One of Tony’s coworkers sent this to Tony. Probably a good picture on a very bad day…. or if you’re half blind. We had red eye so I fixed that and Tony looks really weird with black eye balls. His eyes are hazel so I’m not used to that. My smile is so strained b/c she was one of those people that tell you to hold still for 5 minutes before shooting the picture. Anyway, I thought the picture was funny….

The article was release last Thursday. Here she is in all of her glory. There was one typo (Jamie!!)… we all know the photo needs to be credited to my baby….it’s ok, Whit.

Five years ago when we started this whole venture, we were gifted a bottle of Dom Perignon. We always said we would open it when construction was done and at the Grand Opening. We have moved 3 times since then… from State St. to Queen St. to Locust St. - is that 2 or 3?? It’s actually 2 or 3 too many! Anyway, the bottle has never been packed up. Tony wanted to be sure it was always in sight…. kind of keeping his eyes on the prize. Well, October 15 came and went… we were spent after the construction was complete. We decided we’d open it during the Holiday Cocktail Party… never did. We decided, then, that we would open it for our 20th Anniversary. We went to dinner at the Railroad House and were stuffed so no champagne that night either. Ok, we have a trip scheduled to Atlantic City with Tony’s company and we decide to pack up ol’ Dom again. After a night of cocktails, dinner and appetizers - not in that order - we go to the after hours party in Tony’s boss’s suite… for more drinks. We finally get to our room at about 1 am. Tony takes the bottle out of the fridge and says “we’re drinking this baby tonight!” Ok. I think. I need another drink like a hole in my head. - mind you I may have had 2 drinks all night… soooo not a drinker. So he’s taking Dom out the box talking about how long we’ve had it. Puts the bottle on top of the table, I turn for one second and Tony is standing there with wine glasses. Ok, where’d they come from. I thought he just turned into Emeril and was about to shout “BAM” with those glasses. “Where’d they come from?” I say. “Oh, girl, I was ready… I packed these babies!”
So after 5 long years of waiting, good ol’ Dom Perignon was finally uncorked. (Tony even followed the instructions from one of our client’s about opening the bottle at a 45 degree angle so as not to lose any champagne. Which worked. - thanks Mitch!) So there we were at 1 am drinking fine champagne, saluting to our health, happiness and business. We drank that bottle dry… good lawd. Since I’m not a drinker, I didn’t have anything to compare it to but I can assure you I savored that drink and reflected on all the tears, hard work, tears, stress, tears, frustration, tears, planning, tears and our dreams coming to fruition.
Thank you to all of you who helped with that - especially the tears part.

My mother has been living with my sister temporarily - she’s brave. I’m told that this morning over coffee they heard a huge bang! upstairs. My mom said “what fell?” my sister says “no, I think someone broke into the attic window”… my mom in her infinite wisdom politley gets up and finds the biggest knife my sister owns out of the knife drawer. “Where are you going?” my sister asks. My mother says very indignant “Oh, upstairs to clip his nails, what do you mean where am I going, I’m going to find out who we need to hide from”
My mom is telling me this on our way to the doctors today. She has me in tears - my mother is one of the most funniest people you’ll ever meet - I say to her…. “Mom? what were you going to do if someone would have grabbed your bad arm and took the knife?” She says “oh, they weren’t taking the knife from me… believe me. If I need to hide, I want to know how big they are and what I’m hiding from”
I think my mom is still 30-something in her mind and still running a household of 6 children after her husband died. All the while, she is 67 years old, has rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and moves like a turtle with arthritis. It’s got to be awful getting old.
I talked to my sister later in the day and we laughed so hard I was the one who ended up with an asthma attack. She said my mom was walking toward the steps with this huge knife like if she were just going up to the bathroom. After the whole nail clipping thing she says to mom, “well, let me up first” they’re going up the stairs and she feels a breeze on her neck. She turns around and sees my mom weilding the knife around and mom whispers “practicing” to my sister. Good Lawd….!
In the end… they never did find out what the bang was. We sure got a good laugh from it though.

Yesterday was just awesome. It was probably close to 50 degrees. I slept until 10:30 am - which I never do…. or seldom do. We had a Scottish dance group here on Saturday night and there was a member outside playing the bagpipes. Bagpipes have a way of bringing tears to your eyes. Anyway, the dancers were awesome - I have no idea how they remember all of those steps. This is probably why I only free-style dance. The town was participating in the Christmas Lantern Tour which always is a huge success. This year was no different. I would suspect that we had between 60-100 people…. most of them really in the Christmas spirit and departing with a hearty “Merry Christmas!”…. so very nostalgic. I served hot chocolate that was a huge hit and I got to talk to lots of people at my bar. Things like this remind me of why I got in this business to begin with… people from different walks of life really pique my interest and I simply just like talking to them. I took pictures of Locust St. that has been lined with lit snowflakes. Which I love! Everyone in town has been talking about them, too. The picture is a little dark but forgive me for wanting to get off of 441 with Turkey Hill trucks zooming by! Tony’s nerves were wrecked. hee-hee. So here’s the picture, and I’m still alive.

As Anthony would call her:
The Niece.
Willow is her name and we are very proud of her.
Except Pebbles hates her!

So today is our 20th Anniversary…. very hard to believe. We decided that we would celebrate last Saturday right after the wedding we had. We called for reservations to the Railroad House in Marietta. I had the best crab cake dinner I ever had in my life. Then we checked in to the bed and breakfast. I know it’s called the railroad house but for some reason I forgot about the railroad part. By the fourth train I was ready to just go and lay on the tracks… I was that tired. In the morning the owner, Raphael (who is also a life coach and very bubbly), asks in his usual upbeat way “so how’d you guys sleep?” - he must have seen the bags under my eyes. “Ok” we say in unisom - lie. “any ghosts sightings?” “um, no” I say “… should there have been?” He smiles coyly and says “I put you in the ghost room” … greeeaaattt. Seems that for the year that they’ve been owners they have had 4 ghost accounts in that room. The ghost has a sheet fetish and likes to play with guests sheets. Ok, I say to Tony, remember when I got up at 4 am to make the bed? I was sleeping on a bare mattress…. I didn’t think anything of it. I turn to tell Raphael and he says - “you ought to tell that to that woman over there… she’s the one on the brochure that had the sheets pulled at night” seems that that woman decided to revist the B&B after the escapade with the ghost…. brave soul. “I’m glad you’re telling me all of this now…. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep in that room.”
Nice joke, Raphael….. about returning that favor…..

Our very own Jamie Fessler-Koons came over to interview me this week to talk about Perfect Settings. I just love her. Look for the article in next week’s Columbia Ledger. It’s a weekly paper for our town - you have to get it if you want to be in the know of it all. I’m sure Jamie did a fine job - as always with no typos. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll post it here next week for all to see.
Thanks for your time, Jamie.