Weekly Updates – Page 26 – Keith Robertson

Week in Review – August 23, 2020

A pretty severe storm rolled through on Sunday evening after I published the blog last week. The forecast had said this would miss us completely, so Diana had to scramble to get the sunbathing area all covered up.

My Best Man Denny’s Mum passed away this week after a lengthy battle with cancer. We enjoyed so many laughs, often at Denny’s expense, and meals with Diann over the years, and will really miss her kindness and her smile.

I watched an episode of “Mediterranean Living” on television that showed an American family moving to Almunecar on the Spanish Andalusian coast. The weather was much nicer there and the town looked perfect. I had Diana watch it and she was as shocked as me at how inexpensive the rent was on some gorgeous villas. Should we start learning Spanish? Might be worth a visit when we can travel again.

The calendar for August is completely open. We remember when it was a complicated tracker of me going one direction, Diana going another, and trying to figure out when we would go to Austin rather than staying in McKinney. All that as well as concerts and restaurant reservations. I did have three outings this week – a haircut on Monday, physical therapy on Tuesday, and a trip to Filtered in downtown McKinney for coffee with Penelope and Diana – those and four trips to the gym for swims.

Saturday was a lovely, cooler morning to sit outside and enjoy that coffee. There was only one fly in the ointment – McD beat me at the crossword by a full minute plus. She completed the puzzle in 7:03 with me straggling behind at 8:08.

Prior to the coffee excursion, we enjoyed a fast paced 3 mile walk. The Apple watch refuses to count Diana’s walks unless she gets her heart rate up above 100 eats per minute – a big source of annoyance. No matter how fast she walks, her heart rate doesn’t get there. So…she’s taken to doing regular runs to boost her rate – she runs away from me and then turns around to rejoin me. Speaking of running McD – she did run a 5K distance this week – effectively fully completing the couch to 5K program.

It happened again on Sunday. We went to Duino for coffee and the crossword. I lost again! McD finished in 7 minutes again, besting me by at least 30 seconds. All that running has got her brain firing on all cylinders. I’m going to have to up my speed solving abilities. Losing two days in a row is a non-starter for sure.

The “memories” feature of the iPhone showed me these excellent memories of August 20, 2019. The Marc Cohn and Blind Boys of Alabama concert form the wonderful Saratoga Mountain Winery. What a great memory indeed.

We had Laureano, a new colleague from our Guatemala Technology Center, join our Happy Hour on Thursday evening. We started talking about traveling and he shared a story from his honeymoon a few years ago – he and his new bride had toured the Vatican and asked about a special service for newly weds. It was a couple of days out and would disrupt their travel plans, but his wife convinced Laureano that they should try to attend. Do you think it was worth staying?:

Laureano couldn’t find the picture on his computer and I was quite impressed as he navigated through the Vatican website (all Italian) to find this shot.

Another work friend had a bit of a scary experience this week. His son was crouched down by a river on their deer lease at night and he noticed a coiled up rattlesnake less than 2 feet away from his bottom. Dad took care of the issue as a native Texan would:

I’ve started reading the “Splendid and the Vile” by Erik Larson. It’s about Churchill, his family, and the years 1940 and 1941 when Britain stood strong against a potential invasion by Germany. Reading about Churchill brought to mind an old Supertramp song that I first heard on the “Paris” double live album (remember those?). I believe that “Fool’s Overture” is largely about World War II and the lessons to be learned about ignoring growing threats. Here’s the first verse:

“History recalls how great the fall can be
While everybody’s sleeping, the boats put out to sea
Borne on the wings of time
It seemed the answers were so easy to find
“Too late, ” the prophets cry
The island’s sinking, let’s take to the sky”

Here’s the live version:

The song first appeared on the album “Even in the Quietest Moments”, released in 1977. Supertramp is often referred to as an English group, although their bass player, Dougie Thompson, is Scottish – as evidenced by the Glasgow Herald he’s reading in the diner picture on the back of the “Breakfast in America” album. I like the album cover art with the snow covered grand piano in the mountains. Some research revealed that the group recorded the album in Colorado and put the piano (which doesn’t have any insides) on a ski slope one evening, photographing it the next morning after a snow storm had cleared. The small details really make their album covers. What’s the music on the piano? It’s titled “Fool’s Overture” but is actually “The Star Spangled Banner”.

I decided to try and learn the introduction to “Fool’s Overture” for my piano tune this week. It’s a bit challenging as you can see in this video of my efforts:

More work required. I can play it through just fine without the video recording going. No, really!

I don’t have a guitar song to share this week – the piano one occupied all of my free time. Back to the book now.

Here’s an interesting picture from the inside front cover. Look at the men selecting books from library shelves that are still standing in the rubble:

I’m 125 pages in at this point and here are some interesting passages from what I’ve read:

“Mine is an intimate account that delves into how Churchill and his circle went about surviving on a daily basis: the dark moments and the light, the romantic entanglements and debacles, the sorrows and laughter, and the odd little episodes that reveal how life was really lived under Hitler’s tempest of steel. This was the year in which Churchill became Churchill, the cigar-smoking bulldog we all think we know, when he made his greatest speeches and showed the world what courage and leadership looked like.”

“Coveting power for power’s sake was a “base” pursuit, he wrote, adding, “But power in a national crisis, when a man believes he knows what orders should be given, is a blessing.” He felt great relief. “At last I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial…”

“With a German victory in France nearly certain, British intelligence now forecast that Germany might invade England immediately, without waiting for a formal French surrender. The British expected that an invasion would begin with a titanic onslaught by the German air force, potentially a “knock out” blow – or, as Churchill called it, and aerial “banquet” – with as many as fourteen thousand aircraft darkening the sky.”

“But fighter production lagged. England’s aircraft plants operated on a prewar schedule that did not take into account the new reality of having a hostile force based just across the channel. Production, though increasing, was suppressed by the fusty practices of a peacetime bureaucracy.”

I love the picture painted by the word fusty, and remember my parents asking me why I had such a “fusty face” going.

“Goring harbored a distorted perception of what by now was unfolding off the coast of Dunkirk, as British soldiers – nicknamed Tommies – prepared to evacuate. “Only a few fishing boats are coming across,” he said on Monday, May 27. “One hopes that the Tommies know how to swim.”

“The Tommies did not, after all, have to swim. In the end, 887 vessels carried out the Dunkirk evacuation, of which only a quarter belonged to the Royal Navy. Another 91 were passenger ships, the rest an armada of fishing boats, yachts, and other small craft. In all, 338, 226 men got away.”

His most famous speech:

“As he neared the conclusion of the speech, he fired his boilers. “We shall go on to the end,” he said, in a crescendo of ferocity and confidence. “We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

“To watch him compose some telegram or minute for dictation is to make one feel that one is present at the birth of a child, so tense is his expression, so restless his turnings from side to side, so curious the noises he emits under his breath.”

I’m reminded of the bomb shelters that were in back gardens of the big cities in Britain during this time – about 2 million were distributed. My Dad was a kid living in Glasgow and so was the potential target of bombing raids. My Mum lived in the country and so was less at risk. I think I remember a bomb shelter out behind where my Grandpa Robertson lived. Not sure if I’m imagining that or not. These days, many of the shelters remain in gardens and are often used as garden sheds. Here’s a link to an interesting article in The Guardian about these:

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/21/how-britains-abandoned-anderson-shelters-are-being-brought-back-to-life

I’ve been listening to “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins during my swims this week. It’s a story about Lydia and her son, who try to escape Acapulco and Mexico after her husband and most of her family are killed by a drug cartel. An initial twist is that Lydia is a bookstore owner and one of her best and favourite customers is the head of the cartel that carried out the killings. She is devastated when she discovers this and thus begins an attempted escape to Colorado. It’s still early in the story but I suspect her escape exploits are about to become quite harrowing.

What’s happening in the week ahead? Absolutely nothing exciting that I can think of, other than exercise, physical therapy and a busy week of work. We’re hopeful that the bathroom will be usable next weekend. I’m contemplating trying John Prine’s “Hello in There” on the piano and will search for something good for the guitar.

Open in Spotify

Week in Review – August 16, 2020

“103 Years Old”

Hello again. Not much happening here in McKinney this week. Just working from home, reading, eating, exercising and sleeping. I’m pleased to announce that with all this time eating at home, McD has become an accomplished outdoor griller. Burgers, steak, salmon, shrimp and veggies are all cooked perfectly these days. Here’s some perfectly cooked shrimp and a lovely salad that I enjoyed:

My annual physical (personal M.O.T.) rolled around again this week. ECG, prostate, and most blood tests (still waiting on a few) all show positive and healthy results. Maybe I’ll be brave enough to go for the day long full battery of tests that my company offers next year. In addition to this torture, I also had my weekly Physical Therapy appointment. It really wasn’t too bad but certainly stretches the limits of what my leg and hip can do.

I loved receiving this picture from my sister-in-law, Amy, this week. That’s our newest niece, Frankie, our nephew Massimo, and their Great-Grammie. I love the looks on both of their faces. And the best part, Grammie turned 103 yesterday. She’s still walks unassisted and had cooked an apple pie for the visit. Truly amazing!

The New York Times crossword puzzle was kind to me today. The Sunday puzzle usually takes me about an hour – it’s easier but much larger than Friday and Saturday. Today was my best time by far. You’ll notice that I finished this at 7:34 am – courtesy of Diana’s early morning weight training and walk – she likes to get them in before the weather becomes too oppressive. The theme was “Alternative Cinema” – I really like the clue that I highlighted here:

With so little excitement these days, I’ve been wondering how to add something interesting to the blog. So… here goes with a new segment. I’m going to share my exploits in learning new songs on the piano and guitar. First I’ll tackle “Racing in the Street” by Bruce Springsteen – a long time favourite:

Let’s talk about those lyrics:

“I got a 69 Chevy with a 396,

Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor,

She’s waiting for me tonight,

in the parking lot,

of the Seven-Eleven store”

Other than the “69 Chevy”, it’s a bunch of Greek to a Scotsman. We don’t have souped up muscle cars and drag racing in Scotland – at least that I’m aware of. The Anglo/American cross culture flow may have changed that by now. To break it down, “Fuelie heads” are defined in my Google search like this:

“The 461 head is more popularly referred to as the “Fuelie” head, because it was introduced as standard equipment on the 1962 327ci Corvette engine that was fed by a mechanical Rochester fuel-injection system. In some bench-racing circles, all double-hump heads are classified as Fuelie heads.” Got it?

“Hurst” is basically a gear lever: “Hurst proudly maintains a wide variety of exceptional shifter products for the performance enthusiast including automatic shifters, legendary Hurst manual …”

I hadn’t heard of 7-11s until I was in training in Fort Worth and frequented the 24 hour convenience store just across from the apartment complex where we were housed. Apparently 7-11 parking lots are a gathering place for street drag racing competitions. I remember going to my first amateur drag racing event many years ago with some friends from Gearhart. Quite an experience to witness the strategy of amateur racers going through the heats with a wide variety of vehicles.

Back to the practicing – and for the guitar, I’m very early (1 day) into learning “Pride and Joy” by Stevie Ray Vaughan. When I first visited Dallas for training with the oil logging company in 1985, Stevie’s song “Change It” was all over the radio. The first riff caught my attention and had me cranking up the radio every time.

Hearing him live in Dallas in 1986 was a musical highlight. I remember being a huge fan of the live version of “Pride and Joy”.

On our Executive Committee meeting this week, I was presenting a request for some capital spend, and one of the members said he wouldn’t approve unless I played something on the guitar that he spotted in the background. He specifically requested some Stevie Ray. I managed to dodge that request but it did give me the idea for this new segment. Here’s my attempt at the first few bars. The song only gets more difficult from here. Going to take some hard work:

I listened to a short story called “Climbing with Mollie” by Bill Finnegan on a couple of my swims this week. A small MP3 player that clips onto the strap of my goggles and some waterproof earphones made this possible. Those and a bit of patience deciphering how to find an Audible book download file, convert it to MP3 format, and load it onto the player. Then some trial and error with different sized earphone end pieces and “fitgoo earbud insertion helper”. Now I’m all set to listen to books while swimming.

Finnegan won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for his memoir “Barbarian Days” which is about his fascination with surfing while he grew up in Hawaii. The book that I listened to is about his adolescent daughter, Mollie’s, passion toward rock climbing. She had been a bored non-participant in group sports – counting daisies on the soccer field and rejecting swim team – but took to rock climbing immediately. Mollie proves to be a natural-born climber and Finnegan gets hooked as well.

As Mollie progresses in the sport, the descriptions of her activities get more detailed and technical. I really enjoyed learning so much about how climbing “problems” are rated and named. The duo travel from indoor gyms to rock faces in Central Park, Mexico and Canada. I was interested to hear about their time near Queretero in Mexico – that’s where our corporate office for Mexico and Latin America is located – and one of the last places I traveled to before lock down. The descriptions of the nearby town of Bernal have me looking forward to a return visit. Pena de Bernal is the name of the monolith that dominates the skyline.

I ordered “Nashville, scenes from the new American south” with text by Ann Patchett (author of “Commonwealth” and “The Dutch House” and one of my very favourite current authors) and photographs by Heidi Ross, expecting a series of short stories about the city. Instead it turns out to be mostly a photography book with short notes from Patchett. I have enjoyed flicking through the beautiful photos for places that we’ve visited, and places that we should visit on our next trip. Here are a few of the pictures that I enjoyed. “The iconic Delbert McLinton at the iconic Union Station hotel”:

My favourite Delbert tune:

He’s clearly traveled a few miles since recording this song. The second night that I spent in the United States, I saw a Delbert McClinton concert. I convinced a few of my oilfield logging classmates, including a couple of Argentinians, to accompany me to the Caravan of Dreams music club in Fort Worth and really didn’t know what to expect. I can still remember how much I enjoyed that show and the feeling of being right at home with great blues and R&B music that wasn’t going to be easily found in Scotland. Isn’t it fun when a photograph can bring back so many memories?

Here’s a look inside the Parnassus bookstore that Ann Patchett owns with her husband:

The shop appears to have quite a nice music section.

And finally, a weekly lunch date that Sturgill Simpson and John Prine (famous Nashville based singer songwriters) enjoyed at Big Al’s Diner prior to Prine’s passing from Covid a few weeks ago:

I read the book “Silver Sparrow” by Tayari Jones this week. Sometimes I really can’t remember what possessed me to order certain books, and this is certainly one of those. I suppose it popped up on one of those “if you liked this, you’ll love this” lists or on a book review that I trust. Here’s what the Los Angeles Times reviewer had to say:

“Tayari Jones has taken Atlanta for her literary terroir, and like many of our finest novelists, she gives readers a sense of place in a deeply observed way. But more than that, Jones has created in her main characters tour guides of that region: honest, hurt, observant and compelling young women whose voices cannot be ignored . . . Impossible to put down until you find out how these sisters will discover their own versions of family.”
—Los Angeles Times

The book opens with the line, “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist.” A unique opener for sure. Silver Sparrow is the story of two young women, Dana and Chaurisse, who are the daughters of a bigamist father. Only Dana is aware that her father has another family and Dana’s existence must be kept a secret from her father’s other family. The first half of the book is told from Dana’s perspective and the second half is told from Chaurisse’s perspective as she slowly begins to realize that something isn’t quite right with her family. The last quarter of the book was certainly the best, as all the threads come together for a somewhat predictable finale. Not sure I’d recommend this one to any of you, but it did keep my attention for a couple of days.

We’ve been working our way through the Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale” over the last few weeks. What a truly bizarre and disturbing story. Perhaps mostly because we have the sense that it’s not such a long leap for our society to become something like this. That being said, the acting and directing are excellent. Several episodes have had us on the edge of our seats.

I’ve commented a couple of times on the music in the show. There’s not much of it and the deep selections had me convinced that the musical director was British. When Roy Harper’s “How does it Feel?” showed up in an episode this week I was convinced. What do you think Google revealed? The music is selected by a lady who lives in Austin! The Harper song took me quickly back to an old favourite of his from University days – “When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease”. If you listen you’ll hear one of the things that draws me to this – that’s right, the excellent brass band accompaniment. Coupled with the poignant lyrics, it’s right up K alley.

Now that I think about it, I believe I wrote about discovering this song again quite recently. Apologies for the duplication. Well, not really, it’s a great song.

What’s on deck for the coming week? Well, let’s see: a haircut on Monday; Physical Therapy on Tuesday; 3 swims worked into the calendar (I plan on listening to the audio book version of “American Dirt” for company); reading the new Churchill novel, “The Splendid and the Vile”, by Erik Larson – it covers the years 1940-1941 and the last part of the jacket blurb reads, “this book takes the readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when – in the face of unrelenting horror- Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.” We can only wish for a tiny bit of that these days.

Stay positive, calm and kind.

Week in Review – Aug 9, 2020

I’m finally able to get some exercise again. Swimming seems to be the best bet for my leg and I’ve been amazed at all the data my new Apple watch captures from my swims – total laps and yards, average and peak heart rate, yards of breaststroke versus freestyle, active and total calories expended. I did 1400 yards on Tuesday and 1500 on Friday – picking up the pace quite a bit on Friday as I got comfortable that my leg would handle it. All that technology is great and we currently have a week long competition going between Diana, Alicia and me to see who gets the most exercise and burns the most calories. McD is quite upset that she doesn’t burn as many calories for the same amount of effort – as I’ve told her, it takes a lot less effort to move her little body around than it does mine.

I saw this crazy video of Katie Ledecky balancing a glass of milk on her head while she swims a full lap. What amazing body control and balance:

The nagging and prodding all got too much and I succumbed to Physical Therapy on Tuesday. My therapist, Shenpagavadivu Sathiyamoorthy, thankfully goes by Shenda and was very thorough in understanding my situation. She’s probably nowhere close to winning a most vowels in your name contest, but should at least get a bronze star. Taking a baseline of my recovery, she had me walk in the corridor for 2 minutes and noticed that my left foot turns out when I walk and my weight is all on the outside of my foot. I explained that’s the way I’ve always walked since breaking my left ankle in University. She thinks that running in that same way put the strain on my left hip as it tried to compensate for my foot turning out, causing the stress fracture. Interesting. Now we start the exercises to strengthen everything and work on turning that left foot back in.

We’re hoping that the bathroom remodel woes are mostly behind us now. The steam shower installation is complete and all the peripherals appear to be working now. Diana and I had to play a very hands on role in supervising the initial plumber and helping him to correct his mistakes. All that remains is some argy bargy with the plumbing company over how much they would like to charge us for the first plumber that didn’t know what he was doing and spent way too much time redoing and troubleshooting his work. Diana will take the good cop first pass at that and hopefully bad cop K won’t need to make an appearance. The bathtub may be able to come inside from the front porch soon.

Will and Christine moved to a new apartment this week – a penthouse in the same building as his old one. He’s quite excited about the 20 foot vaulted ceilings, the extra bedroom, and the mountain view.

I finished “Blood” by Allison Moorer this week and I can’t remember being as affected by a book since Joan Didion’s “Year of Magical Thinking” and “Blue Nights”, as you’ll be able to tell by the number of quotes and comments that I’m sharing. The way that Moorer conveys her emotions over the years as she continues to deal with her tragic upbringing is beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

“I call the B-25 Daddy’s guitar because that’s what it is and always will be. It’s a 1964 Gibson. I’ve played it on every record I’ve ever made.”

A guitar as old as me that’s still going strong. Clearly a very good year.

“I keep it out where I, or anyone who comes into my house, can pick it up and play a tune. Daddy would like that, I think. I don’t treat it like a precious thing, but it is even though it’s so scarred.”

Even after the devastating pain and suffering inflicted on Moorer by her father, she still plays his guitar. A great example of the healing power of music.

“Guitars are mysterious. A person can practice playing one for a lifetime and never really figure out how they work.”

“Music was second nature to Mama, while Daddy had to work hard just to be an average songwriter, singer, and player. He probably had more talent for other things – but the desire to make music was deeply in him, even more than it seemed to be in her. He always looked to her for the right chord when he couldn’t find it and for the harmony parts he couldn’t hear. She was just plainly better and more naturally talented than he was. It made him deeply frustrated because she had something he didn’t but wanted badly. He despised the part of her that didn’t treat her talent for music as the most important thing in life besides, of course, him.”

This is an extreme version of the feeling I have with people who squander a natural music talent and ability. I have to work very hard to make something sound half way decent, while so many others can just sit down and do it with zero effort. And that is quite frustrating.

“Daddy’s main disease was alcoholism. But I don’t think it began and ended there. I have more than a suspicion that there was very likely something else going on, something else that didn’t allow his mind to operate properly. Normally? I don’t know what normal is.”

“Was he bipolar? I know he was depressed. His moods swung violently. He was unpredictable. He did dangerous things. I’m pretty certain he didn’t care if he lived or died. He would come up out of the misery every once in a while and when he did it felt like the sun was shining directly on you and only for you. That’s what his happiness felt like. He’d deliver a sweet “That’s my girl” and a pat on the back or the head when he was pleased with you. But that was only every once in a while.”

“He didn’t like competition. Everyone loved her. So he shrank her. He shrank her until she almost disappeared. She decided that she didn’t want to disappear anymore. Then he disappeared her for good. No more speaking too much, no more personality, no more competition, no more chance that she might possibly have a life outside of the one she had with him.”

Hard to imagine someone who wants to shrink their wife. But there are a lot of them out there. Then the story gets worse, in my opinion:

“What happens when you hit your daughter: First, she will bond to you out of fear, mistakenly thinking she has done something wrong and if she can just manage to not do it again or somehow please you, you might not hit her or anyone else anymore. She will even think you will love her properly if she can earn your approval. She won’t realize this is impossible. Then, she will either do that with every man she comes within a hundred feed of for the rest of her life or until she learns not to (this will take much doing), or she will despise them with such vehemence that she can barely stomach one around. Sometimes she will do a combination of both of those things, working herself into a pattern of push and pull. I love you I hate you, I need you I don’t need anyone, that will drive her a little crazy. She won’t understand at first, if ever, why she only attracts other masochists.”

And then some more positive commentary on music and innate ability:

“I was always a stickler for details even as a girl, and noticed that someone had hit the wrong chord upon first hearing the recording. When I revealed this to my sister, she looked at me like I had three heads. It was true that I was almost missing the point entirely, but the little things meant everything to me. I’d pick out the smallest details on a recording and would often fixate on them, waiting for them to come around every time I’d listen – a faraway harmony part, a double-time strum on a guitar, the acoustic upstrokes between every spelled-out letter on the chorus of “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.” The details always connected me to the ground and reminded me that even if everything else around me was too unpredictable to depend on, I could count on the records to not vary. I could trust them, and not a whole lot else.”

Moorer’s records are always impeccably produced and the paragraph above partially explains why. The only record I remember bugging me every time I listen is “Easy Money” by Rickie Lee Jones. The double bass is alone in the intro and quite out of tune – how does that happen? I love the song but the bass always bugs me.

“That I cannot cancel my love and attachment to them is a testament to the bonds, good or bad, of blood. It’s fascinating to try to figure it out, though, and I have a hunger to do so. It’s medicine, a balm for the wounds still healing. I need a balm. Sorting through it makes me tired in the deepest part of myself.”

Talking about her son, John Henry, who has appeared in the background of some Hayes Carll livestreams, and who has non-verbal autism:

“He is here as an angel. He is sometimes of the sort that tests my patience, fortitude, and endurance, sometimes of the sort that ruptures my heart, sometimes of the sort that makes me feel like every part of me that has any good in it will burst through my skin from the way he makes it increase in size. I am here to learn to allow him to redeem me.”

About making music with her “Sissy”, Shelby Lynne:

“The sound of our voices blending as only those that belong to siblings can buzzed through them just as it did us. Our voices are like two halves of a whole, and when we sing together we make one thing. It was electric. My chest and ribs vibrated in that perfect way that notes coming from my toes can make them do. Sometimes I think I live for that feeling.”

The other siblings that come to mind when reading that paragraph:

“I watch my friends and H. with fascination as they talk about what their folks are up to, how they annoy them, how they love them. I try not to cry when H. speaks to his folks on the phone, and cover up my longing for just one conversation that he’s having. I am jealous and I am sad. I am lonely.”

Sometimes simple phone calls are so precious. We don’t always recognize that at the time.

My last quote from “Blood”:

“Guns: I am farther away from them now than I have ever been. The sight of a gun unnerves me – all that shiny metal clicking and clacking, heavy in a hand. Maybe that’s how much fear weighs. It weighs as much as the gun you tote. you think you can ward off your fear if you have one.

I do not like firearms around me. I will cross the street if I see a copy because they carry them. I don’t like the sounds they make, I don’t like the damage they do, I don’t like the power they possess.”

Continuing on the musical front, I heard this great cover of the Grateful Dead’s “West L.A. Fadeaway” by moe. I love the jazzy elements of their jamband sound.

I heard about this NPR listening test that let’s you see if you can really tell the difference in high quality audio recordings. There are 3 choices for different styles of music and each is at a different audio quality (sampling frequency). I got about 70% correct indicating that I really can’t hear high frequencies well enough any more to be able to tell the difference. Put on some headphones and see what you think:

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

Staying with NPR, they put on what they call Tiny Desk concerts – performances at the desk of one of their reporters. Those have obviously gone virtual these days. Here’s one from Lucinda Williams. Such an unabashedly Southern accent and she always has excellent guitar players:

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/27/894685942/lucinda-williams-tiny-desk-home-concert

And here’s the Tiny desk contest winner for this year – Linda Diaz has such a gentle and smooth sound with a good message for now:

This John Hiatt song just popped up on Spotify as I was writing this post. Listen to Ry Cooder’s slide guitar – Wow!

Week in Review – July 12, 2020

“You’ll Never Walk Alone”

Hello again. This will be a brief update since I just posted about the last couple of weeks a few days ago, and we’re not off on any exciting adventures right now.

I love this video of Clorinda, my mother in law, puttering around and singing along to a record, completely oblivious to the fact that Alicia is recording her.

We celebrated my Mum’s birthday on Sunday as we do these days – by gathering on a Zoom call. This was the first time all the cousins had been together, albeit virtually, since the wedding in Cozumel over 3 years ago. Everyone enjoyed chatting and I left thinking that we should do this more often.

I watched the movie “The Trip to Greece” while Diana was sunbathing on Sunday. This is the fourth in the series starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. The formula is the same as the last three trips – Steve and Rob travel around, enjoying fabulous meals and trying to upstage each other with humour and impressions. The impressions are very funny and well done. The constant fight to one up each other gets a bit tiresome. The scenery and food, often eaten al fresco by some aquamarine seascape, are lovely, particularly in this time when we can neither travel nor eat those fabulous meals.

I left the Susan Sontag in Austin, probably subconsciously ready for a change of reading material. So, I’ve started re-reading “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole. I didn’t make it very far through the first time, and I can’t remember why as this is a very funny and readable book.

“A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs.” Meet Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of this tragicomic tale. He is 30 years old, lives with his mother, and gets into all sorts of hilarious mishaps throughout the New Orleans French Quarter.

This was Toole’s only published novel. His mother went to great lengths to convince a Tulane University English professor to read it after his death, and that ultimately led to publishing, a very positive public reception and a Pulitzer prize.

I’ve always enjoyed the cartoon contest on the back page of the New Yorker magazine and decided to enter my first caption this week. What do you think?

I had fun with that one and so entered again for the contest this week.

We were watching “Little Voice”, a new series by Sarah Barielles on Apple TV, when one of the characters said, “We all have cracks, that’s how the light gets in.” I said, “That’s a Leonard Cohen quote”, right as the character said, “either Hemingway or Leonard Cohen.” That set me off on a Cohen listening spree. What a poet!

Here’s the song of Cohen’s that first introduced me to him. The finger picked guitar, backing vocals and French verses had me hooked.

And we’ll finish out with one of his last songs, “You Want it Darker?” No thanks. Not right now! I love the Gregorian sounding background vocals.

Please remain calm and kind to everyone.

Fortnight in Review – July 5th, 2020

Did you miss me? Nothing very exciting is happening, shocking I know, and so I skipped blogging time last week. Here goes with the news from the last fortnight.

Before we made the trip down to Austin to start packing up the apartment, Diana finished the Couch to 5K program with a 30 minute run. I’m so proud of my new runner. And she’s still going out every other day even in the steamy, humid weather. You can see that the hot tub is ideal for pre-run stretching.

When we arrived in Austin, I decided to walk with Diana on her warm up and then rendezvous with her as she turned back around to head for home. My leg was feeling great and so I ended up crossing the river at I-35 and walking down the other side for a coffee at the cafe by the rowing facility. After the short break I still had plenty of energy and so walked down to the Lamar St bridge and then back to the apartment. My new Apple watch, a birthday gift from my lovely wife, showed that I had been able to close both my exercise ring and my active calorie ring with the 4 mile walk – woo hoo! I’m back in the game.

The next day my leg still felt great and so I repeated the routine. It was quite a bit hotter and more humid and after 2.5 miles I was really thirsty and my leg was starting to hurt. I did come across this guy with incredible balance and strength:

Rather than call McD to rescue me and suffer the humiliation of that story, I chose to soldier on and walk to the nearest store for a big bottle of water. On arrival at the apartment my leg wasn’t feeling so great at all. You are all correct – I totally over did it – where’s the common sense? Why didn’t I work up to it a bit slower. I honestly thought that after the first day of walking everything was good to go.

I finally made it to the doctor yesterday as the pain really hadn’t subsided very much. The x-ray shows everything is fine and I did just significantly over do it. The doctor was not particularly happy with me. I’m limited to half mile walks for several weeks when the pain goes away. Do you think that I’ve learned my lesson. I know – hard to say.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I helped a guy who bought our queen bed and mattress load it into the elevator and his truck. The guy was recovering from a recently broken rib and so we made quite the pair.

Maybe all of this was just a ruse to avoid having to pack up the apartment and load up the first set of stuff into the car? Poor Diana had to do that all by herself – resulting in some of the most scientific packing that I’ve ever witnessed.

We had a couple of big dog encounters over the last couple of weeks. Rachel brought Pride the Great Dane over to hang out. He’s mellowed quite a bit over the last few years – he’s seven now – but still won’t jump in the back of Rachel’s SUV without her helping him in. What a silly dog.

Then down in Austin we got to visit Wash and Zoe, the Irish Wolf Hounds. Zoe performed her party trick with Diana – and she’s quite a bit smaller than Wash. We had a really nice extended visit with Brad and Josalyn as well as the dogs.

Josalyn had hand painted my name on to a drinking buddy for Brad. She used a toothpick to get fine enough detail.

This is a cutting from a huge agave plant that Brad moved from his house in San Antonio. It will be making the journey back to McKinney soon. They say it’s impossible to kill these plants – we’ll see about that.

We sat on our balcony on the evening of July 4th and watched all the fireworks along the horizon. The downtown river fireworks show with live orchestra was cancelled. We had a great show from about 9pm until after midnight.

Diana suggested that we should visit some of our very favourite Austin restaurants while we still could, scared that we won’t be back to Austin very often and that they could all easily go out of business soon. We started by walking over to Peche for some of their decadent menu highlights – steak tartare, foie gras, and amazing stuffed quail. What a treat. Social distancing wasn’t a problem as we were the only folks in the place at the start of our meal. The owner, Rob, told us he is doing a good take out business and has some decent dine in days.

Our next stop was the patio at Suerte for the ludicrously good suadero tacos. These are the best tacos I have ever tasted – such an amazing combination of flavours. The aguachile appetizer was also very tasty and refreshing. The meal was rounded out with a choco taco.

Our final stop was at Comedor. We tried to sit on the patio, but I was melting and so we moved into a spacious enclosed booth inside. After an excellent ahi tuna appetizer that was just on the borderline of too spicy for McD, we tried the much vaunted bone marrow tacos. These were indeed a treat – you fill your taco with kale and then layer on the bone marrow, the kale intended to soak up some of the fat. We will really miss the creativity and quality of so many Austin restaurants.

I haven’t done a lot of reading lately, but hope to get back to it this weekend.

On the music front, I’m really enjoying the new Bob Dylan album “Rough and Rowdy Ways”. It’s quite something that he’s creating such quality music at 79 years old. Charlie Sexton, Austin native who we’ve seen several times in tiny clubs there, adds some excellent guitar work to the album.

Margo Price is a bit outside my wheelhouse, with more of a Country flavour, but I like her new album quite a bit – good quality songs and production.

Greyhounds is a new band to me that I heard on a playlist this week. Doing some research I discover that they are a song writing duo based in Austin. They have written for and played with several of my favourites – Tedeschi Trucks and JJ Grey included. I’m going to need to check out some more of their music.

Stay kind and patient.

Week in Review – June 21, 2020

“Chilling at Home”

The usual live music streams kept us company on Tuesday evening – Hayes Carll (this week from his front porch with fiddle accompaniment), followed by the BoH Supper Club. Both were well done as usual.

Wednesday was the 3rd anniversary of that lovely day in Cozumel. I found a card with the caption “May the Honeymoon Never End”. It’s funny to me because we didn’t have an official honeymoon and I think McD has given up on it now. We did have a planning session a few months ago but couldn’t come up with anything that we really liked. Some nice flowers took the sting out of the message in the card.

Diana made anniversary dinner reservations for us at Rye in downtown McKinney. I decided to trim up my large beard, wear a collared shirt and some non-workout shorts for the occasion. We sat outside on the sidewalk and enjoyed a delicious meal. Here are the descriptions of the shareable plates that we enjoyed from the Rye menu.

Ceviche

tx striped bass, yellow curry crema, cilantro, celery, fish sauce, lime, sesame oil, fish skin chicharrón.

Blue Cheesecake

grilled local mushrooms, danish blue, pecan, rye cracker crust, lavash, wild arugula, cherry gastrique

Queso Stuffed Wagyu Sliders

tx craft wagyu, green chili queso, green chili-bacon jam, thousand island, brioche buns.

Those Wagyu sliders were ridiculously good and rich. We took one home so that we could enjoy our final plate of chicken baos. It was wonderful to get out and celebrate in what seemed like a very safe socially distanced environment.

Finn turned 27 on Wednesday and Will spoiled him with a beautiful meal. King crab legs, rib-eye steaks, and baclavas for dessert (a special Finn request). He looks a wee bit pale and skinny but a lot better than he did last year at this time.

That’s Nicole in the family picture. Apparently they reconnected in the last few weeks. She visited us in McKinney with Finn several years ago and we approve.

The Ogans teased us with pictures of them enjoying a day in the Florida panhandle on a pontoon boat. We did try to rent one when we visited but waited too late to think about it.

At work we migrated our major financial systems to a new cloud environment on Wednesday and Thursday nights. I was quite nervous about this activity and it all went very smoothly. Much better performance now and glad to get that behind me.

I briefly attended several happy hour online calls on Friday evening – I suppose it’s kind of like hopping from one bar to the next. First a work one with the financial team who helped with the migrations, then Diana’s girlfriends from California (with occasional husband participation), and finally a FaceTime with the Wahbas. We finished up in time to catch the last couple of songs from a Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen song swap live stream. Seeing them both reminded me of the night that I broke my finger. Keen was the emcee and Lovett an Austin City Limits Hall of Fame inductee.

My crazy running wife successfully completed Week 8 Day 1 of Couch to 5K with a solid 25 minute run. I’m very proud of how she’s kept after it. At the end of week 8 she should be ready for her 5K run – we’ll have to pick that out.

After the run, we were joined by the contractor who’s putting together an estimate for our master bathroom remodel. What have we embarked upon?

Diana made me a delicious omelet with chorizo and I heard from “My Three Sons” on Father’s Day, which was very nice. The funniest picture I got along with special greetings was from Anne:

I started “Sontag” by Benjamin Moser this week. At over 700 pages it might be with me for a few weeks. It’s described as “The definitive portrait of one of the American Century’s most towering intellectuals: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism and her hidden private face”. I can’t honestly remember what drove me to pick this biography, but I’ve started and I’ll do my best to finish. I don’t know too much about Sontag and so I’m sure I’ll learn a lot along the way.

Over to music – I really enjoy Dawes and this is a great song from them. Great sound and guitars.

Here’s my other highlight from the same Dawes album:

https://open.spotify.com/track/0HOvoZ4m0aJp6vY4fVrI51?si=4BWHYwuHS-uxuaZy7oXsYg

I’m a huge fan of the Richard and Linda Thompson album “I Want to See the Bright Lights” but had never heard the album that this song is from. The guitar work on this is truly unique and so nuanced:

https://open.spotify.com/track/5ZU85Wow0Fdrkm7JsUFc30?si=Fbl2tSPMSfCn6yTx_GBiQg

And finally a song from a band that all the music writers are raving about the last few years, The 1975. I listened to their new album this week and was amazed at the diversity of musical styles at play.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4NGs8bDJyNV1dgnAbUVZS6?si=WAz7rG7MTySWsNXoxHqR_A

Stay kind and patient with those who forget to be!

Week in Review – June 14, 2020

“Road Trip – Week 3”

It was time to head home to McKinney on Monday. Tower 23 (named after the nearest life guard tower) served us very well for overnight accommodation on Sunday – thanks D for organizing such a great room and view. Konos surf bar right next door fixed us up with an amazing breakfast burrito – easily enough for a family – and coffee for the road. We took the southern border route to Flagstaff, Arizona. This gave plenty of opportunity to observe the much touted border wall. The VW Passat did a great job of making the climbs up to 7,000 feet and back down.

We checked into the Flagstaff Marriott Courtyard (looked more like a ski lodge) in the early evening and enjoyed some Grimaldi’s pizza and salad delivered to the hotel.

Tuesday was our long driving day. We had one fun stop just off Interstate 40 and the old Route 66 in Winslow, Arizona. You may have heard the Eagles/Jackson Browne song “Take it Easy”, with the third verse:

“Now I’m a-standin’ on the corner in Winslow, Arizona
With such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford
Slowin’ down to have a look at me”

It turns out that corner is well celebrated with a park, statues, live music and exhibits.

They even have a flat bed Ford parked alongside (no girl inside):

The audio book of “Where the Crawdads Sing” kept us company as we traversed the mountains, mesas, and then wide, flat open spaces to Amarillo. We were most certainly road weary on arrival at the downtown Courtyard – this one is part of the “historic” collection and is a remodeled downtown bank building. It certainly has a lot more character than most. Only in this kind of rural location can you stay in a corner suite with wrap around windows for $102.

Do you see that smoke detector way up there?

With only 5.5 hours of driving left on Wednesday, we were able to enjoy a more leisurely start. The local breakfast taco joint got us set up with breakfast and we were off on the road again. We made it to the house around 6pm to the beeping sound of a smoke detector. Diana located it in my office – the worst possible location as it’s 20 feet up and set back from the wall. Thankfully she’s a lot more stable and agile at the top of the ladder than I am and soon had the battery replaced. I think I read somewhere recently about 10 year life smoke detector batteries – but we didn’t have any of those on hand and would have gone nuts from the beeping before they arrived.

After that excitement, the only chores left were to put water in the pool and replace a broken sprinkler head – all the full joys of home ownership and leaving town for a while.

We had been looking forward to having Wash and Zoe, and their owners Brad and Jocelyn, come and visit us for a while. They arrived on Friday evening and stayed with us overnight, leaving late Saturday afternoon.

You can see Wash and Zoe, named after characters in some sci-fi series, are a couple of gorgeous Irish Wolfhounds. After checking out every room on arrival, they settled right in for the stay. We took them for a walk up to Zin Zen after dinner and can see how much work it is to own such beasts – a constant stream of folks asking what kind of dogs they were. Here’s a couple of shots to give perspective on just how large they are:

Thankfully they are a couple of very sweet and gentle giants. It was so nice to have company for the first time in 4 months. And I think I have clearance to order one up.

Will was busy taking pictures of his car and then “photo sphere dream weaving them” with some fancy AI software to make these great images. Apparently he takes 5 to 10 individual pictures and weaves them together to create these. Quite the artist.

My book on the road trip was “All Adults Here” by Emma Straub. This is a very enjoyable ensemble family drama, set in small town Connecticut. Three generations of Stricks play out their lives in quite different fashions, and it’s all very enjoyable and engaging.

“The older Astrid got, the more she understood that she and her parents and she and her children were as close as people could be, that generations slipped away quickly, and that the twenty-five years in between her and her mother and the thirtyish years in between her and her children were absolutely nothing, that there were still people who had lived through the Holocaust, which had happened less than a decade before she was born, but which her children had read about in their history textbooks. It happened before you could blink. Her children had been children, and now they were adults; they were all adults here, now.”

Some music that I enjoyed on the trip. First a classic Rory Gallagher blues boogie:

Then something completely different from the inimitable Muscle Shoals musicians:

And finally some classic Texas driving music:

Please remain patient and kind with everyone!

Week in Review – June 7, 2020

“Road Trip – Week 2”

The Pacifica Rockaway Beach Holiday Inn Express was our office for calls on Monday. Fortunately our room had a nice balcony overlooking the Pacific Ocean and a changing collection of surfers. That meant that one of us could conduct business from outside with the crashing waves as a backing track, while the other worked from inside. I enjoyed watching the different skill levels and strategies of the surfers. The 60 degree temperature and view were certainly a change from our back patio in McKinney. Just what we needed.

There was an issue with Clorinda’s hot water heater that Marco was in charge of remedying. He tried to enlist friends to assist with the replacement – this was unsuccessful but one friend did recommend the Vietnamese sandwiches from Dinosaur’s. I filed that away and we ordered a variety of those for lunch on Monday. We sat outside and enjoyed these on Amy and Adamo’s patio. My portobello was delicious.

Lunch was a bit boisterous as Luciano and Massimo competed to see who could be the least safe on a new see-saw toy that Any bought for them. What was she thinking? I can’t imagine a worse choice for those two monsters.

A typical Campagna project spun up on Monday afternoon – we need to replace the 20+ year old water heater that has started leaking. Adamo refused to help, reserving just the right to criticize and boss Marco around. Diana and Marco headed off to Home Depot and came back with a new heater, faucet and various other supplies. We left Marco and his supervisor to it and headed up the hill to Andy and Jude’s for Happy Hour.

Here’s an entertaining video of Marco “Sparky” going through his water heater installation checklist:

What a joy to be in a quiet environment with calm people! They were great hosts as usual and showed us videos of the resident mountain lion and cub playing in their fountain. The wildlife on Gypsy Hill has expanded quite a bit over the last year – deer were the main attraction but now we have added bobcats, mountain lions, and wild turkeys. Really, seven wild turkeys were congregated outside Clorinda’s kitchen window on Monday afternoon. I understand they peck at the glass pretty relentlessly – doesn’t seem like very “wild” behaviour.

We enjoyed a lovely sunset from Clorinda’s patio.

It’s always sad to watch the continued decline of Diana’s first car – such a pretty Fiat Spyder. I’m afraid it’s beyond restoration hope at this point.

Diana went up on “The Hill” to supervise the plumber on Tuesday morning – he was reviewing Marco’s water heater installation, installing a new kitchen faucet and fixing a sink. I stayed back at the hotel to get some meetings and work done. It was a warmer morning and so I was able to sit on the balcony and enjoy the surf show during my calls.

Dinner was takeout sushi from Go Sushi. Fortunately they had a chicken curry on the menu for me – it was actually very good. Clorinda and I ate outside with the boys and the see-saw made it’s way into the proceedings again.

I got to babysit Francesca for a while and enjoy the sunset – such a happy baby. Very pleased with her penguin dummy.

The wildlife show continued with a young deer checking out the parked cars.

Adamo shared some of his delicious lobsters with us for dinner on Thursday night and then it was time to get packed up for the continuation of the road trip.

On Friday we drove down to San Luis Obispo (home of Cal Poly where Will studied Mechanical Eng) with a brief stop to see Will at his office in the afternoon. It was entertaining to see his face when one of his co-workers told him “Your Dad’s here” – not what he was expecting at all. Will gave us a tour of the school that he’s remodeling and then we were on our way south.

Alicia brought us dinner to our hotel and we had a nice early night. Diana was up and looking for a running location on Saturday. Alicia suggested Shell beach on the north end of Pismo and that seemed to work out well.

Diana let me know that she could easily live there and had found some nice bungalows just off the beach. Maybe she forgot about California taxes and the elevated prices of absolutely everything. Turns out she was trying to find a compromise in our retirement destination desires – cooler weather for me and a beach for her. Not entirely out of the realm of possibility but a serious long shot.

After D’s morning exercise, we drove to Alicia’s house for breakfast. She made us some amazing Bloody Mary’s with crispy bacon stirrers and avocado toast – definitely becoming quite the hostess.

Saturday afternoon was spent with John and Madi at their home in Arroyo Grande. Ben and Lilly provided some great entertainment – they’re such good kids. Ben is an excellent baseball player for a 3 year old. Can you see the focus on his face as Mama D pitches to him?

John grilled up brisket and ribs and we had a lovely meal outside. I sat down inside to relax after dinner and was quickly joined by the kids looking for me to read some stories. Ben was almost asleep by book number three. Overall a very pleasant day on the California central coast.

Sunday took us on down the coast to Pacific Beach in San Diego to meet up with Campbell and Molly. Diana found an excellent hotel room for us on the beach at a boutique hotel called Tower 23. The balcony had a great view of all the action on the beach.

Campbell and Molly came over and joined us on the balcony for a while before we went downstairs for dinner at the Jordan restaurant in the hotel. Then they came back upstairs to watch the last of the sunset. I really enjoyed Molly telling us that, having to much time listening to Campbell’s sales pitches and follow up, she could easily tell the story for him. I particularly enjoyed her rendition of “and what have you” – something I say quite a bit.

As Molly’s sister was arriving to drive them home, we experienced our first live protest march. All very peaceful.

Whew! Another busy week but so nice to spend time with everyone.

Week in Review – May 31, 2020

“Road Trip!”

My fancy new kettle arrived on Monday. It allows me to heat water to the perfect temperature for my fancy new cafetiere – 96 degrees, and also features a “goose-neck” spout for precision pouring. I know people in Guatemala who take the art of preparing coffee way more seriously than this – they have three different setups for different styles of coffee. So I’m not that nuts at least.

Damon managed to send my gifts to himself and so the replacements arrived on Monday. Very funny.

I read today that the New York Public Library has published a Spotify playlist of New York sounds. Apparently residents are getting increasingly anxious because of the lack of street noise. It’s called “Missing Sounds of New York” and here’s “Romancing Rush Hour”:

My rescheduled dental cleaning was on Tuesday. I got a full set of x-rays and a very good report out. The hygienist said I was her easiest patient of the morning. Don’t think I’ve heard that before and good to hear at least some small part of me is holding up well.

We passed Tuesday evening in typical fashion with live streams from Hayes Carll and the Band of Heathens. Check out the “Big Lebowski” movie inspired version of Dylan’s “The Man in Me” that they put together – excellent stuff.

The album featured on the Supper Club this week was Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue”. This choice was inspired by the death of Jimmy Cobb, the drummer and last surviving member from the group that recorded this 1957 classic – one of my very favourites and an album that never gets old after hundreds of playings. It was also mentioned that Levon Helm celebrated his birthday on Tuesday. I texted with Denny about that and he reminded me of us seeing him together at Jazzfest – that was when I first heard Stanton Moore on drums. Levon left his drum kit to sing up front and I asked Denny who the excellent drummer was that took over. It was nice to see the musicians again after my private birthday show. Gordy did another great take on “Hurricane” by Levon Helm:

Alicia turned 20 on Wednesday and we hosted a Zoom call for friends and family to celebrate. PCD, Lisa and Renee all joined from Australia, along with family and friends from around the US. The call was lovely with everyone sharing stories and thoughts about Alicia. In the aftermath of all that love, Diana was quite depressed about not seeing her Mum or daughter any time soon. In a weak moment I suggested that we could always drive to visit them. This suggestion was well received and a few minutes later McD indicated that she could be ready to leave at 9:40am on Thursday morning. Yes – that is a very precise time. Apparently calculated from the time a meeting ended plus a few minutes to get organized. And the road trip was on!

As you can see, this is no short Sunday drive. We planned to take about 2.5 days and arrive in time for a barbecue being hosted in Pacifica for Alicia’s birthday on Saturday afternoon. After a delayed start, we made it to Amarillo for an early dinner. Diana did an excellent job of selecting a restaurant with an outdoor patio. The Drunken Oyster is a relatively new place done up to look like a classic New Orleans joint. We started with a fondue that included andouille sausage and seafood. It was absolutely delicious and well presented. That was followed by a very pretty but chewy and tasteless kale salad (deducted from the bill), and a very tasty steak and scallops special. Who knew Amarillo had such good dining options? Nicely done D!

With our tummies full it was time to embark on the 4 hour leg over to Albuquerque and a bed for the night. We arrived around 10pm and were soon snoozing comfortably.

A reasonably early start on Friday had us on our way to Bakersfield – estimated at 12 hours or so away. The drive was mostly smooth and easy as we traversed the mesas of Arizona and the Mojave desert of California. Temperatures rose to over 110 degrees in the desert. Not a good place to run out of gas or have a flat tire. We passed the time with a long audio book – Liane Moriarty’s “Truly Madly Guilty”. The narration is excellent and the characters kept us entertained. It’s a 17 hour book! We did have a couple of pauses in the book – one for the Space X Dragon launch – an amazing sight. Isn’t it interesting to look at how the rocket consoles have changed over the years:

The second pause was to wish “Good Lord Alex” a happy birthday in New Orleans. As we were chatting with Alex, we arrived at a checkpoint on the CA border that I wasn’t anticipating. The lady asked me, “Where are you coming from?”, and my heart sank at the prospect of being turned around. Not to worry, she just wanted to know if we had any plants, fruits, or firewood in the car. With a “Welcome to California” we were on our way again. Whew!

We arrived in Bakersfield around 9pm and were again ready for a comfortable bed and some sleep. Early Saturday morning I heard something I would not have anticipated a few months ago. “I need to find somewhere to go for a run”. We found a nearby park and I enjoyed my Taco Bell breakfast while Diana ran around the park several times. After showers we were on the road again. While Bakersfield could not be described as a pretty tourist destination, it is known for the musical contribution of “The Bakersfield Sound”. What’s that, you ask?

The Bakersfield sound is a sub-genre of country music developed in the mid-to-late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California. … Wynn Stewart pioneered the Bakersfield sound, while Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, and Merle Haggard and the Strangers are the two most successful artists of the original Bakersfield era. We stayed just off Buck Owens Blvd and I played a couple of his songs for Diana on the drive.

We were not sure what type of reception to expect from the Campagna crew on arrival in Pacifica on Saturday afternoon. Fortunately everyone was delighted to see us and we enjoyed a fun celebration for Alicia’s birthday. The surprise from all as we pulled up almost made the long drive worth it.

Francesca, the newest Campagna addition, is absolutely gorgeous as her Auntie D continues to remind her. She had a lot of fun attacking Uncle Marco with a birthday balloon.

Sunday was a somewhat relaxing day – as relaxing as hanging out with a loud Italian family can be expected to be.

I finally finished the Robin Williams biography this week. The first half was a bit of a slog but the second half really captured my attention. What a tortured and supremely talented individual. I forgot how many wonderful movies he made in the early 90s – “Good Morning Vietnam” being the first big breakout from stand-up comedy to blockbuster movies, followed by Awakenings, The Fisher King and many others. It seems that a lot of people took advantage of his kindness and generosity. Very sad that he couldn’t ultimately handle his Parkinson’s diagnosis.

I’ll start out the music section with something fun from Buck Owens of Bakersfield fame:

Good Lord Alex turned me on to a new band, the Monophonics, this week. I like the retro-soul sound quite a bit:

I replied with a favourite song from the Stereophonics. Get it? Monophonics to Sterephonics:

And finally something from a new artist, Still Wilson, that I read about this week. Good trumpet and guitar:

Week in Review – May 24, 2020

“A Different Kind of Birthday”

Monday was an exciting day for me. The 2 week leg surgery follow up appointment went very well. Dr. Haslam was pleased to see good signs of the bones healing – apparently unusual at this juncture. He removed the staples from the incision and it’ll be much smoother for me to shower now. Next appointment is a month from now and I can put 25% weight on the leg until then.

Whew – it was good to get that behind me and feel that I’m on the mend again. Since I was over in Frisco I decided to try a visit to Taco Deli for lunch. I was the only person at a typically very packed restaurant. The only option was to park and order online for delivery to the parking space – so I worked through that seemingly overly complicated process. When my lunch was delivered to Penelope (enjoying her first outing in weeks) I learned that I could eat on the nice outdoor patio. What a treat this was – the tacos tasted much better than I remember – amazing what deprivation does to desire. The menu was a subset of normal and the “Space Cowboy” mushroom taco was not available. Not to worry, lots of other good options. All the tacos are very simple but quality, fresh ingredients really make these outstanding.

Tuesday was shaping up to be another exciting day – I had a haircut scheduled in the afternoon. After an all morning work strategy session – you know how those can be – Penelope and I headed over to the Boardroom at Watters Creek. We were foiled – the folks inside told me that they didn’t open until Wednesday and some appointments had been accepted in error online.

We repeated the process on Wednesday with success. The Boardroom had a good system down – temperature check on arrival, followed by mandatory hand washing and then utilizing every other chair. Check out these before and after shots – I might have lost a couple of inches.

While I was messing around with my haircut, Diana was undergoing a root canal. It seems to have gone very well and she got the permanent crown installed on Thursday. Such a process in the best of times.

Diana surprised me with an early Birthday gift on Wednesday evening – an excellent John Prine piano music book. I’ve been working my way through a couple of his classics during extended conference calls.

I believe it was on Wednesday night when Diana came across this camo moth on the patio. A bit intimidating with its 4 inch wingspan and coloring. A quick search reveals this to be Eumorpha pandorus, the Pandora sphinx moth, first discovered in America in 1821. Thank goodness it’s harmless and not some new strain of dangerous bug.

Diana had been telling me for several days to be ready for virtual Happy Hour with her girlfriends at 6pm on Friday. I was a bit confused about why it was necessary for me to be there, but we have to compromise to keep the peace in these times, so I was ready to go on time. This is the Zoom screen that greeted me – not the girlfriends.

What a lovely surprise – a collection of our friends from around the country AND Gordy and Ed from the Band of Heathens. From left to right and top to bottom we have: Damon and daughters in Philadelphia, Alicia in Arroyo Grande, D and K in McKinney, Ed in Austin, Anne in New Orleans, Vince and Lori at their cabin in the Adirondacks (with a huge Moose head behind), Patty and Brent in Corning, NY, Gordy in Austin, Kris and Cat in Del Mar, Adamo, Amy, Frankie , Massimo and Luciano in Pacifica, and Brad and Jocelyn in Austin.

We were all treated to 45 minutes of excellent music. This was a birthday gift to Alicia and me from Diana. What a treat! I enjoyed watching Alicia discussing the first time she saw the band with Gordy and explaining that she went straight home and learned “Hurricane”. That was a risk I took that paid off – I took Diana and Alicia on a surprise outing to see the Band of Heathens at Love and War in Texas. It was over 100 degrees on a Sunday afternoon and I wasn’t sure that Alicia would appreciate either the heat or the music. Fortunately she loved the music and bought a t-shirt at the end of the show as a souvenir. Whew! Here’s a video of the Zoom screen as Gordy and Ed shared “Abraham, Mark and John” – an excellent song from their cover of Ray Charles “A Message From the People” album. The hand off from Gordy to Ed is very smooth.

We hadn’t had much time to chat during the private concert and so jumped on another Zoom after that. We were able to introduce some of our friends to others that they hadn’t met before – always fun.

Birthday Saturday rolled around like another day at home on crutches does. I did take McD out to Taco Deli in the morning and we enjoyed our first meal out in over 2 months on their patio. Lots of fun FaceTime calls started coming in during the afternoon. We had a nice chat with Campbell as he organized his new apartment, and had video chats with Marco, Adamo and crew, Denny and Alex with cameos from Anne and Laura, Alicia, and others that I’m likely forgetting. Massimo was quite energetic during his call – that’s a “Tacosaurus” taco holder that he’s brandishing.

Clorinda wasn’t able to get out for a card so called to describe the art that she was creating for me on her new cabinet doors. Adamo went down and took a picture for me.

Not to be left out, Phoebe (Amy and Adamo’s pup) sent me a greeting:

Alicia had asked several friends and family to submit short videos to her and she played the compiled result for me on Saturday evening – what an excellent surprise.

Diana spoiled me all afternoon with New Orleans meat pies, a Bloody Mary, meat and cheese appetizer platter, and then a delicious salad, scallops, and grilled vegetables. And then the piece de resistance – a perfectly cooked pavlova with grapes that had been soaking in sherry for 2 days – all delicious.

Denny shared this picture of the High School graduation in New Orleans, with his friend Derek Houston playing Pomp and Circumstance as graduates drove through to receive their diplomas. New Orleanians always come up with a special twist.

I tested out my new double insulated french press cafetiere (thanks Mum and Dad) on Sunday morning with great results. It looks very cool, makes good tasting coffee, and keeps it warm on the patio for over an hour. I ordered up a kettle so that I can pour in water at the perfect temperature. This has given Diana an opportunity to reorganize the coffee station area in the kitchen. I think that activity is still in progress as I write this post.

Sunday afternoon is a good time to relax with the New Yorker magazine, and I enjoyed a couple of the cartoons this week. This one felt close to home as one of us has been enjoying the time to do deep organizing:

And I enjoyed this one – crosswords have been a good distraction for me in my less than mobile state:

I heard these two songs on an excellent playlist that Diana had going by the pool. Way too long since I heard Joan Armatrading’s unique vocal sound:

Sitting in the shade of the Magnolia trees I heard this version of J.J. Cale’s classic rumination on missing New Orleans by Poco. I never heard this version before. What do you think? Not too bad?: