Lost Voyages; 2016 Edition

In observation of My Dear Elderly Mother's birthday this year, we made a triumphant return to The Precinct in a birthday dinner redux of where we celebrated in 2015.  Just as with last year, Lou picked up the bill.  Make no mistake, there are so many digits on a bill at Jeff Ruby's restaurants that you need a forklift to pick up a check.

We were seated this year in a heavily-mirrored alcove which presented opportunities for image reflected selfies.  

After dinner, as the conversation turned to old/classic films my youngest niece succumbed to a wave of boredom and engaged in several interminable minutes of uninterrupted peace-sign and duckface selfies.  Obviously, the narcissism did not bother me - have you met me? - nor the duckfaces but rather the insufferable, filthy-hippie peace signs!  There was only so much I could take before corrective measures were employed:

As that great humorist and fellow Miami University alumnus PJ O'Rourke wrote, Give War A Chance.  Look for this picture to grace your 2016 Xmas cards.  I hope it will receive a prominent position of honor on your mantle.

The conversation which most interested my nieces was a discussion about the old Stewart School pencil vending machines at Stewart Junior High School.  I thought those were the greatest pencils (was it 3 pencils for a dime?) and - this will come as no surprise to Big Jeff - I still have one:

Did I mention dinner?  I ordered The Brennaman:

I post this photo of my steak for Josh who lately has been dining on, as one might imagine, a steady caloric-deprived diet of sub-tropical and tropical fruits, rice, beans and bottled water and cerveza of questionable sanitary production.  I ordered my filet to be prepared medium with a dollop (shovel?) of garlic butter, mashed potatoes and some unidentifiable green stuff which I disdainfully ignored.  Dessert was creme brulee.  Full disclosure; I didn't eat another bite of food for the following 22 hours.

Three times in the first three months of 2016 I had lunch a Montgomery Inn, once at the original location on Montgomery Road:

"That place is so busy nobody goes there any more."

The ribs king!  I had the chicken.

At the original Monty, my table was graced by the presence of excellent artwork:

Twice I had lunch at the Boathouse with a secretive society of successful, powerful, ruggedly handsome Talawanda grads known to the outside world only as the Boathouse 4 [or something.  We'll need to work on our mysterious-but-cool nomenclature].  I am permitted only to share with the public the view we had from our table:

I had the chicken,  Both times.

I thought I saw a ghost one afternoon while on patrol through our northern territories:

Many of you will recall with fondness, as I do, our old white 1989 Honda Civic DX hatchback that we had briefly in 1989 and 1990.  I loved that old car.  It was lightweight, had blistering acceleration and could be thrown into corners at frightening velocity.  Not that Claudio and I ever did that kind of thing in the car.  That would be crazy.  Alas, it did not have power steering (nor a/c, nor power windows, nor power locks... this was the 1980s) and Mr B thought that was too burdensome.  I disagree.  To this day I vehemently assert that old '89 Civic hatch didn't require power steering.  Lucky that I was able to photograph the '89 Civic hatchback from the command center of our current hot hatchback.

Last month Lou and I had cause to make an 8-hour round-trip road trip/business trip that I think may qualify for my first vacation in a decade or more.  One benefit of our excursion was that it afforded me the opportunity to have lunch at DQ, of which there are scant few anywhere within hailing distance of The Ranch.

At mile marker 175 southbound on I-71 during the return portion of our foray I took this photo of virga:

Last week I took in my first high school softball game in about 25 years when I went to watch my oldest niece take the field as the freshman starting third baseman for her school's JV squad.

That day she had a hit and a walk, scored a run and made some great throws to first.  This softball season follows her stellar performance as the low scorer on the JV golf team back in the fall.  Here she was hitting her drive 500 yards (plus or minus) and putting for a triple eagle (or something):

Roll the credits!