Trying To Make The Winter Fly By

Ah, yes. Winter in Northeast Ohio. It lasts so long and is so dreary that people in their 30s fly south for those awful months like so many bloated Goldfinches. Me, I choose to stay here. I like a little dark with my light, a little salt with my sweet and a little depression with my joy. I still try to combat the blues, though, mostly by getting off my ass and doing things and going places, like Pittsburgh.


Pittsburgh, you say? How in Saint Morgan Fairchild Hell is that getting away from it all? 


Well, let me start with our charming hotel. It's called The Priory and it's a beautiful, restored Parsonage attached to a small sanctuary that wealthy Pennsylvanians book for wedding receptions and the like. I think it would be great for a Halloween party. (I hate weddings. They just seem like a giant exercise in Bride's magazine show-offery and coupledom mutual masturbation, BLECH)

The hotel's ceilings are high, the lighting fixtures are ancient and the atmosphere is one of naughty gaiety. We arrived Saturday night to a crush of revelers in the lobby enjoying a beer or ten before heading off to the wedding reception to listen to slurred speeches full of forced hilarity and watch Auntie dance with her favorite 'nephew.'


We steered clear of that mess and strolled down the hall to our room. There were all manner of lovely artifacts placed here and there and it took all my powers of self control not to steal this hat box that was just sitting on an antique table.

Alas, my backpack was too small. (makes mental note to hit Gander Mountain on the way home)


Get a load of this lovely mini-priory! I can just picture some pious, but perpetually bored man of the cloth wiling away the hours with some brandy and glue.

Okay, maybe not so mini, since it was four feet tall, and not so gluey since I spy a clamp. What are you going to do? Brandy doesn't make a monk so handy. Handsy, yes.


This is the bar. Surprisingly enough, we spent no time there. The Bota beckoned (or was it Cardinal Zin?) and I was still a bit nauseous from my new glasses. I hate them. Lasik, here I come. 

Yes, that is an old bank safe acting as the bar storage. Somebody doesn't trust their employees....
Or the guests. Hmm.


The next day we attended the Penguins' hockey game where the boys in Black & Gold prevailed over the Capitals and their much diminished prowess, and then we headed back across the 9th Street Bridge when we were overtaken by a tall ginger with giant mittens. I called him Hellboy O'Brien. Hubby trumped me by calling him Hillboy O'Brien. Teehee, inbred jokes.

As much as I love Pittsburgh, I have to admit that it does give off that not-so-faint whiff of third generation first-cousin marriages, which is where we come full circle, or should I say 'circular.'

Which is what passes for curtains 'round here.


What, no comics? Those are so much classier.