Hi,
Tomorrow’s birth anniversaries include poet, playwright, Nobel Prize winner TS Eliot (1888), composer George Gershwin (1898), Shamu (1985) and Johnny Appleseed (1774). The first televised presidential debate between JF Kennedy and Richard Nixon (1960). The West Side Story premiered on Broadway (1957).
It’s been a busy summer, great guests and now that fall is almost with us, weekdays are slowing down and I should finally be able to get some time to devote to my long delayed blog.
I had my 10th anniversary party in July, which was a great success, with many friends, business associates, neighbors and past guests. My friend Ed Cyphers of Sounds Like Fun DJ service spun tunes in the Court Yard while pianist Kyle Uricchio had so much fun in the Parlor, he was supposed to play for two hours and ended up playing all four hours. He plays contemporary piano and vocal performance for live entertainment and ambiance. You can contact him through his email [email protected], or call him at 412-715-7433 to inquire about a booking. I would be seriously remiss if I didn’t mention my very dear friends Lisa & Mike from Fabled Table catering large and small events. To say their food was spectacular would be an understatement. My nephews Joseph and Michael provided valet service and cousin Jeannie’s daughter and friend were the bartenders. My friends from college that still live in State College came down a day early and were extremely helpful with fine tuning the finishing touches, I would have been lost without them. A funny story, my sister Susan wanted to make desserts. So she made tons of individual cheese cakes, I had hundreds left over and was talking to my friends Lenny & Paula across the street and they suggested giving them to Judge, a friend of theirs that lives in senior housing in East Liberty. So we packaged them up and Judge put them in the day room, by the time he came downstairs from helping one his mobility challenged friends, the cheese cakes were basically all gone. They made a lot of old people’s day. 🙂
This summer’s projects included finally hanging the refinished bottom shutters in the Parlor. I fixed the roof leak from the parking lot porch, did plaster repairs in both the main staircase and Ruellia’s staircase. I wire brushed, scraped and painted the iron fence across the front. Last fall’s window replacement is still paying off, last summer’s AC ran $1,700; this summer was warmer and my largest bill was under $1,000. The next project I need to accomplish soon is cleaning up and painting the two new radiators for African Tulip and Bird of Paradise before the weather changes and I have to turn the heat on. There were two huge radiators in both rooms. The one in African Tulip was actually leaning in to the room away from the wall. I thought the weight was causing problems with the floor joists. Actually it was compressing the quarter sawn oak flooring. If you read my blog this past spring, I complained that I had gone out to Construction Junction and told they guy out there that I needed two smaller hot water radiators (I knew there’s a difference between hot water radiators and steam radiators-some are interchangeable-most steam radiators only have an inlet, not an outlet. This I learned after cleaning them up and had John come out to install them. He pointed out that those radiators only had the one outlet and could only be used with a steam system. So all that work was in vain.) The Construction Junction guy told me those radiators would work either system. Wrong! I got two hot water radiators, now and need to get them cleaned up and painted before turning the heat on. Here’s my next project:
I also cleaned up the deck in the beach and re stained it. Although I didn’t do it, I had cameras installed. I’m sitting here with the camera in the parking lot on and can see when guests arrive ahead of time. I hung Edison lights in the Courtyard for the anniversary party along the Courtyard wall and across the Loft in the Carriage House and like them so much, I’ve kept them up:
They look kind of blurry in this picture, but very cool in real life. Paula across the street likes the lights so much that she thinks I run them across the front of the Ballroom at the end of the parking lot. Unfortunately, electricity is not readily available there. I will look into changing that. (I have two more strings in the basement).
This month, the Oxford English Dictionary added the Pittsburgh term jagoff to the dictionary! Although I seldom use the word, I love it. I can be a derogatory term for just about anyone one or anything without being really offensive.
I’m adding a new page to my website, ticket swap. I have a lot of guests that have season tickets for the Steelers and don’t want or can’t attend all the games. Instead of going through Ticket Stub or one of those on line agencies with the seller and buyer both paying high fees. You can post the tickets on my site with contact info with no fees. 🙂 Nick’s setting this up for Steelers, Penguins and Pitt tickets.
I thought Ester & Fester gave Lester a sibling, I’ve been seeing this little waving over the grass. I finally got a good look at the little one, it wasn’t a baby squirrel. It’s chipmunk, I did a Face Book contest, name the newest at the Parador and Maureen Kowlski suggested Jester. So here’s two pictures of Jester, it’s so cute:
That’s it for today, enjoy the break in the heat until we start complaining about the cold (I’ll be the first one there) 🙂
ed
