Cats Like Us Blog — lifestyle

Back in September we had the pleasure to attend the 2nd annual New England Shake-Up! in Sturbridge, MA, which is a music festival celebrating great music and style of the 50's. This is a quick roundup of our adventure, and most certainly does not capture how much fun we had! The location, attractions, and food! The event was located at The Sturbridge Host, a hotel and conference center located in Sturbridge MA, about a 6 hour drive from Cats Like Us in Buffalo, NY.   The entire event is located in or around the conference center, which was very convenient...

I have to say I am shocked to find that I haven't featured a Mai Tai on the blog! A Tiki lovin', cocktail sippin' gal like myself enjoys a good mai tai and my favorite recipe that I make at home is the Trader Vic's 1944 recipe. As Beachbum Berry writes, "A Mai Tai should not be red.  A Mai Tai should not be blue.  The Bum has been served Mai Tais in every color of the rainbow, and the time has come to put his foot down (a gesture that would have more impact were he not now lying...

We're excited to announce the return of Monstermatt Monday's, which will be featured on the last Monday of every month. Will it be jokes? Will it be drawings or paintings? Either way, let the ghoul times roll! (har har...)   Lon Chaney Jr. as The Mummy. Painting by Monstermatt Patterson   Monstermatt was voted Artvoice's 2014 Best of Buffalo, Best Painter! We're so excited for him!   Connect with Monstermatt: Twitter : @1Monstermatt Facebook Shop Monstermatt's joke book   --Meagan Kyla

On to part two of my Tiki road trip in Ohio! After leaving Columbus we made our way to Cleveland to shop at Sweet Lorain (my most favorite vintage store in the world!) and spend the evening checking out Porco Lounge and Tiki Room.   We were greeted by our bartender who was enthusiastic and was eager to help us any questions about the menu. Our drinks were delicious (I lost count after the third one) and we even made some new friends (Hi Phil!), we certainly felt like we were hanging out at a friend's lounge with such a...

Here is part 2 of 3 of our blue bathroom re-do. Please do read the other parts here: Save The Blue Bathroom Part 1 - Part 3 So the hunt was on to replace the sink, toilet, and tub with a blue one. We went to the ReUse stores and estate sales... Amazingly we ended up finding a matching toilet and sink, and sliding shower doors on Craigslist locally only a few blocks away! The Tub Next was the tub, but it was so SOLID – I think our 1950s era house was built around it. We had the idea...

This story started out so innocently... One day I noticed the caulking around the tub needed replacing. I would just re-caulk the edge around the tub... but hey this tile is loose... and another... and... oh there's mold behind this drywall -- 4 hours later half the tiled wall was torn out and some pretty nasty drywall removed. With our limited budget and love of retro bathrooms, we decided to just repair the wall and re-stick the tile. But this led to a bigger discussion – should we redo the rest of the bathroom? We are fans of retrorenovation.com and...

Well now, we've just got this Tiki train started with My 2013 Tiki Road Trip Part I, so now it's time to grab myself a Mai Tai and dive once again into part two!   After our adventures at Caffeine Bistro & Wine Bar and their Kona Tiki Bar, we said good-bye to my parents and headed to Sarasota, FL. where we visited the only Trader Vic's Island Bar & Grill chain restaurant known in the US, which is not to be confused with Trader Vic's more upscale bars and lounges. Note: As I'm now researching the link for Trader...

Many areas across America are home to kitchy treasures leftover from the 50s and 60s. Old Man River is one such establishment and for over 30 years has been a summertime destination on the Niagara Street Waterfront. This iconic summertime destination has everything a quintessential hot dog stand should: burgers, sweet potato fries, ice cream and of course (arguably) the best hot dogs around – the Sahlens hot dog. But thats a whole other conversation...  They even serve up a Bunny Dog:  a marinated, grilled carrot, served on a hot dog roll! Literally down the road from Cats Like Us...

Another Monster Matt installment from Ha-Ha! Horror (soon to be a book!) Munster, Go Tiki!   You can haunt MonsterMatt on the web: www.monstermatt.com Ha-Ha! Horror Shop Monster Matt's joke book Come on back to the Cats Like Us blog for the last Monday of every month for some more MonsterMatt madness!   -Andrew

Who is this unsuspecting MonsterMatt person? I have to say I meet the most interesting people working at Cats Like Us, so many of our friends have started off as friends of customers or customers and MonsterMatt is no different. You'd never know by looking at his vanilla exterior that his love of monster movies is so vast. Horror love is readily apparent through his creative talents, and if you ever want to talk bad horror movies, this is the guy you should have in on the conversation! Now without any further delay let me introduce you to MonsterMatt. 1....