Red Bank NJ

A New Year

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This year the New Year brought a lousy head cold which I am only just recovering from. It was fairly well timed for a day or so of laying around and reading which arguably is what I should have been doing under any circumstances. The novels are largely not worth mentioning – a rom com about a woman who finds she is dating an android (I thought it had more possibilities than it delivered) and Buckeye which seems to be everyone’s novel of the moment – deservedly. It is very good and fair to say it is sort of an instant classic. (Sadly I am still looking for my next Rosa Mulholland fix. Prior posts about those books can be found here and here. I have read a few since then and owe you all an update.)

Cookie up in Kim’s studio.

Cold notwithstanding this has been a nice holiday visit to NJ. Cookie has made progress and now comes down the stairs to look at first floor activity. She sits in a chair in Kim’s studio like a little queen, much better adjusted to her NJ surroundings than she used to be.

Peaches, we have an ongoing dialogue these days about trying to be a better kitty.

Peaches, our very asocial girl – aka the meanest cat in the world – is make surprising progress in her relation to humans and other cats. I have tried having long conversations with her about this and she listens carefully. She now is willing to sit on a towel near my chair even if I cannot actually pet her. (She’s also showed us how, when atop another chair, she chases her tail in a frenzy – and she has tried, less successfully, to steal food from her very large sibling, Beau. I have written Peaches story here if you want to read it.)

Kim’s page – hot off the press, or perhaps still on it!

Shown above, Kim is working on a spectacular pencil for his next story. It speaks for itself! (Check out that polar bear! And the snow!) He is making good use of his time here.

Comic book store.

We’ve paid a visit to the comic book store and, obviously given yesterday’s post, to the Red Bank Antique Annex. I also purchased this very nice camel (in photo at the top and which is part of a Christmas set – I will likely keep him in my cabinet year round however) and a nice Santa shown here too. Red Bank was pleasantly decked out in small town holiday mode with lights – although you also get to see Macy’s just before the holiday, snapped on my way to the train on one of the days I commuted into the city.

Macy’s during my commute in right before Christmas.

Kim and I had a cozy lunch that day at a favorite place I have written about before, Dublin House. This is an old Victorian house which has been converted to a restaurant and bar. Originally built in neighboring Middletown, it was moved across the river to Red Bank back in 1840. It was first rehabilitated back in 1971 as a ice cream parlour and restaurant. The current owners purchased it in 2004 and turned it into a rather authentic Irish enclave. (Kim and I can vouch for the “Irish nachos” which are cheesy greatness on homemade chips – yum!) There is a fireplace in the small dining room which makes it perfect for a frosty day. In the summer, door-sized windows open to outside dining on a porch and outside area. Some original details remain such as the windows shown here.

Interior of Dublin House earlier last week.

As I write there is a huge cat dust up in Kim’s studio – Blackie skulking up the stairs to give his sister Cookie a hard time. Kim is being referee but maybe some extra food might make Blackie less adventurous.

View from the car driving to the train one morning in darkness with Red Bank’s twinkle lights.

We had enough snow during this visit that I shoveled the walk and driveway twice, but was sick and skipped the most recent dusting. Luckily snow melt from a prior shoveling was still doing its job. It is a snowy winter compared to last year when we didn’t have any to memory.

Christmas display at the Antique Annex.

Kim and I had a little project of hanging some things up. You might remember these from prior posts – they have made their way here for permanent relocation. I also have the great Louis Wain sheet that I purchased and framed a few months ago. Heavy as it is, I am waiting for help to put that up. However, in addition to yesterday’s pig painting, we hung an interesting black cat piece from England and several photos that I purchased here for the house. The house is slowly acquiring a more distinctive Pictorama appearance.

So, well enough to make a grocery run today, I am going to leave off and go get dressed. We leave in the middle of the week so it will be an NYC post the next time you hear from me!

And Loving ‘Lite

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is a companion piece to yesterday’s post about my love for all things opal in jewelry. However, the other side of that coin is opalite. Opalite is an opalescent manmade substance which is either glass or plastic. Like an opal it has the property of changing color based on light and the colors around it. Alternately called  argenon, sea opal, opal moonstone or living under a bunch of similar names, it delivers much of the bang without the buck so to speak.

Shown up close here it is about a one inch long stone.

While I have likely run into it before (as a shiny object, opal and moonstone loving person) it wasn’t until it crossed our paths in the form of delightful square lumps on a trip to Red Bank on summer day in New Jersey that it rose into prominence for us.

Kim and I had walked into town to peruse the comic book store and do a few other minor errands. We decided to have lunch at a pleasant outdoor cafe but were told we needed to wait about ten minutes for a table. We were in no rush so we gave them my cell number and decided to kill time in a store next door called Earth Spirit (online here if you are curious).

I like the way the whole store is just open to the street, alluring.

Unlike many establishments in Red Bank these days, this one has managed to hang on for quite a stint. It sells crystals and incense and well, stones. It wouldn’t be the one I would pick for longevity but somehow it has stuck around. They seem to specialize in different kinds of tarot card decks and part of a wall was devoted to those.

We had never been in and I was especially enamored of a sign advertising aura photographs and while I was investigating that Kim was picking through the glorious selection of “stones”. I wandered over to see what he was up to and I’m not sure which of us discovered the bowl of opalite first, but we immediately each grabbed one to purchase.

Our lunch reservation came up just as we were purchasing our stones. I never did get my aura photo taken but this was a good trade off.

Aura photos on display. $25 to take one and $40 if you want a reading.

It promised us enhanced creativity and AI tells us it also used to support people through life transitions, foster inner peace…and deepen spiritual connection, especially during meditation. I am not going to be the detractor to question these qualities from a manmade substance so while I wonder I will not, um, throw stones. I took mine to work and Kim has his prominently displayed on his desk, shown above. He has lovingly embraced it and its properties, real or imagined.

Variations on opalite above.

Opalite evidently has no single inventor but it appears to have come on the market in the 1980’s. There is a fair amount of variety to the “stones”.

Evidently Taylor Swift has a new song with opalite in the lyrics which will perhaps boost it into greater prominence. It interests me a bit why you’d have an opalite sky rather than an opal one but in another way it makes sense. Opalite in all its forms appears to be a more coherent glow, as opposed to the sparking bits of fire in the different kinds of opal gemstones. Meanwhile, there is plenty of room in our heart for both.

Edie’s and Other Jersey Delights; Part One

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This is a Joy of Jersey post. This week I headed down for my regular visit with mom a bit off schedule as we hosted a large dinner at the hall on Friday. We have Election Day off and, as Kim and I had discharged our civic duty over the weekend, I headed down to her on Tuesday afternoon.

Got my fall leaf fix while running in Jersey this week.

It was my last shot at seeing some beautiful changing leaves as I made my daily morning run. I was running shorter distances last year, and I realized I had also missed much of the changing leaves as mom was in the hospital this time last year. (A post about that time can be found here.) That was about the time I changed to a regular schedule of being in Jersey, generally every other week for several days. Anyway, the foliage did not disappoint and I had pretty runs each of the days I was there.

Preparing for our dinner at the hall Monday night.

A good friend, fellow Jersey-ite of my youth, was also going to be visiting while I was there this week. In honor of and in advance of Randy’s visit, I turned my first run to the south to and through the small downtown area nearby called Red Bank. A lovely small commercial area, it was where we kids went to feel grown up. It wasn’t really where we went to get into trouble – there is a beach town in the other direction called Sea Bright which was full of bars which was designated for that (posts about that town can be found here and here), Red Bank, on the other hand, is where you shopped and ate out.

Diner which I frequented, usually in the middle of the night, but occasionally in the morning. It is in a slightly new guise but is otherwise the same.

The bones of Red Bank have remained the same while the denizens have come and gone. Jack’s Record Shop lived on the opposite side of the street in my youth and had a head shop in back – in the days before I knew what that was. It now occupies a spot near where a huge hardware store called Prown’s was. I can still smell the specific dust and fertilizer odor of that store. (They are still in business, but have moved to another location. In fact, they just installed a new backdoor for our garage at Mom’s.) The Woolworth’s is gone as is the Newberry’s, and the Steinbach’s department store, but there is still a coffee shop on the edge of town which is either the most recent incarnation of one of my youth, or a newer version. (It sported wax fruit in the window and my mother used to say, Never eat in a place with wax fruit in the window. It was a good point, but I have frequently eaten in such establishments and lived to tell the tale.)

Another coffee shop – sans wax fruit – where I used to pick up breakfast on my way to see my dad in the hospital nearby.

There was a large photography shop called Dorn’s which lasted into my adulthood, but eventually fell prey to digital photography. I did find this new photo store below which is good news if I eventually start making early process photos again at mom’s. I wrote recently about another family business in time gone-by called Kislan’s – it took care of all of our athletic needs, which were admittedly less diverse in those days. (That post is here if you are interested in the full NJ roundup.) Randy and I spent many hours of our youth, together and separately, in the town of Red Bank. Whether it was pancakes at the diner in the middle of the night, running errands or wandering the small shops on the side streets.

I’d like to have a chance to make friends at this new camera and film shop!

Wednesday and Thursday passed in a blur of work this week, cramming five days of work into three. I staked out time to spend with mom over morning coffee, lunch and tried to end the work day at a reasonable time. Randy showed up in the evening on Thursday and mom got a kick out of seeing him for the first time in decades. Despite sporting a mask for her benefit, mom declared him unchanged.

Along with our friend Suzanne, we had dinner at a restaurant which probably deserves its own post, Tavolo Pronto. This epic establishment is, in my opinion, one of the best things to hit Monmouth County in years. Their sandwiches have carried my through long dark days spent in the hospital and hospice with dad, and now it is my favorite lunch spot during my stints there. Their singular fare will stay linked in my mind with these years of my life, the adult years spent visiting Jersey, and it has comforted me during some bleak times.

Tavolo’s in Fair Haven, NJ.

Friday, Veteran’s Day, was another day off and a plan was cooked up to have breakfast at Edie’s, another local eatery that morning. Suzanne and I are early risers, but Randy hoped to sleep in a bit. This meant I could get a run in, have a coffee with mom and head over for a rare treat. Edie’s was my dad’s territory and favorite breakfast locale. He adopted it late in life and somehow he and I never ate there. The plan was set! Tomorrow, in the second part of this Jersey tribute, I will take you to that surprisingly historic spot which also has great personal significance.