Here is a semi recent photo of the Tiniest (aka Markus). He had a genius good weekend and so did Patty and I. Saturday was beautiful and 60+ in Brooklyn. I gardened. Cleaned up my tiny backyard, repotted, replanted, mulched and fertelized. It’s easy when your entire backyard is 12’ x 23’ and half of it is a deck and almost all of your plants are perennials that return every year. It’s all Hostas and ferns and Heliobores and a handful of annual herbs like basil, rosemary, chives, mint and oregano. Then Patty headed out to volunteer for her job and work a work-in-progress political play which means schmoozing donors and serving drinks at the after party.

Sunday I was up at 6:30am (good Log I hate the mornings!) but it was my turn to deal with Tiny man while Mom slept till 9am. Then after a little Breakfast, playtime and a walk and nap we met our ”shore friends” Elaine, Christine and Pete in the city at ABC Home for brunch at Le Pain Quotidian. They had never met Markus since we couldn’t bring him to the beach with us last year. He was too little and liked to eat sand so he stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. We see our “shore friends” on many weekends when we head to Ocean Grove in NJ. It is this lovely little Victorian enclave with beautiful beaches and The Ocean Vista. It’s a hotel owned by our good friends Pete and Di and their 3 little girls Bailey, Morgan and Taylor (actually they aren’t so little any longer)…oh and their new dog Roscoe who is huge, but sweet and wonderful. They run this family style little place right on the beach, and make it so nice and chill that we head back all summer long. But then Summer ends, and we never see Pete, Christine, nor Elaine even though they just live in the City. This year we made a concerted effort and actually did it. Markus charmed everybody and had a grand time as we headed over to Grammercy Park. Elaine lives on the park and has a key! I’d walked by it 400-500 times in the 16+ years I’ve lived in NYC, but it’s private and you can’t go in. It is lovely and so well maintained - a lovely jade oasis in the midst of a ton of the regular NYC craziness. It was really very nice.

Then we headed home just in time to prepare a grill-out dinner for more friends. Sisko scourge of the LES, the newly returned Warren J. Kemp and my friend from college, Bruce Hagar in from Cincinnati who owns a house with an elevator in it!. All came over to shoot the shit, eat grilled pork tenderloin, braised spinach, baked potatoes with a mushroom and red wine reduction and drink Boddington’s. We talked a lot of crap about music. Patty rolled her eyes a few hundred times. We watched the Roxy Music 2001 reunion tour on DVD, listened to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Everyone made fun of me for my blog - it was a kind of awesome little weekend. Hope to do it again next time…