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Finally. After months, NEW SPIRITS in downtown Baltimore. And at great prices, too.

After months of anticipation and waiting - on my part - Jim Amato's Urban Cellars is finally open next door to the Peanut Shoppe's new location and just a few steps away from 21201's new SuperFresh grocery store at 222 N Charles Street, Baltimore.

I've written before about the oddness of having to go to RiteAid for a bottle of wine or scotch when friends were coming over.

No longer do we, as residents of downtown Baltimore's City Center, have to buy our Band-Aids and Brandy and Benedryl in the same store. That change is a wonderful, wonderful thing!

Here's the very best news: Jacob and I were at Urban Cellars last week shopping for our Friday cocktail party and for our private New Year's Eve celebration. Jacob had been to Urban Cellars before. I hadn't. He asked me to check the shelf prices and I expected them to be high due to the store's location.

THEY WERE NOT!

Every bottle of wine (Urban Cellars has an International Collection), every six-pack of beer (Urban Cellars offers the finest and coldest and some of the most unusual), and every bottle of liquor (their selection blew my socks off) was priced equal to or less than what you'd pay at any Maryland liquor store. And, certainly less than you'd pay at the drug store.

Stay tuned. Amato tells me that Urban Cellars is planning some extradorinary tastings and events.

Avenue Q - Quintessentially Quotable

After over twenty years of being a regular theatre-goer, something strange and wonderful happened Saturday night.

I expect to walk home, after seeing a musical, humming the two or three most memorable tunes. And as an utterly and completly tone-deaf singer, it's a torment - if not a true torture - for my friends.

Saturday Jacob and I saw Avenue Q at Baltimore's Hippodrome and we walked home reciting the hysterically funny, rude, politically incorrect, and downright nasty lines. We were laughing like the show was still going on. For us, it was. We both agreed that you haven't really lived until you've been given the finger by a puppet. Or, watched puppets DOING IT complete with dramatic lighting and sound effects and well placed gasps.

You haven't lived until you've watched a gay puppet come out of the closet to his friends and immediately go back in his apartment for a three-way. Avenue Q is heady stuff. (I'm not giving anything away here. The plot is not complex.)

So, what exactly were we and most of the audience laughing at that evening? Here are a couple of G-Rated samples (for the really good quotes - R-Rated and X, get tickets):

[On a Missed Teaching Assignment]
Kate Monster: Hello?
Mrs. Thistletwat: Good afternoon, Katherine. If you may recall, you were supposed to teach my class this morning while I got my heart replaced. You left the children unattended for three hours! They created their own tribal society and were about to sacrifice poor little Brittany! Where were you?
Kate Monster: I overslept! I'm so sorry!
Mrs. Thistletwat: I should never have hired a monster.
Kate Monster: What?
Mrs. Thistletwat: Your race is notoriously lazy!
Kate Monster: Well, better a monster than a crabby old bitch!
Mrs. Thistletwat: Crabby old bitches are the backbone of this nation!

[On Schadenfreude]
Nicky: How 'bout straight A students getting B's?
Gary: Exes getting STDs!
Nicky: Waking doormen from their naps!
Gary: Watching tourists reading maps!
Nicky: Football players getting tackled!
Gary: CEOs getting shackled!
Nicky: Watching actors never reach
Both: The ending of their Oscar speech!

[On Gift-giving & Investments]
Trekkie Monster: Me give you ten million dollars!
Princeton: Trekkie! Where did you get all that money?!?
Trekkie Monster: In volatile market, only stable investment is porn!

NOTICE: As advertised, the Tony award winning, Avenue Q is "Not Fur the Kiddies"... It's apparently not FUR most grandparents either. The ladies on either side of us looked Queasier and Queasier with each drop of the F-Bomb. But hey, they should have known that they - for about two fun hours - were going to live on Avenue Q!

Belly of the Beast? Nope. Today, I Was in the Brain of the Beast!

If you enjoy Baltimore 21201... If you've lived in Baltimore for any period of time... If you love our city and its landmarks... and, if you've ever dreamed about being in a seemingly impossible place to visit... then you must have thought about being in the clock room of the Bromo Seltzer Tower. I was there today. It was a dream fulfilled. I was INSIDE the clocks.

I'm a fairly new member of the Baltimore Architecture Foundation and while I attend their Forum Series, I didn't know how wonderful these tours could be. Adam Blumenthal, BAF's executive director, served as tour guide and was a wealth of information. (He also drives an old, cranky, brass-cage elevator like a veteran.)

Adam found me -- and my blog -- by way of looking for information on Baltimore's BG&E building conversion to luxury apartments. It seems that if you Google "BG&E Building" this blog hits the top of the charts. Odd, but true.


Adam began the tour on the ground floor by way of explaining the footprint of the building. As we arrived on the third floor, we saw drawings of the entire building -- inside and out -- including the Bromo Seltzer bottle that was on top decades ago. We learned about the wind sheer that probably caused the steel and glass advertising fixture to be removed.

Here's the deal: If you want an opportunity like the one I had today, join the Baltimore Architecture Foundation and every group like it.

And on some of these tours be prepared to climb some radical stairs. It's all worth it.

21201 Snow Later in the Day

Earlier today I mentioned the new lights in the trees at Charles Center. Here are a couple of photos taken just a short while ago.

Our 7.5 million-dollar front yard is special. Who could ask for anything more? And, we don't have to mow the grass, water the trees or clean the snow on the walk ways.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, etc.

If you visited this blog last winter, then you know that we love the snow. And, this year we need it more than ever. On a practical level, with the ground water shortage on the eastern seaboard so very low, I'd be happy to see it snow all winter. On a personal level... It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas! I'll let a couple of photos say the rest.

Beautiful from inside our house.

The new Charles Center park could not look more set for the holidays.

There are tiny Christmas lights in all of the trees. Come to City Center and visit our front yard!