indirectly Potty related

I was talking to my mom today and she was telling me about a biking/hiking trail in the city of Pgh that goes from downtown to the east suburbs of Blawknox, Verona, Oakmont. She then started telling me about a vacation she took to her Uncle Louis's when she was 12, in 1938. Uncle Louis was a bartender/waiter, the only real job Italian immigrants could get long ago. He also did work painting fake wood grain on woodwork in big new homes on the North Side of Pgh. Anyway, back to the vacation. She went swimming with the kids in the neighborhood, maybe her cousins. She didn't say. They swam in the river, Allegheny. She said there was a little beach along the river and the kids were all excited about getting to go swimming. She said it was full of sewage. There were big pipes and it would come out periodically in big smelly swooshes. She got out of the water and didn't swim anymore. The other kids swam in it all the time, they didn't know any better. I cannot imagine swimming in water that was so polluted you could smell it and see it coming into the water from pipes.

Uncle Louis's name was Louis Presari. He was her mom's brother. He lived until I was a teenager. He spent the last year or so of his life with Aunt Louise. He had been hit by a taxi going home from work at the hotel where he was a waiter/bartender. He got gangrene in his leg and died. We used to take him home after the family reunions and picnics, to his room in a rooming house. He had several wives, but didn't stay married long. Aunt Louise, Aunt Kate and Grandma, and Aunt Laura would make us ride in the back seat with him- they refused to ride with him cause he always tried to get fresh with them. His own nieces!!

Stealing my thunder

On Yahoo, of all places, this article appeared. My thanks to Yahoo for traveling around and finding good potties. With good photos.

http://travel.yahoo.com/p-interests-40857604

Art A Fair

There is an artist who has supplied the ladies restroom with fresh flowers every season for 17 years. She brings in the vases, the flowers and takes care of them. Pretty nice gesture. She said she would do the men's room as well, but the men steal her flowers to give to their girlfriends or wives.

new potty

Whew- out of the house for a couple dinners and a trip to San Diego. This economy has caused me to cut back on most of any extra curricular fun. But I did go to eat at an Olamendi's in Monarch Beach this past week. They took over a Japanese restaurant. The walls were covered in all kinds of Mexican art, ceramics, plaques, etc. The bathroom was actually subdued, with two somber paintings of women. But over the toilet there was a neat little painting of some skeletons.

PAST

It's been a while. So. I was driving to the Art a Fair this afternoon and thinking about a man at work who is Argentinian and who was going on about his favorite foods. He said he could eat salami, cheese and bread for a meal any day of the year. He said here are lots of Italians in Argentina and they eat Italian. I told him that my grandfather ate salami, blue cheese and Italian bread with beer for his lunch every day that I remember. He was very healthy. His first name was Carlo. Not Carlos, either. But then I thought of the first potty that I ever experienced after leaving the potty chair. It was an out house. Yep, we used an out house until our family moved to a suburb and a new house. Only a few families had plumbing. Not us.

pottty

I hope this post stays hidden from the Art a Fair posts. I tried to hide it, but I am not computer genius type. Anyway, yesterday, I worked at the AAF grounds. It was hard work, mopping the cement floor to clean up the muck left behind by floods this winter. My reward for showing up early so I could get a parking space. I used the potty and they were serenely clean and well appointed with soap, paper, etc. I didn't see any goats up on the hillside above the AAF. I was told the restaurant in the AAF grounds- Tivoli, Too http://tivoli-too.com/ had weddings scheduled non stop over the summer. On the weekends. That is nice, but ugly rumors persist that the guests of the weddings tend to be sticky fingered.

somewhat

My poor Mom. She's not progressing very well on her rehab. She refused to go to therapy today. Too tired. She only started doing steps this week. They plan to boot her out soon- probably next week and she can't go home. My brother has been looking into some sort of intermediate care place, but she maintains she is going to my Uncle Jim's for a few days then home. Does Jim know about her plans? My brother is going to find out tomorrow. I thought I'd go back home for a month and help her. But she's pretty stubborn and cantankerous. She'd send me to the store for some bread and then go up the stairs to check out her bathroom. Or worse, downstairs to check out her collection of plastic bags. Moms. So the potty connection has to do with her rehab setting. Her roommate has some sort of disorder that required the rehab staff to give my mom a potty chair to use. They don't want her "catching" what the roommate has in the shared bathroom. The roomie is taking antibiotics as of today.