appointment Thursday with an orthopedic surgeon.  Wish me luck.

So while I was waiting for my last guest to arrive, I made the apple stuffed French toast, panned the bacon, made orange cranberry bread and collected my mis en place for the morning.  The next morning I got up and made breakfast for my 13 guests. It worked pretty well, as far as my guests could tell.  Kind of funny at times in the kitchen.  But then the clean up came, you should have had closed video of it.  I can’t use my left hand at all, so I can’t scrape the plates, I can’t put my left hand in water, I can only carry with my right hand…. it was pretty funny.  So until I have my left hand back, I am only offering continental.

I’m typing this with one finger on my right hand.  Derronda volunteered to come in today to help me.  What a god sent,I love Derronda.  She did the welcome letters and registration forms for the next week, she did the confirmation letters, she even wrote my checks.  Then she washed the pans I couldn’t wash, pulled the mis en place for for the next day, she even cleaned the kitchen floor.  Did I say I love her?

Betty came over today and she’s been doing all my dishes, she even weeded a bit.  She’s agreed to stay until Thursday, then I’m on my own again and sold out.  This should be an interesting weekend.

What a handicap this is.  This is going to sound bad, I don’t mean it that way.  A person without a hand is used to it and their life is adjusted to it.  My life is not, and I need to do a lot of things with two hands.  I can’t even fold towels in thirds to hang in the bath rooms, I can’t cut the chicken up in little pieces that I sprinkle on da boiz dog food, did you realize you need to hands to floss?  I bought a pack of those environmentally insensitive floss on a stick.

A while back, I was whining about finding a product I liked and then not being able to find it again.  One of those things was a low flow shower head.  They make all these fancy shower heads with all these bells and whistles, I want just a basic shower head that conserves water and improves water pressure.  I found them!  It’s not the same  model I used in Florida, but they are exactly what I want.  As soon as I can, I’ll be going back out to Rollier’s in Mt Lebanon and buy the other four they had (don’t sneak out there and snag them on me).  🙂  They’ll order more once I clear them out.  I love Rollier’s, that’s where the palm tree in my dining room came from.  They’re an upscale hardware store that’s very well run and all kinds of things.  I’ve talked about them in the past.

I’m going to sign off now, since one finger typing is one of the few things I can do, you may be seeing more of me here 🙂

ed

Hi,

The Pittsburgh Festival of Lights starts this Friday at dusk in the Cultural District.  Ross Ashton will be back with four displays, one Old Bones a tribute to the Carnegie Natural History is basically a T Rex light, Splendors is a take off of the exhibit at the Heinz History Museum with relics from the Vatican called “Vatican Splendors: A Journey Through Faith and Art”.  Also, Cascade and Hope are done by Ashton.  There’s going to be a number of local light displays throughout the Cultural District, they are even changing some regular lighting in the District and some local light artists will be having some displays.  Ashton was here last year and had some pretty stunning light sculptures.

Speaking of lights, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership (kind of like a Chamber of Commerce) started our Light up Night a number of years ago.  They had the name copyrighted and have been charging other cities (cities right outside the official city limits) a hundred dollar fee to use the name.  They came under quite a bit of local criticism for this.  It was just in the paper that they are donating proceeds to Project Bundle Up with a matching contribution.  How do you say Egg on your Face?

The County has been trying to find a new life for the old County Fair Grounds in South Park.  The County has a number of very cool parks with wave pools, bison habitat, and lots of spaces for family reunions, graduation, anniversary, birthday and any other events parties.  When I was young, they held county fairs there each summer and I have a lot of fond memories of them.  They were very agricultural and even though I lived in the country, I wasn’t overly familiar with cows and things.  The county is looking for feedback as to what can be done with the old fair grounds.  If you have any suggestions, they can be made at www.alleghenycounty.us/parks/SPFairgrounds.

What a day.  It was supposed to be slow, not guests tonight, so I arranged to take Betty exploring on the T (the T is the light rail that travels the south hills into Pittsburgh).  Betty just move into senior house in Beechview, right on the T line and she’s been nervous about using it.  It’s  a great system that will take her within a block of Mt Lebanon’s business district, right past a large grocery store and assorted other little plaza kind of stores.  So we ended up taking it all the way to the end in Library, PA and back.  I also plugged all Betty’s kid’s phone numbers in her new cell phone and we practiced using it.  All of this took about four hours.  OMG, my phone never stopped ringing.  I swear I picked up twenty room nights today and just finished showing the Inn to a potential bride for next year and am showing it shortly for a potential Bar Mitzvah this year.  All this and I didn’t have my rez book with me.

I’m not sure what this says about me, but my apartment is inundated with stink bugs.  I’ve been reading about them in the paper for awhile now.  Yesterday I had to kill 20 (and I’ve put screens in the open windows).  And they are all at my apartment.  I’ve see maybe two in the Mansion.  My apartment is at the one end and very back of the property, so I’m assuming they are migrating over from my neighbor’s either next to me or behind me.  (I hope it’s not personal)  🙂  As long as I don’t start having issues with them in the Inn, I’ll be OK with battling them in my space.

I had a wedding this past weekend.  It was a great event and everyone had a wonderful time.  After it was finished, I got my breakfast prep work finished and the kitchen put back together and it was a little after midnight.  I said good night the the group of wedding guests still hanging out on the Veranda and took da boiz up to bed.  I was in bed shortly after that and I thought that was the end of the story.  Since the weather has changed, I haven’t been diligent in latching the door going into my apartment.  The next morning, the guests that were on the Veranda until 3 a.m. told me RJ came down, opened the Ballroom door (that’s how we go upstairs) and partied with them.  After awhile, they figured he should go back up stairs, so they opened to Ballroom door and shooed him in  and latched the exterior Ballroom door.  He was gone for awhile and the next thing they knew, was he has the lace curtains pulled back on the Ballroom window that looks out on the Veranda and his paws are on the window sill.  So they let the party animal (pun intended) stay up with them until they went to bed.  Too funny.

Well, my last tour of the day just showed up, have a good night,

ed