Chet's

Chet let Drew work at Chet's Video on a Friday night. Making popcorn. Talking videos. Too cool. Thanks Chet!

Rochester

This weekend we're heading off to Rochester, NY. And while I've lived a bunch of places, Rochester is still my hometown.

A shout out to anyone who knows and loves the home of Kodak, Wegmans (the best grocery store on the planet), The House of Guitars, Abbot's Custard, Schaler's (where they grill up the best hots and hams) and Nick Tahou's…where the specialty is The Garbage Plate.

The Schreiner family has way to many reasons to throw a big party. Mostly it's because Jon is graduating high school and going off to SUNY Fredonia. We're all really proud of Jon. But add to that that Dan and Jim just graduated from Clarkson and are heading off to the work world. Then add that Jim and Jenna are jumping right into the post-college world head-first. They're getting married next June. Oh and Big Dan is turning the big 5-0. So, all tolled, that's a good reason to throw a bunch of Genny Lite's in the cooler and invite 150 of your closest friends and relatives.

Pictures and stories to follow.

For sale

Weird to see the sign in front of the house.

Surprise

Last night around dinner time me, Bob and the boys all piled in the car. We told Bob to pick the restaurant - after all, it was Father's Day Eve. Bob took great joy in taking his car out for a spin and he banked those corners and after some time, we knew we weren't going to the Salem Beer Works, or the Indian restaurant or the sushi place. As we moved out of familiar territory, the boys gave up guessing where we were going and Dylan started moaning from hunger. When we hit Cape Ann and headed toward Gloucester...they really started wondering what was up. I was clueless too. Bob just smiled and drove.

After much poking around along the waterfront in Gloucester, past the Crow's Nest bar where the guys from The Perfect Storm drank their last drink and past the Gorton's fish factory, we ended up at Rocky Neck, the oldest art colony in America. It says so right on the banner over the road.

Just as we arrived, a parking spot opened up and Bob slipped right in. We strolled up the road, the air smelling of the sea, the sun low on the horizon, the artists all out in front of their galleries chatting, the smells of seafood cooking in the air. In all the years we've lived on the North Shore, I had never been to Rocky Neck. Bob had, but I don't remember him ever talking about it.

We sat at the deck of Mad Fish Grille and the boys had Shirley Temples and Bob and I had a drink and we watched the boats and talked about all kinds of things...The Producers (we had watched the movie that morning), actors we wished would work together, horror movies that we should watch that weren't to scary, boats it would be fun to own, old stories of other times Bob surprised me or us. The food came really late and they were short-staffed, but we didn't care much. Drew even got a free bowl of chowder because he hailed the waiter at one point and sweetly said "Excuse me, but is my seafood platter coming soon?"

I've known Bob since 1981. That's 25 years. July 5th is our 20th wedding anniversary. You'd think he'd be done surprising me, since I can generally know what he's thinking and finish most of his sentences to the point where actually saying the thing is kind of moot for both of us. But last night he sat smiling on the deck, with the sun setting around us and our smart, funny, astonishingly grown boys between us. And the man that is the best Dad I know looked across the table with those twinkling blue eyes and that smile I would walk a mile to see and he said "Mol, I can still surprise you, even after all these years."

The Patriots

The whole third grade put on a play called The Patriots. They all did a great job. Drew really loved it. Look at the scale of this revolutionary war spectacle...only in Marblehead.

Mullets for everyone

Found this today while cleaning out the basement. Nice glasses, Donna.

A day in Marblehead

What a beautiful May day in Marblehead. Abby, Sharon and Molly were hatching a plan to have a girl day. After all, Molly deserves to have a girl day, surrounded as she is by boys, at all times.










We started off going on a long walk around town with Mike, Bob, Kate and Brownie.

It was a picture perfect day on the harbor. We had a picnic breakfast at Crocker Park.




On the walk we came to the conclusion that Bob really does love Brownie. Who ever would have guessed?









Then Abby, Sharon and Molly took off to do some girl stuff.

Before











After


Guess who was Queen for a Day?

Chandeliers in Abby's ears!

Come hell or high water

Mother's Day 2006

Would we let a little rain get in our way? NO. Would we let a lot of rain get in our way? NO. Would we let a 100-year flood that dumped a foot of water on the North Shore get in our way? NO. Come hell or high water we were going to do our 2nd annual Shoes for Mom day.

Last year Doreen, Mari and I initiated the tradition. Here's the idea. First you get served breakfast in bed. And rightly so. Then you shower and leave the dirty dishes behind to go shoe shopping with your girlfriends at the Mecca of all discount shoe stores.

Now, for those of you who haven't been...typical DSW stores have over 30,000 pairs of shoes in more than 2,000 styles displayed on the selling floor. This year Costa Rica Girls Deb and Caitlin joined in the fun. We each braved treacherous roads with the same fearlessness we had when fording rivers in the Costa Rican wilderness.

So many choices.













We had to rest.














Hand over the shoes and no one gets hurt.












The people at DSW loved us. I guess. Or they thought we were nuts. We noted they are accepting applications.














We racked up an undisclosed number of shoes. The number is withheld to protect the shoppers. One strategy discussed was hiding the shoes in the car and bringing them in one at a time so as not to raise suspicions.

But "Who cares?"

We'll look fabulous.

The Emporer has No Clothes

...and Stephen Colbert is the only public figure that's had the balls to say so right in front of everyone, including Bush and the assembled media on all sides.

He's my new hero. The video of his talk at the Washington Press Corps Roast of George Bush is not to be missed. Watch it here.

Salon nailed the significance of Colbert's talk in their piece called The Truthiness Hurts. Major media? They ignored it. Cowards.

Dave Barry on 24

I'm still totally addicted to 24. And now, thanks to our friend and fellow 24-lover Bob Shuman I found out that Dave Barry is a 24 fan...and blogs about it on his blog...and it's hysterical. Great. Now I'm going to be addicted to 24 and Dave Barry blogging 24.