Category: Uncategorized

Yesterday was all about the parties. First I went to my friend Cricket’s party. (Actually, before that, Jonathan and I saw The Omen, which wasn’t very good.) Cricket works at the medical examiners office and she was having a going away party for one of her co-workers. I didn’t take a lot of pictures there, but I got one of the doggie love of my life, Bean:

And the fabulous Cricket and the amazing Anne. This isn’t the greatest shot of either, but I include it here as proof that yes, I do have friends and here are two of them:

This is Lawrence’s tatoo, which is not finished, but it’s of an autopsy and in it someone’s about to get their skull removed. It pains me that my path in life didn’t lead to the medical examiner’s office. The work is SO interesting and I love the people.

Onto my very last birthday event — my family came in from Long Island and Vermont to take me out to dinner. It was great, and such a pleasure to not be the one who has to take a train home at the end of the evening! This is my brother Douglas’s family, Greg, Robin and Ellie:

Now, I must apologize to my brothers, but they were sitting closest to me and the angle was not flattering. For the record, my brothers are handsomer than the scrunched in faces you see in these pictures. This is my scrunched in brother Peter and his wife Karen and their son Chris. Hey, Karen’s a little scrunched in here, too. Sorry Karen. Chris escaped the scrunched-in look.

This is Pete and Karen’s daughter Nicole, with my father and step-mother Arlene (who have been married 30 years!):

And this is my scrunched in brother Douglas and my father. Actually, Doug doesn’t look so much scrunched as totally drunk and tipped over. I swear he wasn’t loaded. We’re all probably too old and gray to be able to tell anymore, but my father and brothers all have light hair and eyes and coloring. I am SO adopted. Thanks family, for coming into the city and for the dinner and presents!!

Last night was the Loser’s Lounge tribute to Abba, it was great. I’m going back again tonight, and it may not be too late to get tickets for tonight or tomorrow. Don’t miss it!!

Here are pictures from previous shows. The middle one is my friend Lianne Smith.

We are putty in this kitten’s paws. Bow before the sleepy kitty. (First seen on Cuteoverload, thank you Cuteoverload, then downloaded from YouTube, thank you YouTube and Catheroo. I got some writing done, but that’s it so far on my to-do list. It was the most important though, so now I can goof off for a little while.)

[Video removed because the link no longer works.]

I had breakfast with a couple of the detectives from the Cold Case Squad, Tommy Wray and Steve Kaplan. Steve wouldn’t let me take his picture, the BIG BABY. Tommy Wray is retiring this week. Breaks my heart. And his. He doesn’t really want to retire. Hopefully I’ll get to write about why. The really sad part is he’s retiring with the Christine Diefenbach case unsolved (this was one of the cold cases I wrote about — Christine was a 14-year-old kid who was murdered in Queens almost 20 years ago now). Talk about heartbreak.

Diane and Brian were married yesterday at St. John the Divine. My flash messed up when they came down aisle, and I didn’t recover quickly enough. You can’t see Brian. (I got to sit behind the choir! My favorite was a procession by Ludovico Grossi da Viadana which they sang at the beginning. I’d never heard anything by this composer before, but I’m not terribly knowledgeable about early music.)

Here is Brian later!

And my friends Tom, Cori and Jim. Isn’t this a great shot?

And here’s a freaking peacock that was outside the church! There’s a picture of a peacock on the church’s website, so apparently peacocks are a thing there. Hello peacock!