I think so, Allyson: [link]

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Once you try something that actually tastes like it is supposed to, or tastes like anything really, it is so hard to eat otherwise.

Which might explain why I order things without tomatoes.

On a pendant note, it costs a fortune to get registered or declared or whatever as "organic" so at a farmer's market there are a lot of fruits and veggies grown without the pesticides and such that aren't labeled "Organic." It can be worth asking how things are grown, even without the signage. I have a thing for my farmer's market and the food and flowers I can get there. I end up talking to the people there sometimes even. Voluntarily.

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I'm so glad I've never really had good apples or cherries or pears. Sadly, the bananas I buy from Ralph's taste like crap, the oranges are unremarkable, and the mangoes untouchable.

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Maybe we should all go to the farmer's market on Sunday.

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My folks bought a cottage in New Hampshire when I was about 8. It's a year-round house, though, so we used it summers (it's on a lake) and winters (for the skiing). And now they're retired and they stay there in the summer and in Florida in the winter.

And even though I'm on another coast I really miss having easy access to a weekend place where I can lounge on the back porch and read all day and watch the beavers swim around, and sit on the dock in the morning with a cup of tea and watch the dragonflies. ::sigh::

On the good side, I'm in a ski club with a lodge in the mountains that I can use any time I want in the summer, and I don't have to pay taxes on it. So, it works out.

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I have conquered the CRT. I no longer have any tubes in use in my place. I just replace my last 17" monitor with a second 20" Apple Cinema Display. My studio Mac now has dual 20" Cinemas. I was going to buy a 23" one to go with the 20", but the 17" started to die and I didn't have the extra cash, so dual 20" it is. Damn this is nice looking.

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Poking head to post that, according to the Buffista Calendar, today is Kat's birthday. Happy birthday, Kat! With lots of wishes for a great day and a wonderful year!

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Happy birthday, Kat!!

So some forward-looking beach-lovers bought shore places long before the prices skyrocketed.

Friends of the family had bought a house up on Washington Island at the end of the Door County Peninsula in Wisconsin back in the late '50s/early '60s, long before it became fashionable. Since it's right on the water (Green Bay side), I'm sure it's worth a tidy sum now. As far as I know, they never did make it livable during the winter months, considering how isolated the island is during the off-season. They've been up there so long that they're considered islanders, even though they're only seasonal residents. Best story from Noreen was about the time that she went out to get the morning paper dressed in her robe and curlers just as the tourist-filled Cherry Train was driving past. The driver/guide said over the intercom, "And there's Noreen Murphy out for her morning constitutional. Everybody say 'Hi, Noreen!'" And they did, laughing uproariously. She had a few words for the guide the next time she ran into him in town.

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Bzzzzt! Wrong! I've had Mondo Gelato and it's not even on the same tier as Ciao Bella

Ciao Bella's texture is off. It's weird on my tongue.

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Happy Birthday Kat!!!

The thing with the cabins, though, and I'm guessing many of the places in Maine and even on the shore, is that they're not locations where many people would want to live year round. Many of them (for the Wisconsin/Ontario/etc. ones, anyway) don't have services year round like snow removal. So cost-wise, it's a lot more plausible for people without bags of money than it would be in more temperate climes.

This is how it works for us. My mum's place in Maine doesn't even have winter water. The water pipes to the house are right at street level, so there would be freezing issues. In October, the town shuts off the water to the whole street (and many of the streets in the town are like that--not year round housing), and the cottage owners have their house pipes drained of water, and put in anti-freeze, and then just leave. It doesn't have central heat either, but it does have some electric heaters built into the wall, and a fireplace. The electric heat is ridiculously expensive, so even once the place is opened up in mid-April, we wait a bit to go up.

When they bought the cottage '92, they remortgaged their home, and bought it out right. For the first few summers, they rented to family and friends for a few weeks per summer, to help out with the property taxes and water bill.

It is expensive, though. That's one of the reasons my mother is selling her Massachusetts house, and getting a condo. It will be easier to keep the house in Maine, if she does. And since she spends a substantial amount of time there in the summer, it is silly to keep the house in Mass. because really? She's there for falling leaves and snowy weather, which is too much work for her, now. A condo will be better. Ugh. I have to keep saying that to myself. She passes papers on that sale in a week, but I cry every time I think about it. I'm so going to miss my house.

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