Richie went to the motel office for morning coffee and on the way back to the room spotted these three deer. Plop! went the coffee cups on the table; swoosh went his hands grabbing for his camera and -- viola!
It really is a beauty shot, but they didn't come back for the Murphy Family and Friends Reunion at noon. Just as well - have no idea what you feed adult deer.
I don't think they'd like our menu particularly and, of course, plates, silverware and drinking cups are utterly foreign to them.
This reunion thing was my idea which was reasonably pushy of me; I'm only one by marriage, but if no one else will do it (and they haven't so far, 34 years later) I, by God, will!
We were staying at the Chalet Motor Inn, Centerport, as we have for some 30 years and behind our backs, management/owners have really spiffed the place up - added a pool! a covered patio where we established ourselves and another covered patio with fat, cushioned chairs (ours were plain wrought iron.) The view is the woods and the pond behind all of these new glories and that's where Richie got this shot of the deer.
In an attempt to cover all food tastes (vegetarian, non-vegetarian, diabetic) we laid out a buffet of cold cuts - all Boar's Head, one of which we don't have out here - "sweet ham." O/T they have the new Caramel M & Ms and I haven't seen them out here. A fruit plate, a veggies and dip platter, two cheeses, Kalamata hummus, and crackers and rolls for the meats - another thing they do that we don't, rolls for sandwiches. And iced brownies and the box of "French" cookies Richie insisted on getting, too. We had bottled water (they're nuts for it back there) and of course, a sufficient supply of beer and three bottles of wine. (Hella buy - Bottles and Cases was having a three for $10 sale. I got two whites and a red, but they were all from Italy and I don't speak Italian so can't be any more informative than that.)
Another custom of which I was unaware is this: instead of bringing a bottle of nicer wine for mein host as we do here; they bring desserts there. We were gifted with: an enormous lemon pound cake, a large cellophane-wrapped plate of fancy cookies; the bakery's logo was a gold decal and the cellophane was tied with real ribbon!
And there was one more item ... Sonny, Richie's old friend from back in their clamming days, was the first to appear - carrying a pizza box! While I was delighted to see Sonny, the pizza box was ... daunting. It would surely get colder than a banker's heart before anyone else even got there. Damn! What was he thinking?
So, thanking him profusely, I put the box on the table. More people arrived, and, o horrors! another one was carrying a pizza box! Smiling on the outside, sighing on the inside, I put it on top of the other one.
People ate, wandered around, trading old photos and asking, "Who's that?" Old photos, BTW, make wonderful conversation starters.
I hadn't been paying attention to the buffet, other than to make sure everything was "proper" - forks for serving the meat, knives for the mustard, etc. Housekeeping chores. And then, with a great cry of delight, the first pizza box was opened.
"Oh! Crumb pizza!" several guests shouted. Crumb Pizza is: rich, buttery pie crust covered in streusel crumbs, round, and cut into pizza wedges. It was fallen upon with gusto while I just stood quietly to one side and pondered the mind that thought that one up. These New York types are ... different. But no less lovable. Far from crashing our little do, the deer were last reported heading for the Hamptons at a good clip. Too much noise.
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