Someone said to me recently that I should take all these posts and all the accompanying comments and put them into a book.

It made me feel good that someone thought it was interesting enough to make a book.

In a few weeks, I will have had this blog for 6 months. Just six months. I've tried to provoke thought and, yes, emotions. Sometimes I have written the most outlandish things.

These are the things that people respond to (the outlandish things), so I keep on writing.

Has anyone given any serious thought to the landfill, and the implications of what's going on? Did anyone stop to think about paid parking, or parking in general? Is anyone convinced that GeoTubes don't necessarily work on beach erosion - or convinced that they do?

In the last few days, I've heard some outlandish things that Newburyport Development is up to, regarding its tenants. I was going to share, but I thought, "no one really cares."

Restaurant Week nearing end

Don't forget Restaurant Week - it's over Aug. 9. Tomorrow, Triple-D and I (she cleverly tricked me into inviting her by asking if she could go) are going for dinnies to this Trattoria al Forno in Haverhill.


It's the place with the brick oven, but trust me, I won't be ordering pizza.

You thought I was joking about Vernors, huh?

Well, my sister called to my attention this story in the Flint Journal, which talks about fans of the ginger ale meeting in Flint this month.

While she and her husband are there, I might add. Sw - art family celebrates.

The club will be at Halo Burger on South Saginaw Street in Downtown Flint August 23 to reminiscence on the good old days of fountain shops and Boston coolers.

Halo Burger! Why don't we have one of those here?

The Halo Burger in Downtown Flint once was a Vernors soda shop and the burger place still carries remnants of its ginger ale history.

The railing inside the restaurant still has large V's wrought in the iron, said Halo Burger District Manager Jeff Rak.

"The building was built in 1929 and it was the Vernor's Retail Store and Sandwich shop with an Italian style outdoor court," Rak said. "We want to keep the building as intact as possible."

Rak said Halo Burger has been looking into reconstructing the location to resemble its 1929 appearance.

Next door to the Saginaw Street location is a large Vernor's Ginger Ale mural on the Greater Flint Arts Council building painted by John Gonsowski. The mural features the ginger ale's signature gnome mascot.

Halo Burger helped to restore the mural in 1979 for $24,000. It has since been re-done by the Flint Arts Council, Rak said.

If you look really closely at the photo of the mural, you can see an oil spot in that photo, left by my 1977 Mazda RX-3.

OK, maybe not.

A Boston cooler, a name of which I have no memory, is Vernors and ice cream.

Halo Burger is unique to Flint, or was anyway. Sort of like Arby's used to be. And how Domino's was in Ann Arbor.

Remember, seven days without a Halo Burger makes one weak!

What a deal!

Starbucks has a new promotion - $2 for any iced grande beverage after 2 p.m.

Don't get all excited, you have to present your receipt from your morning visit, where you paid the regular price.

Read all about it here.

Can't wait to see all the people on a caffeine 'high' jitterbugging through the streets all afternoon!

Comments continue to spark the imagination

So I'm reading this story in the Daily News about 5 people being arrested for drunk and disorderly during the last weekend of Yankee Homecoming, and, as usual, the comments are the most interesting part of the whole experience.

Being relatively new here, I did not know that Michael's Harborside has this reputation as the dining place for the unruly. They did all that remodeling to spiff up the place, canceled 'Reggae Sundays' (huh?), and it's still a trouble spot? Wow

Maybe they should ban saggy pants ... no, wait, that's another place.

It seems to me - well, I don't know anymore what it seems to me. I'm trying to get work out in the world, so my fingers are sealed.

You all feel free to carry on, though ...

Last dance for fireworks?

So, according to this report in today's Daily News, it's not the development at the Towle Bldg. per se that is the problem with firing off fireworks at Cashman Park, it's that carriage house they're moving from the Towle property over to the park.

Oh, the power of the blog. Thanks for clearing that up, Daily News.

Saving the carriage house was part of the deal the city made with the developer, according to ... can't find the story I wrote about it for the Current last year online. But here's what it said, in part:

With Planning Board approval the developer, First Republic Corporation of America, is closer to breaking ground for the seven buildings with 15 condominium units proposed for the site next to and behind the Towle Office Building, former location of the Towle Silver Factory. Three buildings with two units each will be closer to Merrimac Street to the west of the office building at the end of Tyng Street and four buildings with a total of nine units will be closer to the river. The plans also require the displacement of a historic carriage house, which will be moved into Cashman Park at the owner’s expense [see sidebar, Youth Services and Parks Commission get a space]. A clear line of sight to the river from Tyng Street will be maintained.

Most of the proposed units close to the river face the water but this one duplex will have a side view of the river and its rear will abut the park. All along the property line and down to the boat ramp are oversized parking spaces for boat trailers.

I don't know where they plan to put the carriage house in the park, but my guess is that they're now re-considering the location. Unless, of course, it is the condos that are the problem.

Where exactly do they shoot the fireworks from (never having been there at the time)? You've got condos to the east and now condos coming in to the west - and Jason Lacroix did say, in the first story, that it was the change to the parking lot that was the problem (some of the condos will be right up against the park, where I believe there is now a parking lot).

"This is truly unique, especially in light that there may not be any fireworks next Yankee Homecoming," Lacroix said. "With the change to the Towle building parking lot, there is not enough of a safety zone and there is no other place in Newburyport we could have them."

Did Jason mis-speak? Did Katie Curley mis-hear? Who knows? It is what it is.

Tom Salemi comments briefly on the fireworks and the "last bang" implications of the development here, btw. I agree with Tom - people should not be complaining.

I usually go down to Gloucester for the annual display, and I remember one year there was heavy overcast. It was actually kind of cool.

She came from Planet Claire

Speaking of Barbados, I can remember being on the plane from the island to New York City and then being in NYC. I had just turned 7 years old.

I can still see the constant flow of traffic that I watched, fascinated, from the window of our hotel/motel. I was a little girl on a big adventure, and I had no idea that I would not return to Barbados until I was an adult.

Strangely, I cannot recall my first view of Michigan or the farm in rural Clio, where we ended up. If my mother's memory serves her well at this point, she was less than thrilled.

Not that Barbados was any hot shakes back then. It was not a big tourist destination at that point, so I had never seen that many cars on any road, ever. I also had never seen television. Or snow.

For years after, when it snowed, I would just sit and watch it fall into the light of our outside flood. And chew my fingernails down to the quick. I stopped doing that only after I began smoking.

The United States was the third country in which my mother took up residency. Can you imagine? She was born in Liverpool, moved to London, moved to Barbados after she married my biological father (when I was 3 months old), then moved there (Michigan) to marry a second time.

Now she lives in Gloucester, with a stop in Connecticut in between. My mother will be 78 years old in October.

I keep telling her to write it all down, write it all down, Mom. Now she wants a blog.

Heaven help us all!

An interesting idea for here?

When I venture down to Gloucester on Thursday to visit my mum, and my sister comes up from Malden, we usually do lunch.

Sometimes mom doesn't feel up to going out, so we race out to get takeout. Recently we found - or rather, my (other) sister who lives nearby found and the rest of us latched onto - a takeout place that offers pre-packaged Southwestern food.

The place is called Chili Choice.

It's a tiny little place packed with burritos, tamales, enchiladas, salsas galore, dips, tempting soups and luscious flan. Most of the food needs to be heated up (although last Thurs. they had hot burritos on offer), but -

We love it!

I'm jealous of my sister and brother-in-law, who can walk there in a matter of minutes. Swine.

Warning: starfish not good for dogs!

I heard on the radio on my way home from downtown earlier that there is a big problem in the Caribbean: people using starfish as dog toys.

The problem has 'surfaced' on Grenada, where dog owners are plucking starfish out of the water and throwing them like Frisbees, for their dogs to catch. (Read the full story here.)

Most important, according to this info I found on The Echinoblog, ingesting starfish might be toxic to animals. In short, a dog ate a dried ornamental starfish and suffered from vomiting and sustained seizures; the dog had to be euthanized.

Island officials are launching a campaign to stop this practice, by the way, which usually involves the starfish being left on the beach to die, which apparently is also stinky.

So keep this in mind if you think a starfish is a fun doggy toy, or even if you have dried starfish in your home and also own a dog.

Little flowers at the waterside

I was roaming around a festival-free downtown earlier, and I had to marvel at how many mothers and strollers I saw. I mean, I guess they were always there, but I never noticed so much.

And being spurred on by a recent comment someone made to me, I wonder how powerful mothers are becoming in today's cityscape.

Mothers complained about lack of restroom facilities at Cashman Park and - voila! - pending City Council approval, from what I understand, an old carriage house from the Towle Bldg. will be moved over to the abutting park and will have restrooms.

Sort of too bad about the reason for having to move the carriage house (a riverside condo complex), but I guess you can't have everything! You know, like future fireworks displays at the park ... I hope everyone enjoyed them. I usually walk down my street about 20 ft. and can see them quite clearly, but I didn't do that this year.

Anyway, getting back on track, the Newburyport Mothers Club is a huge organization, and I've got to think it has some clout. (Now there'll be a story about the club popping up somewhere, not written by me, and I gotta say that fact has kept my posting down of late.)

Organizations aside, it's good to see so many tots in town. You know, those tiny townies I referred to in another post and got in 'trouble' over!