Owens Bday, an exciting affair

While we were driving to the bday party at Jimmy's, we had enough rain to make me turn on the wipers. Twice they swept the windshield and not another sweep was necessary.

It cooled the air off by 5% degrees and that was good.

The party was mainly outside until dinner.

The party had plenty of children running around, in a wading pool, on swings tied to super high braches of a tree, maybe 40 feet high.

a bubble machine that made Lawrence Welk look like he did it himself.

Kids playing in the toy room. In the train room (formerly the dining room), and the basement toy area. It was so exciting. AND NO CICADA'S BY THEIR HOUSE. Everyone noticed.

Opening of the toys was another exciting time with Owen opening the toys, screaming with joy and then giving them to guests to play with. Interesting kid.

Food consisted of plates of cookies by Karolyn. She did a terrible job she thought. Everyone kept eating them. We just laughed.

Bday Boy Owen thought the frosting was the best. It was his cake and mom wasn't looking.

And pulled pork from Robinson's ribs in Oak Park. The pulled pork looked like a slurry.I mean you couldn't see pieces of pulled pork. Its as if they put it into a blender before serving it. Another interesting food. It didn't look interesting and many just passed it by. I thought it was great, and we brought a big bag home.

Fried chicken from Jewel grocery store, last week it was perfect.. this week a little dry.
.

Food was late being served and a few started chewing on their own tongues. For others the evil red eyes appeared.

Everyone started to leave after 7pm. These are all the families with Kids who must be in bed early

One thing I observed. When the kids entered the house and all the adults were standing like those big redwoods, the kids were apprehensive and a little scared.

When it was time to leave, all we heard was: "Can we come back to this house,with all the toys, its so cool." This was from 3 to 5 yr olds.

From the adults, this was such a great party. Everyone had fun, thank you!

I took a few photos and videos' I think the camera counted 198. So it will take time to reduce and send them out.
c'ya
jim

Those were the days.....

There was a hillbilly bar on Armitage ave west of Pulaski (that after a night of celebrating my oldest sons birth), my buddy Jim Boyle and I ended up for a last drink. 1972

Jim just got back from Nam and wanted to drink with the Hill billies.
Jim is 6'04 and was 190lbs.

We drove his 72 caddy and walked in to see all these Motorcycle gang jackets on.

Of course I said forgetaboutit, lets go somewhere else. He said Nah, It'll be ok.

About a hundred folks in the bar and the place was difficult to walk through.Jim smiling, saying hi to everyone and laughing. Just having a good time.

He came behind a little filly with long smooth dark brown hair and said Excuse me honey,
Honey turned around and with his big mustache said "Who the ______ you talking to"

Jim picked up mustache and tossed him like at a midget toss. All the bar came to attention and swarmed toward us with bottles and chairs in hand.

He was ready but I took out a friend. My friend was a Browning semi-auto with 15 extra friends with it.

It was chrome plated and I knew they would see it. I waved it like a mad man and told Jim lets get out of here. Being recently from Nam, he said lets take them on.

I asked him for his keys, which he gave me, and then tugged him out of the bar with the gun moving from side to side.

I ran to the car and pulled it out into the street. He walked over slowly to the car exchanging pleasantries with the patrons.

As we drove away, his Blue 72 Caddy was suddenly covered in foam from all the beer bottles they threw at us. He wanted to stop, But I was driving. haha

Yes, those were the days.

Oh, I have stories like that for each of the births of my other 3 kids and his 2.

Wow, Life was good.

Life is great.

If Its Green Its Trouble, If Its Grease Make Mine a Double.

Last friday Jerry Murphy found an add for a restaurant that serves Gourmet dinners starting at $20 and up.

We made reservations for 6:15pm at Bonsoiree. The address was 2728 W. Armitage.
http://bon-soiree.com/
I used to work the area and could only remember 2 restaurants.

Tastee freeze and PePe Mexican.


I was certainly surprised when we drove thru
the neighborhood.What once was hillbilly and hispanic gang turf was now Yuppie Turf.

Not one racing Police car with siren and lights
flashing went by. I was amazed.

Anyway we started out with a salad. Asparagas chips with almonds.

It was green and my motto is the title.

I asked for the soup, zucini and something else . The soup was excellent.


All the food arrived on small white triangular dishes for the salads and desserts while the main entree was served on a wavy 4 cornered plate.

Sorry, I was so excited by the appearance of the food that I did not take a photo of the entree's.

We all tried something different on the menu. I went with Red Snapper is a brown sauce with some kind of fancy potato.

Others had salmon which they loved. And the
meat lovers had a pile of meat.

Don't get me wrong. All the portions were about as big as a McDonalds quarter pounder.

The bill turned out to be $52 per couple. This of course was low as it is a BYOB establishment.

I liked that as I didn't have to pay for others drinking habits.

But I must admit did have a little swig of the Red wine but prefered the White Zinfidel with a fruity flavor...
















I guess we all enjoyed the meal and the wine and the whiskey. Also, We All Agreed We Would Return To This Fancy Joint.


Oh, I did mention that the portions were for normal thin folks. So, I made an emergency stop.



I brought back some belly fillers for us all to enjoy. The photo below will show the type of Gourmet Restaurants I am used to.