Rain - Water water everywhere

The hot water heater went out Friday right at 5pm. Hows that for dumb luck? Had it replaced this morning and we're happily cleaning all the things that were deferred over the weekend.

The snow, we think is gone for the year and so we've started assessing the damage to the cactus gardens. Went by my friend Joe's house, all the arms on his cactus just snapped off during the snow. His giant agave had a hard time as well.
No matter, the great thing with cactus is you can just plant it again and it will root.

Watching Grey Gardens on Netflix. It's reminding me of a lady I knew about 20 years ago in Palm Beach. When I was 20 I worked in a small grocery by the beach. There was a woman who would come in, she seemed quite lucid, but she also was a little off. She didn't drive, rarely had more than 5.00 with her but obviously came from a privileged background... she just wasn't your typical Palm Beach retiree. She dressed really simply at a time when everyone seemed to be wearing gaudy gold sandals and gold straw hats. She'd sit with me while I took a break and tell me stories about growing up in Conneticut, she said she knew my father. I had a hard time believing that. She seemed very lonely.

She told me a lawyer managed her trust and she was on a fixed income. Almost everyone I knew in Palm Beach had a trust or inheritance, so I didn't think much of it. I extended her credit and she always paid on time, so it was never a problem. I changed jobs and was working making pastries at a restaurant during the week and selling at antiques shows on the weekends, she tracked me down and would come in for lunch once a week. From our talks I gathered that her family wanted to put her in a group home. That year I received a Christmas card from her, sent to me c/o the restaurant, inside were 5 $100 dollar bills. I felt that I ought to return it but I never saw her again.
I wish I could remember that woman's name, she was truly a mystery.

So now that I'm watching Grey Gardens for the first time ever, I am baffled that anyone would name a business after this.. Makes me wonder if they were always a little nuts, or if it came on softly and got worse as time passed.

On a completely different note: Went to 24/7 Diner this weekend, everyone is going nuts for the place. I was exceedingly BAD and had a blue cheese and bacon burger with roast brocolini. I can see why they're so popular. We split a Banana Brown Sugar Milkshake with a shot of espresso for the ride home. Stellar!
Their decor was a bit wonky though. 4 really neat industrial hoppers turned into downlights, but the rest of the lighting fell a little flat. A cluster of home crafted plumbing pipe things painted gloss black with bulbs screwed in at the junctions. Oddly there were two very small scale scientific posters illustrating the solar rotation, I didn't get it but Jim pointed out the whole 24-7 concept and then it sort of made sense. Sort of.

If I owned a restaurant and were going for an industrial look, I'd have chosen vintage butcher charts of chickens, pigs and cows and farming growth charts for local vegetables. But it's always easy to point fingers.