Food, Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co., Furniture, Fusion, and Flowers

This week was another adventure in Pittsburgh cuisine, hanging with friends, gardening miracles, and our new couch and bedroom furniture finally arrived.

Last weekend we went to the Mediterranean Grill on Forbes in Squirrel Hill. It's hidden in a basement, and the street level sign is very small, so we'd missed it before. The food was very plain and overpriced for what it is, so we think Aladdin's Eatery is waaaay better.

On Tuesday evening one of Dave's friends invited us to her apartment for dinner and games. We decided on Settlers of Catan since none of us had played it before. We set up the beginner layout and read the Almanac to learn the rules. It took hours to finish the game (Dave won in a shocking comeback when he took my Largest Army card), but it was interesting.

On Wednesday our new couch arrived. It's bigger than I thought it would be:


It totally dominates the room.

The cats wouldn't sit directly on it for a couple of days (although they would sit on ME on it, or on a blanket). Today Jackie had a breakthrough moment and gave herself a bath on the chaise lounge.

Wednesday night we went to Walnut Grill in Shadyside. We meant to try Doc's Place because they advertised 1/2-price entrees on Wednesdays, but realized that it was just a bar on two levels and didn't look like a pleasant place to dine what with all the smoking. So we went across the street and found the Walnut Grill, which I think will become our go-to restaurant for casual dining.

Today the bedroom furniture I ordered 2 months ago finally arrived.



I haven't attached the drawer pulls yet.

I found a fantastic massage therapist in Squirrel Hill who really knows what he's doing: Jack Schmitt of Fusion Massage Therapy on Murray Ave. This is no mamby-pamby aromatherapy relaxation to the sounds of Enya massage. Jack goes right for the tight sore spots and releases the trigger points causing headaches and backaches. Turns out he and his wife are also co-op members, and they produce the organic plant starters for the store so we had a lot of Pittsburgh food activism news to talk about during my therapy.

In gardening news, the pumpkin vines are about 6 feet long now, and there's a tiny female pumpkin blossom beginning to form on one of them.


One day this tiny bump will become a great pumpkin!