The roast beef and the turkey are out of the oven. That can only mean one thing: storm preparations are complete. The roasted meat, Steve reminds me, is in case the electricity goes out. He suspects it works like the old potato trick, where you stick the electrodes into a potato to run a small light bulb. The beef is the positive charge, the turkey negative. Makes sense to me.

Aside from that, I still find myself telling people about the grilling we did at Spumoni on my last evening there last week: the roast beef, the sausage, the peppers, the zucchini... the beets. And then, in the boxes I carted back to Berea-Rose from RoseAnne's place I found this priceless photo. Shot from the backyard of 1522, looking toward the backyard of 1526, I have to date this photo somewhere in the early 1970s. I remember having that striped shirt -- was I six? Seven? This pic may even predate Bazzukajoe!

And I remember that table with the canopy. Unfortunately, it's hard to make out the food on the table -- we probably scarfed it all by the time the camera was brought out. And how about that television? Wanna bet Don Vito watched the Yankees al fresco that afternoon?