The Big Deception......

.....didn't want to say lie, but the last two posts where I told you I was going to Santa Fe was just that, a lie.  That's because I went and took a last minute long weekend to Buffalo for a friend's surprise 50th birthday party.  Her husband Jim and a some of her girlfriends put it together and it was a real surprise.  I stayed in the background with probably her longest friend, Shell, who she was also very surprised to see and let her greet and hug everyone and at one point in time we were back-to-back.  Anyway when she saw me she looked like this.

Later on we resembled this.

Donna, me, Shell and Lyn, I know I wish I could lose a chin and gain eyebrows.  Working on it.  I've known Lyn and Shell since the summer before 9th grade.  Lyn, Donna and I were also college roomates.

The Joes

Me and Shell with Lyn's friend Claire and her sister Jenny.  Got the red wine mouth already.

The only photographs I took at the party cause I can't have that camera out when I drink.  But the blowing out of candles is important to document

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Lyn and her sister LouAnn.

It was a fun time and I fell off the proverbial wagon I had self-imposed after the kidney pains I had in early Feburary.  But in reality I drank so much water, even though I drank a bottle of wine and a couple rum and cokes I really wasn't that spent Sunday morning.  We had a loungy Sunday watched a movie, ate beef on weck ( another Buffalo delicacy) and then the Academy Awards.  (I'll go on about those a later time)

On the Friday before however I was not so smart.  My friend Donna and I did a little drinking before during and after our Fish Fry which explains this photograph:

Yep that's my fish fry. Big Fish probably out of Lake Erie, which I hope is safe. Donna wanted to get a photo of me and my fish, so here it is.  I know I hold nothing back.

Later we went to a neighborhood bar in downtown Hamburg, NY.

We looked a lot like this while we sucked down some foo-foo martinis.  They were gooood. Too good.

This guy got a kick out of us and he served as our private photographer and without us knowing paid for our wonderful martinis.  Thank you dude who once worked in cable TV and lived in Denver.  He was out with his sister and I 'll leave it at that.

 Anyway we woke up Sunday morning and we both had furry tongues and a tad slow but we came around rather quickly and took a trip to Niagara Falls with Donna's boyfriend Peter.

Peter and Donna with the American Falls in the background.

It was a forty degree day but was chilly with the wind and mist.

Niagara Falls. Ontario, is in the background.

We stopped at the famous Anchor Bar and attempted to eat 50 chicken wings but only knocked out maybe half of them.  I probably ate the most.

  They were marvelous.

The rest of these are Buffalo at 60 mph.

Most of the Steel mills are closed.  A few work at minimum capacity.

Many of the old closed mills have lake front property.  Some renovations are being planned but some are protective of the historical buildings, which befuddles me because sometimes history must be razed for the good of the city.  It's like the plague, it must be eradicated.

How would you like to like in this neighborhood with a old mill looming in the background?

Anyway had a great time, it was a last minute whirlwind trip and I saw only Buffalo people.  I didn't get a chance to see my family but I plan to in May, I promise.  The end.

Oh by the way, O'Hare airport is the smelliest place with the rudest MF's, take that Chicago.  You don't deserve Jay Cutler.