"Friends"

The "Friends" in the title has nothing to do with the generally accepted definition of the word. This Friends is a fun beading/jewelry supply place on Frankfort Avenue. Amanda is making lanyards for ID tags for her coworkers and needed more supplies. We browsed through the store and, since we were the only customers at the time, could just spread out our selections and take time to really dig into the baskets of loose beads. The guy watching the store today is a jeweler and was watching the shop for the owners who were out of town. They had told him to use his own judgment about prices so we got some good BARGAINS!! Yea for bargains. He charged us "close enough" to whatever they were priced.

Between Amanda and me, I was the only one who had the correct change to pay him so I paid for both her purchases and mine. To pay us back, she took Jerry and me out to lunch at Annie Cafe, a Vietnamese restaurant in our neighborhood. Shawn met us there and once we got our orders straight (waitress had almost everything mixed up), had a nice, leisurely meal.

Hope and Video Kitchen

We met one of Jerry's former Spalding University students today at Cafe Mimosa. It was a treat for Hope since she'd never eaten there before. My seaweed salad, sushi, hot tea... yum, yum. T, the owner and friend of ours, wasn't there since he'd taken Emily (who is now ELEVEN years old!) and their 3 year old son to run errands. Vivian, his wife, sat and visited with us for a while. She'd just come back from spending about a month visiting with family in Vietnam. We've known her for about 12 or 13 years but haven't seen her for 3 or 4 years now. I couldn't believe how much better she speaks English. When we first met her, she spoke just a very few English words but would just smile and nod when we'd try to communicate with her. She's still a beautiful woman.

Years ago we had a small, 8mm video camera which we took on a European trip in 1990 when Amanda was 16 and Rob was 13. It broke so we sold it in a yard sale years ago. Therefore, we've had a stack of tapes and no way to watch them. When Rob was home last time, we found them tucked away in the back of the closet; we thought they were lost or had gotten pitched when we moved. We pulled out three that he wanted to see first to have converted to DVD. I took just one of them to Video Kitchen; they will have it done tomorrow. I'm so excited to see it since the events on it are from 1993-94!

Cooking and Partying

Saturday, July 24 was a FULL day! Jerry left for dialysis early, Amanda picked me up around 9:15 a.m. and we drove to Sullivan University for a TV show taping. Secrets of Louisville Chefs did a segment with Amanda's friend, Chef Marsha Lynch and we were part of the audience. Grilled shrimp topped sun dried tomatoes; both sat atop a round of "drunken" goat cheese grits cake. Over all was drizzled flavored butter -- that's what Marsha fixed! Yum. She fixed enough for 100 people to have one. However, just smelling the aromas and watching her handle all that food, made us so hungry that, instead of waiting for the end of the next chef's segment, we left for a full meal at Zaytun's nearby, along with Marsha and John .

I'll be curious to see what editing does to the footage that was taped when the show is aired in a month or so.

That evening Jerry and I finally arrived at our niece's house in the countryside near Elizabethtown after a couple of directional setbacks!! (...a nice way of saying I got us lost. A policeman stopped to check on us when I pulled off the highway; he got us going the right way.) Cindy had a wedding shower/party for her nephew, our great nephew Andy who is getting married to (another) Amanda in September. Lively conversation, lots of good food, plenty wine and beer -- what more could you ask for in a party? A game!!! That's what else. The bride-to-be and Andy were on one team, each of their parents made up two more teams, and Amanda's matron of honor and her husband made up the fourth team. They played the Newlywed Game and, just as might be expected, some of the answers were risque and downright hilarious. The team which won wasn't even married yet -- Andy and Amanda. Their first prize [Hmmm. Could this have been set up?? :-)] was an empty paint bucket filled with gift cards from Lowe's that the guests had brought; Andy's Mom and aunts will help them build a patio/outdoor room for their home.

Saturday was not just full, it was a totally satisfying day.

Paoli

In the early 1960's and all the way up to the 1990's, almost every student who attended Morehead State University found their way to Jimbo's just on the outskirts of town. I'm sure Jimbo, the owner, cooked more than just hamburgers and french fries but I'm also sure that's the only combination I ever ate there since they were so perfect. I NEVER ate a whole order of the fries; the platter he'd slide onto the table would be heaped up and spilling over with hot, golden, delicious potatoes so most of us would get just a half order. Jerry, Amanda, Rob, and I all lamented when Jimbo closed because it was the end of an era. Welllll, Jerry and I have found a good replacement! There's a place in Paoli, Indiana called Kountry Kitchen (Yeah, I know. I don't like cutsey spelling either.) that comes as close to Jimbo's fries as any I've tasted since leaving Morehead. We ate at Kountry Kitchen twice last weekend, once on the way to French Lick then again for breakfast on the way back home the next morning.

When we go to French Lick, we almost always go visit "our" Amish family and take empty egg cartons for them to reuse plus something to the little children; we also buy whatever fresh produce or eggs they have available. This trip we took a small tub of suckers and one empty egg carton. We gave the container of suckers to Laura who is about 3 years old; Laura is a sucker for suckers!! Since her Mom, Wilma, was in the garden gathering tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn for us, I also handed Laura the egg carton. Her brother Benedict came running down the hill when he spotted our car (All the kids know we'll have goodies with us every time.), trotted over to Laura with his hand out. She looked at him, looked at the tub of suckers, looked back at him and didn't offer him any. They don't speak English yet so I used a combination of words and gestures to show her she needed to share with him. She watched me then solemnly handed Benedict the empty egg carton! :-)