Woke up with a horrible bout of allergies again this morning. When will this spring pollen allergy end?!? Caitlin asked if I wanted to brave the line at Tom's for brunch today. Tom's restaurant is a place we pass by on the way to Cheryl's for brunch. There's always a very long line that snakes out of the restaurant and around the block. When we passed by one time, a busboy was handing out orange wedges to everyone on line. So today we decided to join that horde of people waiting for a table at Tom's. The wait was long, the amount of time we stood in line, we could've walked to Cheryl's and back. But the people of Tom's make you want to wait. Soon after stepping in line, we were handed free coffee, followed by free cookies, then free orange wedges. Anyone ol' freeloader would have called it a day and stepped out of line after that, but we soldiered on. By the time we sat down, I had already studied the menu by the door and knew what I wanted. Caitlin ordered lemon-ricotta pancakes while I had corned beef hash with soft scrambled eggs and home fries PLUS apple walnut pancakes AND a tall serving of egg cream.

That's Caitlin with my vanilla egg cream.

Two out of three of those plates were MINE.

On the way back we passed by a Craft Fair and I scored a few items, a cute little crafty apron with a munster flipping pancakes on them and a limited edition framed print of a trashcan with flowers on them. Hehe. There were several stoop sales on the way back and I got a few little items each of them $3 or less. When I got home I made myself a nice and refreshing watermelon cooler.

Sometimes I take home the used bottles from the restaurant bar and strip them of their labels and decorate them with twine. Don't they look pretty on the window sill? I got the poppy stems from a cute little store a few blocks from the apartment.