NBC-10-Philadelphia-kimwolterman

Anything Goes

We were at the Fox Theatre tonight when the tornado warning sirens were going off in St. Louis County. I had never really considered the best place to be in the Fox should a tornado hit. We were not advised to take shelter since the storm was off to the west, and the show did indeed go on! And what a show it was. I have never seen Anything Goes before, but what a high energy production. The music, dancing, singing and set design were great. We thoroughly enjoyed the show, and it was nice to forget about the storm for awhile.

Reality set in as we made a mad dash for the car, parked several blocks away. Interstate 44 was thankfully not very crowded, because the pouring rain made it very difficult to see the lines. It was probably the worst weather conditions I have driven in for a long time. Creeping along at 40 miles per hour made the drive home a lot longer than usual, but we made it safe and sound. So far other than some water in the basement, I don't think we had any damage here at the house. Tomorrow will tell. To all of those in St. Louis and Oklahoma who did not fare so well, my thoughts and prayers go out to you.

This past weekend seemed really long, which is a good thing. Saturday night we finally got around to celebrating Father's Day. Katie was in Prague and Jim on his motorcycle trip on the actual day. We took Jim to a new restaurant in Webster Groves called The Block. It is an interesting concept in that they have a small butcher shop inside the restaurant. So if you love their pork chops, say, you can buy fresh pork chops to go and they will tell you how to prepare them. It took me forever to locate their website (not good, restaurant owner!) so that I could see what their menu looks like. They bill themselves as a family restaurant, but the menu is definitely not kid-friendly. When my kids were young, they would not have liked anything on the menu. I never could find the hours on the website, so I had to call to see when they are open. (Not good, restaurant owner!)

When we arrived a little after 5:00 (this being the time they open), all of the wait staff was sitting in the dining room going over the specials for the evening. We were seated anyway, which was more than a little weird. I ordered the burger and fries with coleslaw, Katie got the mussels appetizer (see what traveling abroad does?), and Jim got the pork chops. I am not a very adventuresome eater, thus my dinner decision. But the burger was grass fed beef with a strange little spice in it, the fries had salt and pepper and something else on them - maybe sage or oregano? - and I don't know what was up with the slaw, which I usually love. Katie said her mussels were good, though not as fresh as Europe. Go figure, right? Jim loved his meal. So there you go...I would not rush back there, which is too bad. I like patronizing the local businesses.

The Block

On Sunday we drove about 30 minutes from St. Louis to a friend's lake house. The day had been sunny and hotter than Hades, and we were looking forward to a boat ride and swimming in the lake. As we were driving, lightning lit up the sky and it began to rain. And it rained for the entire time we were there. So we were cooped up in a small house with 7 adults and 3 kids. But we played games and were still able to grill, so it turned out fine.

On the 4th Jim, Kirby and I walked over early to claim our spot on Gore for the Webster Groves parade. Fortunately I had brought umbrellas, as we ended up getting a nice little downpour for a bit. People improvised on keeping dry as you can see in the pictures.



But they were still able to get the parade in, and in fact it was not so ungodly hot for a change. Then in the evening we walked up to the railroad tracks behind Schnucks to watch the evening fireworks. I drug my tripod along as I wanted to see if I could get any decent photos of the fireworks if I used it. The show was really good, but only lasted 15 minutes. We spent that much time trying to navigate through the crowds to walk home. Is it really worth it? I found a super nice cell phone on the tracks as we were leaving, and debated what to do with it. The owner might come back for it. Or one of the PAS persons might steal it. Do I take it home? Take it into Schnucks and turn it in to the courtesy counter? I ended up bringing it back to the house with us. We turned it on and went through the contacts until we found Home. I called that number and probably really confused the man who answered the phone. He thought it might be his father-in-law's phone, which made no sense to me. Katie said it looked like a woman's phone, not a man's. I gave him my name and phone number to call if someone in his house reported it missing. Then the cell phone rang. To answer or not to answer, that is the question. Thinking it was probably just a friend calling, we didn't answer it. Katie went into the Facebook account through the phone and found the gal's name, along with the fact that she recently married the guy who had just tried calling the phone. (All of this felt like a huge invasion of privacy to me, but I couldn't see any way around it.) So I called him back and explained where I had found the phone. They had just been walking the tracks looking for it so they were still in the area, thankfully. They came by to pick it up, and we learned that they just bought a house a couple blocks away from us. They will be moving into it as soon as it passes inspection. All's well that ends well.

The Webster Groves House & Garden Tour to benefit the people of Haiti was on Sunday. When my friend Carol, who was the mastermind of the event, asked us to have our house on the tour a year and a half ago, it seemed like a good idea. As the date grew closer, we grew more




frantic. With me in New York for a week, followed days later by my brother and his girls staying with us for 8 days, we only had 5 free days before the event. I cleaned the inside of the house during the week, but we left the outside stuff for Saturday morning. Jim applied new mulch and tidied up the gardens while I washed windows, removed cobwebs and cleaned up the outdoor furniture. Then we headed out to pick up a couple of small indoor plants and the dining room table decorations, and returned to a monsoon! There went the mulch all over the sidewalks, and the windows and furniture looked like I had never touched them. Crap!

But we pulled it all together Sunday morning, cookies began arriving, and Carol came early with 2 girl scouts to help set up the lemonade, water and cookies we would be serving. I have to say I was very impressed with the woman who brought 4 trays of cookies, filled with homemade houses and flowers to tie in with the house/garden theme. (I need that house cookie cutter for my book signings!) Carol also set out some nuts and mints. Jim and I set up the 5 display boards we had created. We had placed photographs of the original owners along with pictures of the house through the years as changes we made to it.

A few minutes before 1:00 the first tour-goers arrived and it was steady until the end at 5:00. The people on the tour were super-friendly and very appreciative that we had opened up our house. They seemed to particularly enjoy looking at the photo boards. And I have to admit that after all the work we have done on the house over the past 23 years it was gratifying to hear all the compliments. We saw friends that we hadn't touched base with for awhile, and fellow author Anne Collins Milford of "How Not to Marry the Wrong Guy" acclaim showed up with her friends. I had set my books up for sale, with 20% going to the Haiti fund, and one woman said she came on the tour specifically to get my book :) I ended up selling 4, with a couple people saying they would come back to get a book as they were not carrying cash. (A woman called today and she is coming Thursday morning to buy one.)

In the end about 350 people purchased tickets for the tour, and they made (after expenses) over $5,500. Not bad for a first time effort! Jim and I really enjoyed talking to all the people, so we're glad we did it. We just don't ever want to do it again! For a thank you gift from the committee, we were presented with a basket hand woven by a Haitian artist containing coffee from Haiti, and a statue of a woman holding a baby while balancing a basket on her head (multi-tasking Haitian woman!) which was sculpted from soap stone also by a Haitian artist. What a way to bring the whole project full circle!

Man, did Jake make an outstanding entree for Katie's birthday last night! I don't know what it is called, but since I bought the ingredients I know it contained penne pasta, prosciutto ham, Romano cheese, egg yolks, creme, onion and garlic. He served it with french bread and a Caesar salad, and I had purchased the large chocolate chip cookie Katie requested as her cake. The pasta was amazing! Definitely restaurant quality, but after watching him make it I decided no matter how good it tastes, I would probably never try it. It was a lot of work. There were seven kids here for dinner, and then a couple more came later after they got off work. I have to admit, it was fun having all the kids in the house again. (I just wish it hadn't been when I had cleaned the house in preparation for the house tour!) It is so quiet when Katie is off at school.

I don't think I mentioned that Katie has picked up an internship for the summer. She is working for a social media marketing company, and she goes to Clayton Monday thru Thursday from 9-5. She has only worked two days so far, but I think it is right up her alley. Several of her classes Freshman year dealt with social media and search engine optimization, so she definitely can put her knowledge to good use. She has two of her four summer classes completed already, so I don't think she'll have a problem keeping up with her classes and working that many hours. I'm very excited for her, and hoping that she can use some of her new skills on my website.

Jim and I sweated off a few pounds today getting ready for the house tour. Jim planted a few day lilies and put down some fresh leaf mulch, and I cleaned windows, swept cobwebs from the porches and washed off the patio furniture. In the afternoon we headed out to find something to put on the plates in the dining room, picked up a plant for a bare spot in the conservatory, and an additional plant to go on the table where tickets will be collected on the front porch. And then the storms came! The rain washed away most of the mulching Jim had done, and made a mess out of my newly cleaned windows and doors. Dammit! It's bad enough doing it once, without having to deal with it all again tomorrow morning. I'm afraid to look at the forecast since they were predicting rain all weekend. Hopefully the rain will hold off for the four hours of the tour. I told Jim once this event is over we need to have a series of parties here since everything will be looking so nice.