Tuesday in Frankfort. My first full day in Frankfort this year. The Grices are here and the kids are pretty much fully engaged with each other full time and barely even know that I am here. At least I get to see them from time to time. But they are all over the house, always playing some game and sometimes running around in the yard – which is in the process of getting fenced in. A new, large, vinyl, white picket fence is being installed this week at the Toccos’.
I spent my time camped out in the kitchen in front of the air conditioner window unit with my laptop trying to write and post from the kitchen table. Not the most comfortable of places but I make do.
It is Monday today, our second week back in the United States. I got packed up this morning, spent time with dad, did some writing and posting and then this afternoon I got on the road with Art’s Chevy Malibu that I am borrowing while we are in New York and started driving out to Frankfort.
Utica Exit on the NY Thruway
It is just under three hours from dad’s house to Dominica’s parents’ house.
I am very happy to get back out and see my kids again! It was very nice getting some down time at dad’s house and getting to hang out just the two of us, but I really miss my kids when we are apart and I needed to get back to them.
Went out for ice cream tonight, as always happens when you are in Frankfort. That is Francesca’s summer thing, ice cream every night (often sneaking away so that the kids don’t know that the adults are doing it.) Nicky Doodles, tonight.
Emily and I walked up to the corner store and got beer as well. The little place on the corner knows me. They have the best craft beer selection in the region and are just like two blocks away. It’s very nice.
Today is the big day for our girls. Their favourite treat of the entire year is going to Enchanted Forest Water Safari in Old Forge, New York. The have been waiting two whole years to get to go back there. They are going to be so, so, so happy after this. This is why we know that we have to be in New York every summer no matter what, they will never be okay with not going to Water Safari.
The Cousins at Enchanted Forest in Old Forge
The whole family had a great time at the water park. I’m a bit sad that I did not get to go with them, again. But it isn’t like I enjoy water parks or anything like that. But it would be nice to get to spend the day with my girls when they are having so much fun, but in reality they are very busy with their cousins anyway and would have no time to spend with me anyway.
Eric Millen and Scott Alan Miller at Village Tavern in Geneseo
This evening Eric and I met up at the village tavern in Geneseo for beers and hung out there for a while. We stayed until they closed the kitchen and missed getting dinner. I ended up driving around Geneseo trying to find food and, eventually, found that everything except for McDonald’s was closed. I just missed Aunt Cookies, Tim Horton’s, Taco Bell, everything. I can’t believe that in a college town that there is no way to eat after nine in the evening!
Pretty quiet day hanging out with dad and doing some more writing and posting today. The Tocco clan is heading to Enchanted Forest Water Safari tomorrow, the girls have been talking about going there for about eighteen months, now. It is their favourite thing to do ever and are so, so excited that they are going to finally get to go tomorrow. They went two years ago and loved it so much, and were so excited to go last year and the weather never allowed it to happen and they have talked about it at least weekly for the entire last year. They talk about summer as being their favourite season: “Because that’s when we get to go to Water Safari”, they say!
This evening dad and I went to Tom Wahl’s in Avon. I’ve been craving their veggie burgers and their amazing French fries for a year. They have one of those food items that just drives me crazy when I am away. There are some things that you just cannot get when you are away from home: Buffalo style pizza from Papa Roni’s (Davis’), subs from Aunt Cookies in Geneseo, veggie burgers and fries from Tom Wahl’s, etc. I also can’t wait to get Rockfish’s Santa Fe fish tacos and volcano shrimp when in Dallas. And Panda Express shrimp, too. You miss a lot of food when you travel a lot.
More news from the UK taking up a big part of the day. Now that the Brexit is hitting the markets, the British Pound is in total collapse and has lost a tonne of its value. Dominica and I are talking about whether or not we need to change plans to go tour Scotland and Wales this coming year rather than places that we had been planning to go because the Pound is so cheap that we really cannot pass up the opportunity to leverage it.
The pound was $2.10 when Dominica and I last visited the UK. Today it is at $1.33 and it is expected to level out around $1.31 and we’ve seen it as low as $1.29. That is absolutely crazy. The British have lost an enormous amount of their national wealth practically overnight. Something like one third of the value of their economy just evaporated.
I wrote all morning and had my phone call this afternoon. Today is Wednesday.
This evening I gave dad a break and drove up to Henrietta to meet up with Dustin from MangoLassi for some beers at MacGregors on Jefferson Road. I have not been to MacGregors in probably twenty years!
Dustin was there before me and had a table outside on the back deck. It was nice weather in Rochester tonight, so perfect for sitting outside. But before too long, the mosquitoes came out and we moved inside.
We went over to the Tilted Kilt before heading back home. I didn’t even know that there was one of these in Rochester. So many chain bars cycle through on Jefferson, I can’t keep up with what is up there.
Scott Alan Miller and Dustin at MacGregors
Dustin and I have been talking almost daily on MangoLassi for nearly a year. But we have never met in person. That’s one of the weird things about online communities: you get to know people really well but don’t even know what they look like, sound like or realistically even how old they are. Dustin guessed, even meeting me in person, that was “only in my early fifties.” Argh.
Solid forty here, folks.
I have been working very hard on SGL to get updates coming in a timely fashion. Still a bit of June left to go but I have lots of scattered July and August updates already written and ready to post once I fill in the gaps in between. This summer has just been so busy, no chances to get caught up! Doing my best.
A year ago today, we were at dad’s place on the farm and dad was out mowing the lawn. This would have been after our time in Spain but before we headed off down south to Texas and on to Panama. I got this great picture of Luciana in my old bedroom (now dad’s office) watching my dad mow the lawn out of my bedroom windows. So adorable.
Luciana Watching Grandpa Mow the Lawn on June 24, 2015 from Her Dad’s Old Bedroom Windows
What a wild and exciting year it has been since that picture was taken. Hard to believe that that little four year old girl lived in Panama, Nicaragua, Greece and Romania since then. That she has visited Mexico, Croatia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo since then! What a year. And now she is five.
Both girls are still pushing for us to go to China. It’s been more than a year with China being the destination that they want to go to most. But Romania remains the place that they want to return to the most.
