In my work contract I'm given a free ticket back to the US once a year, so this year I saved all my vacation days and took about 10 days off, and split the time between the ROC and Buffalo.
The Rochester leg was a bit of a bust, since I was really sick the first two days, but I was able to see Irene and Jessica, who stopped by Kelsey Grange on their way to Buffalo for a reunion-- quite a few people were in town for Andy Capp night and Thanksgiving. That was the much vaunted "Harpie Reunion" and "Harpies Descend", featured on FB. The girls brought me wine (they know me well) and we hung out for a few hours just talking. I loaded them with swag from the Kultura part of the department store, and they seemed like they liked it well enough. The bummer is that I wasn't feeling better- I was having a hard time keeping up with the conversation as I felt like an animated corpse the entire time.
Sat/ Sun/ Monday I just hung out and did little, but Monday however, I met up with a fellow ex pat who's repatriated recently-- this kid Trip (super preppy abbreviation for a III) who worked for my company and who quit and moved back to our hometown about 2 months ago. It was delightful to gossip about work and commiserate about the challenge of hanging out with "civilians"-- either people who've traveled very little, only as tourists, or only worked in places like London, or Toronto. (First world English speaking cities, in other words). It's not that I don't love my friends, miss them terribly, and love hanging out with them, but in general people tend to sort of think it's either doing Red Cross work in Haiti, or a white sand bungalow vacation every day. Which it sort of is an unholy combination of both that takes a longggg time to explain to those that aren't there. It's hard to catch someone up on 2.5 years of cultural immersion in 3 hours.
Anyway, we went to this place:
http://www.highland-park-diner.com/
which has amazing food and a great atmosphere and is easy to get to. Trip looked great, healthy and sassy, and talking about going to Columbia to work there with the company again, and of course be with his fiance, who lives there.
Tuesday my friend Adam from Buffalo picked me up and we tooled out to Buffalo for three days of fun! Actually it was like 2 and some change, since we don't count days that were mostly made of travel, but anways! Upon arrival, Adam and I fixed ourselves several bourbon and waters and spent like 5 hours just talking. Then off to the nicely appointed guest bedroom for me, where I slept like a baby.
I threatened him "I am going to get you the most offensively jingoistic pro America tee shirt I can find. It's going to be like, red white and blue camo, with Playboy trucker girlie silouettes on it and it's going to say "Amurrrica! Love it or leave it!" or something equally awful! We were in stiches laughing about it, as it was tickling both of our funny bones picturing him wearing this monstrosity.
Well, apparently those of us who buy those type of shirts wear them to rags or keep them under glass, because the best I could find was a "Proud American blood donor" shirt with a flag waving on the back-pretty good, but a far cry from the horribleness I wanted. I WAS able to get him this shirt (below), however. It's gonna look so rad on an Indian:
I got myself a similar shirt (716 area code pride), but that was on day 2, so back to day 1.
After AmVets we called Todd Gibney, my old manager from the collections shop, and we tooled out to North Tonawanda to meet him at work. He was on an 11-8 so he couldn't get out for lunch with us, but we sat and talked for a bit, and it felt great to see him. As always, he was a melencholy Buddah, with a warmth and charm that hid (not very well) an iron hand and a sense of sadness that makes one both admire and pity him. I also saw a former immamorta, this kid Tony, and thouroughly enjoyed scaring him a little by taking his number (he left his long term girlfriend for me for a bit, and now that I was back in town he took pains to tell me that things were back on with the GF and it was all going well, etc.) and watching his face flicker between attraction and happiness at his luck in running into me and fear that I would come back and blow up his life again, all for nothing, just like the first time. But of course I was just twitting him, and enjoying it a bit too much. Heh.
Then it was off to lunch, and then home. I foolishly fell asleep at like 2 PM and couldn't really rouse myself, so it was a super early day. I went to bed at like 7 PM.
The next day we toddled off to Spot Coffee for breakfast (in what would be a long string of eating adventures, it was like I did all the eating for the entire trip in this one day), and then hurried over to Sarah's in Williamsville to pick out an engagement ring for Joann, Adam's soon to be fiance. I also got the aforementioned teeshirts on Elmwood and took some pics for FB.
Then it was off to lunch at the newly and gorgeously renovated Hotel Lafayette. I met Sarah Hansen and Christine (the Silver Fox) and we had lunch at the staid, but perfectly acceptable, Pan American Grill:
This picture does not really do full justice to this amazing space, most of which was just opened and redone in the last year: https://www.facebook.com/HotelLafayetteBuffalo
It is incredible. It makes me really long for Buffalo- it's things like this that made me love living there and made me so full of hopes and wants for something more, if only it weren't just out of my reach.
After this, we zipped back home to change, then off to my old boss's new office (my old boss is Chris, Adam's best friend in Buffalo), where he and the rest of my former co workers were just wrapping up the work day. Interested workers not so subtley eavesdropped as I chatted with my former coworker Bill Childs, who was an excellent listener and asked all the right questions, and then Chris swept me and Adam down to Witter's Bar and Grill
Then off to the newly renovated "Blue Monk" for dinner (Duck Fat Frites with special dips like Thai Ginger Melon Ketchup and Black Truffle Ketchup that were to die for!) where I met Amy, a Buffalo friend who follows my blog!!
We had a nice dinner, and hopefully she'll be able to come on out to meet me in Thailand, Singapore, or Japan this next year (2013 is officially Asia travel year for me).
Well, that's pretty much all I did- a few things of course I wasn't able to get to or didn't mention (Weggies with my mom, a few phone calls to some other friends, etc, but on the whole, this is it), and next edition will be: I know what you DID, now how did you FIND IT? More later....
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