Out and About at Home, Part II

So, we left off at the new kitchen store and the new Thai restaurant.  I keep peeking in the kitchen store door and I don't think it will be open by September 1, but it may come close.

A very exciting piece of news is that Marshall University has bought the old Stone and Thomas department store buildiing and plans to move its arts program there.  This is right across from Pullman Square (hmmm...I'm going to go see if one of my existing pictures includes it...be right back)  Yes, in fact if you look at "Out and About, Part I", the first picture for the hot dog festival that shows the Pullman Square canopy with 3 stories of another building behind it...that's the building.  It's a 6-story building and has been a really huge eyesore on this street.  The other buildings are all owned by a local physician who has made even his vacant buildings very attractive (and I think now is down to just one or two vacant - at least for first floors of them).  But this building was languishing, with huge, dirty, cracked windows looking in on first a junk-type "shop", then an empty, torn up shell - ugly in other words.  So this is really great news.  I'm sure it won't be a quick change because there will be a LOT of work to be done, but at least it's good to know it's going to happen.

I took this picture of our most recent success story one night when I was at Pullman Square.  It's the paint-your-own pottery place and business has really been booming there.  You look in the windows in the evening and there are kids, grown-ups, golden year types, men, everyone seems to love it which is great.

And here's a picture of the River Tower building about a block up from Pullman Square.  It's a beautiful building, I think and is mostly offices.  But I've always seen a small sidewalk sign when I'm up that way that advertises a sandwich shop and one day last week I decided I was finally going to investigate that.  It's called Hammer's Sandwich Shop and when you go in that lovely front door, you follow a grand marble hallway all the way to the back and there it is.  The owner is very affable, the prices are very reasonable, and the two times now that I've eaten there, it's been very tasty.

And writing about that one makes me remember I tried out another newish place - the Tea Room in Heritage Station which is located right behind the River Tower Building.  It is delightful - very much a tea shop with teapots and teacups everywhere.  They're only open for lunch on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and have a set menu, but you can kind of rearrange the menu to your liking.  I had a delicious chicken salad sandwich there and it was also very reasonably priced.  I'll try and remember to take a picture or two of the interior the next time I'm there.  Oh, and also in that same space, tucked away behind a separating wall is the frame shop of my favorite framer, Jenks, who used to own a craft store in Huntington and did his framing there.  He always lets me poke around in his various framing jobs and it's fun seeing what everyone else is getting done.  My first lunch there was because I took a postcard my grandson sent me from Paris to have framed.  I liked what it said so much on the back, that I wanted to be able to see both sides and Jenks took care of that for me.

And these last couple pictures are just pictures...I love crepe myrtle bushes - not only are they lovely, but they seem to stay in bloom forever!  I'd say it's been at least about two months now that I've been seeing them.  This isn't one of the most gorgeous, but I was there, it was there and I took a picture.

And this is just a young one enjoying the fountain at Pullman Square - the kids do love it.  This morning, I saw a little girl (probably just 3 or so,) who seemed entranced with it - had dipped her hands in and then ended up standing there sticking her tongue out waiting for the spray to hit, I guess.  Cute as a button and, of course, reminded me of my little Sophia.

So, I think that's all the news from Huntington for now.  No, wait...there's actually one more item.  Last night was the last "Picnic with the Pops" which is the Huntington Symphony Orchestra's summer program of concerts down at the riverfront.  This year, for the first time, as part of their fund-raising efforts, they had a "Symphony Stroll" where you paid $10 and got a ticket to go to five different restaurants downtown and get "little bites".  So I did that and brought all my bites back home to have with a glass of wine.  Friends and I had talked about then going to the concert but it ended up raining and finally pouring.  I read in the paper this morning that they managed to get about half-way through the concert before they had to cease and desist.  But all in all, I think it was a success.  At one of the restaurants, they told me they had 300 tickets they punched, so the idea was well received.  One of the friends who had planned on going to the concert came to my place and we took a glass of wine up on the roof cause she had never been up there.  Then when she left and I had walked her out of the building, I ran into a neighbor walking her dogs so we went back to her apartment and had a nice visit with another glass of wine.  I slept well last night! :)

To keep myself from worrying about my upcoming trip (which I start doing about this time), I'm going to work on my recipe collection.  I want to get it set up by categories and then add in some of my long-time favorite recipes.  So if you've visited my collection at some point and found anything of interest, give me a little time (between now and when I leave for Italy) and check it out again.