Gargoyles with Garland

Happy Holidays from the Gargoyles!

Christmas Decorations

For a couple weeks, my husband came home every night and asked me if I had seen the house with all the great Christmas lights.  Now that it is dark out at 4:30 pm I have been staying to Rt. 86 and kept missing this house on 9N that he kept referring to.

Well, after Thanksgiving dinner, my family took a walk around Jay to check out the Christmas decorations in town.  Although the sun was still setting when we got to the house with the all the lights, the owner saw us walking by and immediately turned everything on for us.  This house has it all, lights on the house, Mr. and Mrs. Snowman, Santa and his sleigh with reindeers, a manger, etc.  Very impressive!  

This picture doesn't capture the greatness that one can see when it is dark out and I apologize, but I think you'll just have to do a drive by for yourselves.  The owner of the house definitely deserves some recognition and I feel he is "blog worthy" himself.  

Just before we started walking back home, he came out of his house to say hello.  Turns out the man in Jay with the great Christmas decorations has the name Jay!  He was really nice and came out to fix the blow up decorations of the Santa and Snowman he had on the lawn just for us.  He let me take his picture for the blog because I wanted people to see his great sweatshirt too!  

I am so glad we walked by and I got to meet Jay and his son, Nick.  That's right, after good old St. Nick!  Happy Holidays!

Note: Since taking pictures for this blog, I have noticed that Jay has added a blow up Snow Globe (my favorite).  

Movies at the Post Office

This morning I had gone to the post office in Upper Jay to send out some holiday cards and noticed that Mark, the Postmaster, was going to be showing some festive film shorts at 3:30 pm.  I had a few errands to run, but thought that I could be back to the post office to catch the movie and had called my friend Emilie to join me.

The Postmaster does such a great job here, he has turned the lobby into a mini theatre with a movie projector, theatre seats and a curtained movie screen. 

He really tries to take the stress away for people during the holidays.  He mentions that while you are there enjoying the movie, you can take advantage of the fine services of the US Postal Service, like buying your holiday stamps or using the packaging products he has on hand. Although I had already purchased my stamps that morning, it would have been a great time to bring my holiday cards, address them and put the stamps on, all while watching the Holiday animations and movie short he played for us.  Did I say it was free?  

What could be better you say?  Well, try the complimentary movie candy he has on hand. 

 Or even the freshly popped popcorn he makes for you.  He even has glasses of apple juice to wash down the popcorn with.  What more could a couple of ladies ask for?  I said to Emilie, "We might be poor, but we sure are rich."

You can see here that Emilie and I were very happy to be here on a Tuesday afternoon amidst the Holiday chaos.  The only other movie guests was a mother and her two small children.  We all sat back and got ready to enjoy the show.  I loved being there, it was so cozy and festive.  

He played a range of cartoons over 45 minutes from old Technicolor Disney holiday cartoons like "Once Upon a Time" to a couple of black and white shorts.  My personal favorite being, "Festival of Fun Days, Holiday Land."  Emilie and I thought it was very Alice In Wonderland like, with a little boy dreaming of all things holiday related, until his mother woke him up telling him it was time for school.  During the movie Emilie mentioned, "This is great, we should come back on Thursday", but of course all good things have to come to an end and I'll be at work.

Mark is happy to have a special showing for you and your family if you are not able to make it during scheduled show times.  The last regular showing will be December 23.  In addition to this year's feature, he does have other Holiday movies that he can show upon request.  

Things like this make me so happy that I live in such a unique area and that there are great people out there like Mark the Postmaster in little Upper Jay.   What can I say, It's a wonderful life!

Gambling Problem

Something strange has happened to me recently, I have been really interested in gambling. There is a football pool at work that I have been making "picks" for.  This is pretty funny to most people that know me because I know nothing about football.  I generally look at the records for each team for the season and go with the better ranked team.  If it is going to be a close one, I go with the team with a more northern latitude than the other.  For instance, if the San Diego Chargers were playing against the Philadelphia Eagles, I'd go with the Eagles.  Hands down.

At any rate, last night at the Stars on Ice show I overheard the camera crew betting on how many re-skates they were going to have to re-tape.  It was $5 to play.  Just like the football pool at work I gave my bet, but didn't put any money in.  I said there would be eight re-skates. 

I had volunteered as an usher so I could watch the show for free.  Luckily I know the right people and for the last two years have been placed on ice level seating the VIP's.  For the first time watching Stars on Ice, I was more interested in how many times the skaters fell or flubbed their program.  From the first act there was going to be possibly four re-skates and so going into the second act, I thought my chances of reaching eight was pretty good.  

Unfortunately the second act came and went with only one re-skate.  The main camera guy was going to be the winner with a pick of five.  He's been doing this for years though.  I know what you must be thinking, "This person is seriously demented and needs to immediately check themselves into Gamblers Anonymous." But like I said people that know me also find my "gambling problem" funny because they all know I'd make a pathetic gambler, I'm way too frugal.

Riverside Thrift Shop

I had a couple boxes of things I needed to bring to Riverside Thrift Shop in Wilmington and figured I'd also scope out any Thanksgiving decorations they may have had.   I was looking for a festive table cloth or something harvesty for the Thanksgiving I am hosting tomorrow.  

One of the first things I contemplated was a pillow.  

After taking the pillow down, I decided it was definitely more chicken like than turkey and so I put the bird back so she could nest amongst the other pillows.

Going into another room of the thrift shop I came across some shelves with linens.  I was thinking here I could find something, but the only thing I came across that had some Thanksgiving dinner potential were these place mats.  

Unfortunately, the place mats you see there on the middle shelf were made of an icky vinyl and there were only three.  I needed at least four.

Something else that caught my eye was this basket of plastic fruit. 

I was seriously contemplating crafting up some sort of cornucopia and using the fruit as a centerpiece.  With more thought, I decided against the plastic fruit because I probably wouldn't have used the pineapple in the cornucopia and couldn't imagine breaking up this family of fruit on Thanksgiving.  

I had scoured the thrift shop and wasn't able to come up with anything for Thanksgiving.  There was a little creamer with leaves and an acorn on it, but I already have a couple creamers.  I think I even brought one to them today.

My brain must be programmed to think (just like American advertisers want it to be) that as soon as Thanksgiving thoughts are done, you should be on to Christmas.  That is exactly what happened to me, even here at Riverside Thrift Shop.  Here, they have an entire room upstairs dedicated to Christmas.  

The one item I wanted was in the hand of another woman!  It was a Christmas tree skirt.  If I had only checked out the Christmas room before the rest of the Thrift Shop, it could have been mine.  They did have three other tree skirts on the shelf, but not like the one I coveted from the woman's hands.  She even said to her friend, "I think this is the smallest tree skirt I have ever seen."  I thought, "That's right, put it down.  You need a much larger one."  But, my silent thoughts never reached her and before I knew it, she was headed downstairs ready to pay for it.

Well, I did leave with one item for $1.  I can't tell you because it's going to be a gift to someone that reads this blog.  I didn't come away with any Thanksgiving items, but I did wait until the day before.  All in all, I think this trip was successful.  

You too can drop off your unwanted items or shop here every Wednesday or Saturday from 9-2.

I'll miss you Top 40!

I have a confession to make...I love top 40 music.  I might lose some "cool" friends with this confession, but I can't help it, my sister got me into it.  People that drive with me for any amount of distance seem to be annoyed that I don't have a cd player in my car, XM radio, or even a tape player.  I know most of you are thinking, "How could someone live with only a regular radio?" My love of top 40 hits from the 80's, 90's, and today generally leaves me very satisfied.  There are of course the exceptions, Meatloaf, Phil Collins, Celine Dion, etc. and when I hear their voices I turn to North Country Public Radio. One of the best things about the weekend drive to and from work is listening to STAR 92.9 based out of Mt. Mansfield, Vermont.  On the weekend they have the "flash back - feel good weekend."  It sure does play some feel good music, like Fleetwood Mac, Lionel Richie, and Annie Lennox.

I find it amazing that I can listen to this radio station all the way from Jay to Lake Placid, but cannot get Lake Placid's top 40 station 93.3.   I love STAR 92.9 and am feeling very sad that starting today, they will be playing all Christmas music.  I will be without my top 40 music for over a month!  I am sure I will be listening to some seasonal music, but will probably spend more time with NPR for the next month and might even plug my ipod in.

Until regular 92.9 returns, here's one song that always gets me dancing in the car driving along the Ausable and that would be from Mr. Michael Jackson:

The Smells of Stars on Ice

A few of my readers have mentioned that I write about food a lot and some even find themselves feeling very hungry when they look at my pictures and read my descriptions of items such as wings, root beer floats, muffins, etc.

Well, I am starting to think there might be a bit of the blogging karma going on.  The Stars on Ice skaters are in Lake Placid and have been practicing at the Olympic Center.    Here's the problem, I sit in the room directly next to their dining area where I get whiffs of bacon and fresh coffee in the morning.  Pure torture!  

I couldn't hear any voices behind the door that separated me from the bacon.  So, I decided to make a run for it through the secret door to find my friend in the kitchen to steal myself a scrap of  bacon.  As soon as I opened the door and peered inside, I was greeted with a smiling Sasha Cohen stretching with her leg above her head.   I kid you not.  

I went back to my desk behind the door with a grumbling belly thinking, Sasha Cohen probably doesn't even eat bacon!