Category: Books

Week in Review – July 3rd, 2022

“Healing Up Nicely”

I had a check up with the hand doctor on Monday – all healing well, with good flexibility.  Here’s a picture from Monday when I got the dressing off, another from Wednesday, and one from just now – I think it’s coming along nicely.  Hopefully this is my final run in with dupuytrens.

I’m easily able to make a fist and stretch out my fingers.

Penelope had an oil change on Tuesday morning.  And then I got myself in trouble with informative texting:

K at 9:15 : “P all done.  Will head back and we can have our walk”

D: “Ok baby:)”

K at 9:30: “Decided to have a coffee at Ascension”

D: “Hmmm (with chin scratching emoji)”

Penelope needed gas, so I made a stop for that.  Noticing a car wash right next door, I thought she deserved a bath and hoover to go with her oil change and full gas tank.  Not well received when I made it home around 11:30 – “I thought we would go for a walk around 10am, based on the text that P was all finished and you were on your way home.  Instead, I’ve been sitting around for an hour and a half wondering where you were.”  Oopsy.  Note to self – vaguer updates required.

Our friend Sean showed up on Monday night.  He’s staying with us for a few days while doing some consulting work in Plano.  We enjoyed some pleasant catch up time on the patio.

On our walk on Tuesday morning, we came across a poor duck with a fishing lure attached.  It was trying really hard to get it off.

K: “Who should we call about this?”

D: “Those guys in the truck over there”

She was right, someone else must have called the McKinney animal folks.  The lady did her best to catch the poor duck in a big net, but he escaped into the pond.  She promised to circle back around later and give it another try.  I really hope she was successful.  I hope the lure was a result of someone’s line breaking, rather than carelessness.

I met Finn for coffee on Wednesday afternoon.  He was excited to report that “corporate” had visited his store, and he received a perfect 100 score for the produce department.  His department is also the 2nd highest revenue generator in the district.  He’s very pleased with how things are going at work.

We had planned to participate in “Music Bingo” at Guitars and Growlers on Wednesday night, but Sean was too late in getting home from work.  He had been meeting with a local telecom sales team to give them some recommendations on how to improve their overall processes, and that must have become pretty involved on Wednesday afternoon.  We just relaxed at home, listened to music, and caught up on families.  Sean left us around 7:30am on Thursday – off to give a readout on his findings, play some golf, and then catch a flight home.

The Thursday New York Times puzzle is the one that has all the special gimmicks – rebus (multiple letters in one square) and the like.  It’s supposed to be the marquee day for solvers.  The puzzle this week is one of my favourites in a long time.

The “revealer” (40 across) is “cover your eyes” and is clued as a hint to 4 long clues.  You can see that 17, 18 and 19 across spell “vending machines”, with the “i” covered by a black square.  Similarly with “Marie Antoinette” at 24 across.  The clues for the long acrosses were very clever in the way they joined together to make a clue for the full word.  Ok, enough crossword geekery for now.

Diana has been on soft foods for a few weeks now since her dental surgery, and doing a great job of sticking to her soups, yogurts, and cottage cheese.  So, after work wound down on Friday, I dragged her to Pappadeaux for oysters.  “Dragged” is not the correct term at all, as she was quite excited to go, having not tasted oysters since our residency in New Orleans.  The price of oysters has doubled since the last time we were there.  Still well worth it for soft food D.

After lunch, I surprised Diana with a visit to Fizz.  This is a champagne and coffee bar that has been open for a month.

We arrived around 3pm – coffee service until 4pm, and then the full bar opens – ok, we’ll sit at the bar and have a coffee.  Then the bar tender/manager arrives behind the bar.  McD asks to see the drinks menu and starts chatting with her – happy to serve you a drink if you like, I’m here and all the stuff is ready.  So, Diana was able to enjoy an afternoon glass of bubbly.

Finn came over after we got home.  He was on a mission to pick up the fancy new Yeezys that Will sent for his birthday.  He arrived with his burrito from Nom noms, ate that at the island, and then broke into his new shoes.  They fit perfectly and coordinate nicely with his Friday work outfit.

Finn showed me this picture he snapped on his drive over.  He was quite entertained with the “R”.

Clorinda thought she was super cool and hip on Friday afternoon as she prepared to head out for dialysis.  We’ll have to tease her about dressing up like a rock star to go there.

We enjoyed early walks on Saturday and Sunday, beating the usual summer heat.  Saturday was pretty quiet – catching up with friends on FaceTime.  We watched a movie, “Guest Artist”, written and starring Jeff Daniels, on Saturday evening.  Almost exclusively set in a railroad waiting room, this is a typically excellent Daniels performance.  All about a washed up, alcoholic playwright, who arrives in rural Idaho, without a play to perform.

Today we have reservations at iPic to see the new Top Gun movie.  We’ll let you know what we think next week.

We watched some episodes of a couple of streaming series this week.  Both are acting masterclasses.  “The Old Man”, starring Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow, is very good, with a lot of CIA cloak and dagger intrigue.  We look forward to new episodes each Friday.

This series had a few episodes with Amy Brenneman, one of the stars of the excellent NYPD Blue years ago.  It’s not clear if she’ll be involved in future episodes at this part in the story.  I can never remember her name, and just had to look it up again.  The conversation is typically:

K:  “That’s the lady from NYPD Blue with the long, curly hair.”

D:  “Yes, Amy Brenneman.”

K (5 mins later):  “What’s that lady’s name again?”

The second series is “Night Sky”, starring J.K. Simmons and Sissy Spacek.  The acting is again superb, while the story has more of a sci-fi component.  It’s early days yet, and we can’t really tell where the story is headed.  I can’t help but flash to “Whiplash” whenever I see J.K. Simmons – such a disturbing portrayal of a music teacher.

“The Club”, by Ellery Lloyd, was my first book this week.  Here’s the online synopsis:

“Envisioned as a luxurious home-away from-home for Very Important People, The Home Group is a collection of celebrity members clubs dotted across the globe, from London to Lisbon, Malibu to Manhattan, where the rich and famous can party hard and then crash out in its five-star suites, far from the prying eyes of fans and the media. 

The most spectacular and exclusive of all is Island Home—a sprawling, closely-guarded complex of faux-rustic guest cabins, spas, bars and restaurants just off the English coast. To mark its opening, Home’s mercurial CEO Ned Groom and his team have planned a glamorous three-day launch party, easily the most coveted A-list invite of the year.   

But behind the scenes, tensions are at breaking point. Years behind schedule and vastly over budget, the project has stretched a long-serving and long-suffering team to their limits. There’s Ned’s trusted PA, who has over decades maneuvered her way from coat-check girl to Home’s inner circle; Ned’s younger brother, who has sacrificed his marriage and morals to be Ned’s right-hand man; the Head of Membership keeping the world’s most spoiled and jaded individuals entertained using any means necessary; the Head of Housekeeping, who plays silent witness to the guests’ very worst excesses. All of them have something to hide—and that’s before the beautiful people with their own ugly secrets even set foot on the island. 

As tempers fray and behavior worsens, as things get more sinister by the hour and the body count piles up, some of Island Home’s members begin to wish they’d never RSVP’d at all. 

Because at this club, if your name’s on the list, you’re not getting out . . .”

This was a fast read and an engaging tale.  Certainly not great literature, but a fun caper nonetheless.  I couldn’t help relating the “Home” clubs to the SoHo house club that our CEO took me to in Austin.  His wife is a member, and these are clubs designed for artistic folks to come together – very exclusive.  They have them in major cities around the world.  I smiled when I read about Ellery Lloyd inside the back cover:

“Ellery Lloyd is the pseudonym for the London-based husband-and-wife writing team of Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos.  Collette is a journalist and editor, the former content director of Elle (UK), and editorial director at Soho House.  She has written for the Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Sunday Times.  Paul is the author of two previous novels, “Welcome to the Working Week” and “Every Day is Like Sunday.”  He is the subject leader for English literature, film, and creative writing at the University of Surrey.”

It seems that Collette must have pulled a lot of her inspiration from her experiences at Soho House.

“Left on Tenth, A Second Chance at Life” by Delia Ephron was my next book.  She is the younger sister of Nora Ephron (“Sleepless in Seattle, “When Harry Met Sally”, “Silkwood”,…), and the book follows her life for four years from 2016 to 2020.

Here’s the online synopsis:

“Delia Ephron had struggled through several years of heartbreak. She’d lost her sister, Nora, and then her husband, Jerry, both to cancer. Several months after Jerry’s death, she decided to make one small change in her life—she shut down his landline, which crashed her internet. She ended up in Verizon hell.
 
She channeled her grief the best way she knew: by writing a New York Times op-ed. The piece caught the attention of Peter, a Bay Area psychiatrist, who emailed her to commiserate. Recently widowed himself, he reminded her that they had shared a few dates fifty-four years before, set up by Nora. Delia did not remember him, but after several weeks of exchanging emails and sixties folk songs, he flew east to see her. They were crazy, utterly, in love.
 
But this was not a rom-com: four months later she was diagnosed with AML, a fierce leukemia.
 
In Left on Tenth, Delia Ephron enchants as she seesaws us between tears and laughter, navigating the suicidal lows of enduring cutting-edge treatment and the giddy highs of a second chance at love. With Peter and her close girlfriends by her side, with startling clarity, warmth, and honesty about facing death, Ephron invites us to join her team of warriors and become believers ourselves.”

I loved this book and consumed it in a couple of days.  The varied style is fantastic: short chapters about mundane, daily life; the details of finding love in her 70s and how she feels about it; the torturous chapters about her battle with leukemia; emails to friends and family.  Just great writing throughout.  It really makes the reader want to go and live in the apartment building on Tenth Street in Greenwich Village, New York.  Highly recommended.

My last book was “This Time Tomorrow” by Emma Straub.  A little out of the ordinary for my picks, this one features time travel, but in a very compelling and compassionate way.  Here’s that the wonderful Ann Patchet says:

“The pages brim with tenderness and an appreciation for what we had and who we were. I could not have loved it more.”—Ann Patchett

The online synopsis:

“On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it’s her dad:  the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?”

It seems the title was at least somewhat inspired by the song by the Kinks – one of my favourite bands.  The song is quoted in the intro to the book.

Alice’s (main character) Dad is a big Kinks fan.

Prior to traveling back to her 16 year old birthday party, Alice works in a New York private school called Belvedere.  Here’s how Straub describes it:

“This one was for the eating-disordered overachievers, that one was for dummies with drug problems but rich parents.  There was the school for athletes and the school for tiny Brooks Brothers mannequins who would end up as CEOs, the school for well-rounded normies who would become lawyers, the school for artsy weirdos and for parents who wanted their kids to be artsy weirdos.  Belvedere had started in the 1970s on the Upper West Side, and so it had been full of socialists and hippies, but now, fifty years later, the moms at drop-off idled outside in their Teslas and the children were all on ADHD medication.”

A very enjoyable read overall, and a productive week of reading.

The new album from Goose, “Dripfield”, has been on heavy rotation this week.  It’s got everything I like, good songs, great musicianship and production, and a nice loose, jammy feel:

This very deep cut (I would bet there’s nobody else in McKinney familiar with this song) appeared on a playlist this week.  I love the lyrics and the brass band (Black Dyke Mills band):

That sent me off in search of some brass band tunes.  This one sounds good on a great sound system – those B flat bass bottom notes just resonating on:

And finally, something sublime from the Everly Brothers, from their 1960 album, “A Date with The Everly Brothers”.  Those close duo harmonies from Don and Phil always make me smile.  Seeing them play a few songs during a Simon and Garfunkel show was a live music highlight for me.

 

Coexist with kindness and compassion!

 

Week in Review – June 26th, 2022

“You Know it’s a Quiet Week when Haircuts are the Excitement”

Welcome back to this hebdomadal blog posting.  That’s a new word I learned this week and have been looking forward to trying out.  If you don’t know it or lack the drive to look it up – it means weekly, or every seven days.  The weird things you learn from crosswords and their associated blogs.

This is the first week in a while where we’ve both been together, at home, with nothing much going on.  Gave us a chance to catch up on some movies and TV series in the evenings.  That, and catching up on mind numbing administrative tasks like filing health and dental claims.

The only real activity outside the house for us both was getting haircuts on Friday afternoon – me at the Allen Boardroom, and Diana with Leah in downtown McKinney.

McD looks much cooler than me, with her shades on.

Walks this week had to be undertaken much earlier in the day, with heat indexes in the 105 degree range later in the day.  Clorinda always commented on the crepe myrtles when she was staying with us, so I snapped this picture for her this morning – not quite in full bloom yet – the trees, not Diana.

Here’s an entertaining picture from earlier in the week.  Adamo took the boys to the beach, and poor Frankie enjoyed the peace and quiet so much that she fell asleep right on Molly.

Now for a report on some of our TV time.  We started with a corny, rom-com type of thing, “Love and Gelato”, on Netflix.  Some mild humour and pretty views of Italy were the highlights for me.

From a completely different genre, I loved “Under the Volcano”, a documentary about the AIR recording studio and compound that George Martin built in Montserrat.  An amazing number of exceptional albums from the 80s were recorded here, with artists enjoying the quiet and isolation to come up with some of their best work.  Duran Duran, the Rolling Stones, the Police, Dire Straits, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, among many others.

One of my favourite stories was Paul McCartney telling about recording “Ebony and Ivory” with Stevie Wonder, and heading out to a local dive club, where Stevie entertained the locals until 4am.  The pure joy on McCartney’s face in one of the pictures says it all.  I also enjoyed Sting talking about one of the locals teaching him to windsurf on the nearby beach – reminded me of a humorously failed attempt to learn on vacation in France – translation necessary, and some better balance.

In a similar vein, I continued to work my way through the “Get Back” documentary on the final days of the Beatles, by Peter Jackson.  The highlights are definitely watching Lennon and McCartney composing songs, like “Get Back”, on the spot in the Apple studio.  That, and Billy Preston joining the Beatles on piano in the sessions, and immediately bringing a new dimension of musicality and positive energy.

Neither of us has watched more than a few episodes of Downton Abbey- I know, I know, that will be hard for all the avid fans to believe.  We did watch “Downton Abbey: A New Era”, where part of the family decamps to a villa in the south of France.  The other members remain at home to supervise a movie being filmed in the Abbey.  It’s right when the first “talkie” movies are being produced, and that adds quite a bit of hilarity to the proceedings.  I thought this film was very well written and entertaining.

“The Bear” on Hulu, is a great new series.  Set in Chicago, it’s about a young chef who gives up his position running the French Laundry in Napa, to return home and rescue the family restaurant after his brother dies.  Very good characters and acting throughout.  We both really enjoyed this.

While we’re talking about movies so much – did you know that the outside scenes in the movie “Benji” were filmed in downtown McKinney?  Who knew?  We only found out recently, with the announcement of a statue to commemorate the fact going up in downtown.

I came to find out that this was one of Diana’s favourite movies as a kid.  We’ll have to take a picture with the statue when it’s installed.

Lest you think we’ve been sitting on the couch all week, I did come up with a list of projects for Diana – clean out the dust, cobwebs, dead bugs, and other grime from the garage windows and ceiling, find landscape lights for me, and clean the dangling globes in the kitchen.  She reciprocated with some hornet and weed killing tasks for me.  It doesn’t take long to get worn out on those projects when it’s so ridiculously hot outside.

My book this week was “Four Treasures of The Sky” by Jenny Tinghui Zhang, a Chinese born and now Austin based writer.  Set in the late 1800s, the book follows the life of a young Chinese girl from her home, to San Francisco and Idaho.

This is the first book in a while that I contemplated not finishing, but slogged on to the end.  The writing didn’t keep my attention much, except when describing the art of Chinese calligraphy and the meanings of characters.

“In the afternoon, I returned to the school and swayed in the courtyard, memorizing the characters on the stone tiles below me.  Sometimes the students threw half-eaten apples into the courtyard.  If the weather was nice and Master Wang opened the windows, I could listen in on class, letting myself be seized by his unwavering tenor.

From these sessions, I learned that the ink brush, ink stick, paper, and inkstone were called the Four Treasures of the Study.  I learned that, in addition to painting the right strokes in the right order, the artist was also responsible for maintaining a balance of self in order to create good calligraphy.” 

I wasn’t familiar with the concept of an “inkstone”, so found this on YouTube.  I know it’s from Japanese calligraphy, but I’m sure the concept is the same in the Chinese version.

It was also interesting to read about the cruelty of the “Chinese Exclusion Act” and how it emboldened anti-Chinese actions – even in rural Idaho.

From the Author’s Note at the end of the book:

“It is important for me to mention that while the history of anti-Chinese violence has not been “forgotten” by scholars and historians, it is largely unknown by the majority of Americans.  Even as a Chinese immigrant, I did not learn about it until I took an Asian American intro course in my senior year of college.  I experienced passing shouts of “Go back to where you came from!” growing up but had no idea that this was a call descended from decades of racist initiatives toward Chines immigrants by the United States.  The Chinese helped build the railroads, that I knew, but what about everything else?  What about the part where we were not wanted here, where we were killed for being here?”

Here’s one from the excellent “Country Funk” series.  How much does Billy Swan sound like Robert Plant from those albums with Allison Krauss?

A great song that appeared on “The Bear” soundtrack.  Been a while since I listened to R.E.M.

Something that I watched come together on the “Get Back” documentary:

I’m pretty pleased with how the music and TV watching sections came together!

And finally something wonderful from the late, great Greg Allman.  The musicianship on this live track is excellent:

Stay safe, kind, and compassionate to everyone!

 

Week in Review – June 19th, 2022

“Surgery and Celebration Week”

This week started with Diana’s dental surgery – tooth extraction and bone graft.  She elected not to have general anesthesia, and rather have a “magic pill” at the dentist’s office to calm her down and make her very sleepy.  She claimed she wasn’t really getting sleepy – I think the pictures indicate otherwise:

Everything went well according to Dr. Johnson – he reported that he met Diana’s two instructions to him: 1.  no pain; 2.  do a great job.  I was a bit concerned right when we arrived home, as the pain was very high, but things settled down in a few hours.  The rinsing, dabbing and pain pills all week are really getting annoying for McD.

I was next up on Thursday, with dupuytrens surgery Act II.  I had my pinky nodule removed last year, and now it was time for ring and middle nodules to exit.  A lot of work for a couple of little bumps – but they do start to hurt annoyingly after a few months.

I’m usually in a happy and entertaining state when coming out of anesthesia.  Not so much this time – too much time waiting without anything to eat or drink, and too much time to review the ridiculous cost of short surgeries.  Diana was glad to get me out of there before I really irritated the nurses.  Time for some Taco Bell comfort food.

We celebrated Finn’s 29th birthday on Friday – pushing our anniversary celebration to Saturday.  The fun started with the “Lightyear” movie at the luxurious iPic theater.  This is a prequel to “Toy Story” – showing the story that was behind the Buzz Lightyear “Infiniti and Beyond” toy.  The film was action packed and entertaining.  Diana commented that it was “one calamity after another.”

After all that excitement, we returned home so that Finn could open presents – he had a great time opening Pokemon figurines from Campbell, custom made San Francisco Giants barstools from us, cards, gift cards, and then a delicious lemon cake and ice cream that Diana arranged for him.  So nice to see him so healthy and happy.

The theme for a fifth anniversary is wood.  Diana likes to play Connect 4, and so I couldn’t resist this custom wooden version.

I also found an Etsy company that makes wooden boards with song lyrics – had to get our wedding song:

Diana surprised me with a glass koala (D) and penguin (K) that she had made by a guy in New Orleans, who was part of an artist co-op downstairs from our condo.  I really love these little guys.

Our anniversary dinner was at Rick’s Chophouse in downtown McKinney.  A lovely setting that we’ve enjoyed many times in the past, but this time the service was spotty and slow.  We made the best of it and tried not to complain too much.  Desserts and my shrimp ‘n grits were both delicious.

Pest control came out to kill off our latest round of hornets, but a few stragglers remained.  I tried to take care of them so that D could fully enjoy her sunbathing spot, without unwanted company.  They really do look mean.

 

 

It was nice to get our surgeries behind us and to celebrate birthday and anniversary.

My book this week was “Between Two Kingdoms” by Suleika Jaouad.  I really enjoyed this book, which follows Jaouad’s multiple year battle with leukemia and her path to recovery.  I have a bunch of dog-eared pages that I wanted to share, but it’s too hard for me to type with this annoying bandage on my right hand- keeps activating the Ctrl key with all kinds of silly results.  So, I’ll just share this online summary that it was easy to copy and paste – the Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V responding well.

“In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.

It started with an itch—first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times.

When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward—after countless rounds of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant—she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal—to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live.

How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost? Jaouad embarked—with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt—on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives. Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.”

I thoroughly recommend this book – not exactly an uplifting tale, but such an honest and insightful survival story.

Here’s an interesting Dylan cover that I’ve enjoyed several times this week:

Some lovely, laid back Anders:

And finally a new band that I heard this week and like a lot:

Stay safe, kind and compassionate to everyone!

Week in Review – June 12th, 2020

“We Still Miss Austin a Lot”

I made a trip to see the hand surgeon on Monday.  He confirmed that the nodule on my hand is another incidence of dupuytrens disease – so we’ll have to get another surgery planned to extract it before it starts to hurt too much.

I stopped into the immigration office on my drive to Austin on Tuesday.  They had sent me an interview date and time that I thought was to do the usual green card biometrics, required every ten years.  After standing in line for a while, and then having picture and fingerprints taken, I assumed I was all finished.  But, the lady told me to head upstairs for another interview.  My name was called and off I went to an interview room with a pleasant lady.  After we chatted for a while, she asked, “So, are you ready for the test?”  I asked what kind of test is associated with a regular green card renewal.  Hadn’t experienced one in 30 plus years.  “Oh no, this is your citizenship interview.”  Missed that on the letter that was sent – no mention of studying for the test or anything even close to that.  I figured there was nothing to lose – so off we went with the test.

“How many members are in the house of representatives?”

“How many in the senate?”

“What are the first ten amendments to the constitution known as?”

The rest of the questions were straightforward.  I was able to get them correct and avoided any wasted time “studying” for the test.  If you haven’t brushed up on civics class lately, the answers are 435, 100, and “The Bill of Rights.”

The bad news is I am now working on a list of all international flights between 2016 and 2021 – going to be an interesting journey through the archives (including historical blog posts) to paste that together.  This is the final information necessary to complete my citizenship application.

After all that excitement, the drive down to Austin was smooth and easy.  I spent some time in the office and then picked up Diana at the airport – she was delayed by about an hour as they had to “reboot” one of the airplane engines prior to leaving Phoenix.  That gave me an opportunity to experience the “cell phone waiting lot” at Austin airport.  Quite fancy with a Whataburger and a flight arrival information screen.

One of the nice features of the Carpenter Hotel (other than it’s hip vibe and proximity to the office and fun restaurants) is that there is a Thom’s market right next door.  One can easily pick up some breakfast tacos on the way to work in the morning.  I spent Wednesday at the office, while Diana and Lisa relaxed by the Carpenter pool.  Thankfully some very tall trees provide good shade, as temperatures were 100 degrees plus all of this week.

I hosted a Happy Hour at The Tavern for all IT folks in the Austin area, and a few folks who were visiting.  This was a lovely evening with good food, drinks and company – all at a reasonable price.  Diana had a chance to do a detailed interview of Pepe, my new leader for Latin American IT – she was very impressed.  The only downer was when one attendee discovered that her car had been broken into, and her laptop stolen.  Never leave bags visible in the back seat!

I was entertained by the scooter and one-wheel gang that drove by The Tavern – Will is on the waiting list for a new one-wheel.  Don’t think I’ll ever have the balance for one of those.

 

 

I picked up Diana at the hotel for Thursday lunch with Pepe  and me at Salt Traders.  We had a very nice seafood lunch – Diana enjoying some tuna tartare.  After lunch, Diana took Pepe over to Walmart so that he could pick up some things that are much less expensive in the U.S.  Diana and I both agree that Pepe is a great addition to my team.

Dinner on Thursday was at one of our very favourite Austin establishments – Suerte, on the east side of town.  Everything was just as good as anticipated.  We sat at our “regular” table and enjoyed a couple of their creative cocktails.

Our first course was a pulpo (octopus) tostada – creative and yummy.  We followed that with the must have suadero tacos – still my favourite ever.

Suerte is always such a highlight of an Austin trip.  Great food and excellent service in a casual atmosphere.

Speaking of yummy food – I noticed that our office vending machine now carries the highly addictive Zappos Voodoo chips from New Orleans.  I was proud of myself for being able to resist the temptation.

 

One last Austin favourite restaurant before our drive back to McKinney.  We enjoyed Friday lunch at June’s All Day.  Diana couldn’t pass up her favourite steak tartare and frites, while I enjoyed a perfect boursin omelet.

The drive home wasn’t too bad – just the usual Waco and South Dallas snarl up spots.  We were home before 5pm.

Can you believe these temperatures forecast for the weekend?  One needs to get out early in the morning for any physical activity.

Santos came over on Saturday to trim up the trees – particularly the one in our neighbor’s yard that had the broken branch.  We finally got rid of all the branches hanging over our pool.  He also trimmed back the massive oak tree in the front significantly – no trees touching the house now.  It was interesting to watch the technique used to make the branches fall into the gap between the magnolias, and then control their descent.

Campbell sent pictures from a Saturday baseball game in San Diego.  He did not catch a foul ball, and Molly was getting irritated with him raising up his glove.  “It’s for your own protection,” he explained.  Things were fine after that.

I enjoyed my book this week much better than the one from last week.  “The Guide”, by Peter Heller was a quick and exciting read.  The fly fishing descriptions were wonderful, and the plot fast paced and engaging.  I did find the conclusion a bit gruesome and disturbing – but not beyond the imagination.

Here’s the Amazon summary:

“Kingfisher Lodge, nestled in a canyon on a mile and a half of the most pristine river water on the planet, is known by locals as “Billionaire’s Mile” and is locked behind a heavy gate. Sandwiched between barbed wire and a meadow with a sign that reads “Don’t Get Shot!” the resort boasts boutique fishing at its finest. Safe from viruses that have plagued America for years, Kingfisher offers a respite for wealthy clients. Now it also promises a second chance for Jack, a return to normalcy after a young life filled with loss. When he is assigned to guide a well-known singer, his only job is to rig her line, carry her gear, and steer her to the best trout he can find. 

But then a human scream pierces the night, and Jack soon realizes that this idyllic fishing lodge may be merely a cover for a far more sinister operation. A novel as gripping as it is lyrical, as frightening as it is moving, The Guide is another masterpiece from Peter Heller.”

I enjoyed the way the main character and background were linked to Heller’s last book, “The River”, which I enjoyed a few years ago – recommended by Issac’s Austin based “Manly Book Club.”

Here’s a paragraph that captures the joy of fishing:

“He was almost under the bridge when he raised the rod high and brought the exhausted trout in the last few feet and unshucked the net from his belt and slid it under this beauty and cradled her in the mesh.  She was a species of gold that no jeweler had every encountered – deeper, darker, rich with tones that had depth like water.  He talked to her the whole time, You’re all right, you’re all right, thank you, you beauty, almost as he had talked to himself at the shack, and he wet his left hand and cupped her belly gently and slipped the barbless hook from her lip and withdrew the net.”

Let’s start out with some relaxing, mellow saxophone – great for a Sunday morning with the paper:

We’ll keep it mellow with one of my top three Grateful Dead tracks:

And finally some entertaining mermaid music from Mississippi John Hurt:

 

Stay safe, kind and compassionate to everyone!

 

Week in Review – June 5th, 2022

“Guatemala City and San Francisco”

We headed to the airport on Tuesday morning – me to travel to Guatemala City for work, and Diana to visit her Mom in San Francisco.  Both of our flights were on time and smooth.  I enjoyed dinner with our leader for the Guatemala business and called it an early night.  I visited my favourite breakfast place, Saul’s Bistro, the next morning and noticed that the tables were built on old sewing machine pedal mounts – very clever.

Damon and Doug traveled with me and we had meetings all day on Wednesday, followed by a team dinner.  We did take a break for a yummy Greek lunch – I really like this place and have eaten there each time we visit.

Another break in the afternoon for the COVID tests necessary to regain entry to the United States.  I chuckled at the name of the facility:

The team dinner was at a fancy steak house – Jorge’s steak came with some kind of smoky presentation, and Doug certainly got a lot of meat.  His father was a butcher and so he enjoys his steak.

After dinner, we were teasing Damon about having selected such an early flight.  So early that his car was arriving at 4am.  We should have kept quiet!  I woke at 2:30am to discover that American Airlines had canceled my 10am flight back to Dallas and booked me on the same flight the next day.  That wouldn’t have been awful, but necessitated getting a new COVID test etc.  I really didn’t relish having to fill out all the forms and going through that again.  I was able to book a seat on the 6am flight to Miami and then an onward flight to Dallas.  This meant – you guessed it – I had to share Damon’s 4am car.  That and wake up Doug and get him organized with a new flight to Austin from Miami.  This sign in the Miami airport reminded me to go with the flow and relax:

I was home at 5pm, not too much later than on my originally planned flight, just with a much earlier start.  Whew – early to bed.  I did notice this large, broken tree limb hanging in our yard before bed.  The storm that caused our flight cancellation must have been a pretty good one.  The upside is that branch needed to come down anyway as it was over the pool and spoiling the sun bathing area.

I met one of our Board members for lunch at Snuffer’s on Friday.  This is a place that I used to visit regularly 30 or more years ago – but I hadn’t been in quite a while.  The burger and chicken sandwich are just as good as they always were, and the cheese fries just as ridiculous.

Finn and I met at Fork and Spoon for Thai food on Saturday.  He entertained me with a story about all the shoppers complaining about how much food prices have increased.  “It’s just basic economics – if diesel doubles in price, then some of that has to be passed along to the consumer.”  We tried to get him signed up for health benefits, but the system had him locked and we’ll deal with that when they open on Monday.

Saturday was a busy day in Pacifica.  Diana and Clorinda watched two baseball games in the morning – Massimo and Luciano’s teams.  Then they hosted a party for Alicia’s birthday.  The weather was cooperative and so everyone was able to enjoy the deck and the view.

Fortunately there is plenty of room for parking:

The hoodlums from up the hill had fun in a tree – even Frankie in her party dress.

And of course pictures with Mom (favourite daughter and son):

Diana reports a really lovely event.  So exciting that it was close to midnight before she could get Clorinda to bed.

My book this week was “French Braid” by Anne Tyler.  If you are a regular reader, you know how much I admire Tyler’s ability to capture the day to day normality of families, with great characters.

“French Braid” is her latest offering, and I found it a bit disappointing.  Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood, or have read too many of her books in the recent past, but it just felt plodding and a bit boring.  I needed some more excitement and action of some kind.  I know that’s not her thing, but this one just needed something to spice it up a bit.  I didn’t even have a dog-eared page to share.

Saul’s Bistro in Guatemala always has an interesting soundtrack playing.  I heard this when enjoying breakfast.  Such an interesting cover:

I checked out some more of Kent’s music – some good French songs:

Vince told me he was enjoying this album on the deck of his lake house.  I decided to check it out.  Great jazz music:

And finally some wonderful Tom Petty:

Stay safe, compassionate and kind to everyone!

Week in Review – May 29, 2022

“HBK!”

Finn joined us on Monday evening to celebrate my birthday.  Diana had been busy earlier in the day with the traditional pavlova preparation.  The mixer made a rare trip from its custom cupboard to the counter top.  Oh, the complexity of a new oven and the micro-adjustments necessary to create the perfect meringue.

I think it turned out perfectly – crunchy and then the lovely chewiness of the inside.  The other traditional birthday fare is meat pies.  The regular recipe had been “misplaced”, and so a new one was attempted – I think with even better results.  Finn was enlisted for an extra pair of hands in completing meat pie prep – dough shaping and egg washing – he’s always happy to help with cooking tasks.

What a perfect birthday treat.  I love the Mardi Gras frame that Diana picked up in New Orleans for our Mardi Gras Day picture – one of my favourites from the recent residency.

Another one of her gifts was an excellent book – “Booze and Vinyl.”  A selection of great albums from the last four decades with suggested cocktail pairings and snacks.  This is a wonderful book – the authors clearly love vinyl records and cocktails very much.  There’s not a bad album in here and the pairings make a lot of sense.  Maybe we’ll work our way through this, one album per week, when we’re both retired.

Finn gifted me a “Tenicle 360”.  This is a phone mount like an octopus – the arms allow you to mount your phone to almost anything, with strong suction cups.  I laughed because Finn and I had seen this on Shark Tank and thought it would be a great product.

Will found a compact travel wallet for me.  Apparently after much research and consultation with Diana.  I think it’s great – just enough space for the essentials, and with a tracking card that shows you the wallet location on a map and then beeps as you home in on its location.

And then there’s a special gift.  My Dad had suggested to Mum that they get me a valet as a present.  I loaded it up for this picture, but couldn’t find my Rolex watch – more on that later.

Another lovely birthday.

We had planned to travel to San Francisco on Wednesday, to spend the long weekend with Clorinda.  Unfortunately she tested positive for COVID earlier in the week, and we had to delay that adventure.  Thankfully she had a couple of days of minor symptoms and is now fine and testing negative.

Diana convinced me to go for a run on Saturday morning, before it got too hot.  I ran for 15 minutes, first time in a couple of months, and my legs are still achy today.  Note to self – need to go running more often to avoid the two day thigh aches.  We followed that with a trip to filtered for coffee and a quiche – something we haven’t done in a while.  Penelope was happy for the trip with her top down on a lovely, sunny day.

I made my new Thai chicken dish on Saturday night and Finn joined us to sample it.  He gave it a hearty thumbs up.  Diana always enjoys my mise en place activity before making this dish – all my ingredients lined up in little bowls – like a TV cooking show.

Finn’s car is looking brand new after the ceramic coating that Will organized.

I dragged my achy thighs to the pool for a swim on Sunday morning – not too bad – I suppose swimming must use slightly different muscles, that or I just didn’t kick very hard.  I’m guessing the latter.

On Sunday evening, we walked across the street to our neighbours, the Ennens, to celebrate the high school graduation of their twins.  We had a pleasant time chatting with Mary’s brother and his family about travel, scuba diving and the like.  One of the graduating twins, Tanner, was kind enough to check on the house and Penelope while we were on our New Orleans residency.

Have you watched any of “Somebody Feed Phil” on Netflix?  I stumbled upon it recently (thanks Vince) and am really enjoying Phil Rosenthal’s exploits as he travels to a new city in each episode.  Rosenthal was the creator of “Everybody Loves Raymond”, and you can certainly see the sense of humour that was so successful there coming through in this show.  Highly recommended.

Now, about that lost Rolex.  I assumed I had hidden it during the bathroom remodel – a while ago, I know.  Several attempts to locate it in places I might have hidden it came up empty.  Where do you think I found it?  I’ll give you a minute to come up with some ideas, and still don’t think you’ll get it.  I found it in a pocket of my work bag while cleaning it out for my travel this week.  I must have been carrying it around from place to  place for at least a year.  Good grief!

I was proud of this Phrazle accomplishment on Sunday morning.  My first time to guess in two tries.  I just had to see “Never” at the end and then it fell into place.

My book this week was “Every Good Boy Does Fine (A Love Story, in Music Lessons)” by Jeremy Denk.  This is one of my favourite reads in a while.  Fair warning though – I’m not sure it would be particularly enjoyable to someone who doesn’t enjoy classical music and hasn’t struggled with the piano at some point in their life.

Here’s the bio on Denk:

 

“Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists.  Winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, Denk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and has appeared with ensembles including the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.  His recordings have reached #1 on the Billboard classical chartsa nd have been featured on many best-of-the-year lists.  His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Guardian, and The New York Times Review.  Denk graduated from Oberlin College, Indiana University, and the Juiliard School.  He lives in New York City.”

How can a world class pianist also by an excellent writer.  Doubly not fair.

Each chapter covers Denk’s experience and relationship with a piano teacher, from early childhood through concert pianist.  I particularly enjoyed the “playlist” at the start of each chapter – covering music discussed in that chapter.  I did my best to play along on Spotify.  The highlight of the book for me was the detailed way that Denk described portions of the pieces he is playing – the rhythm and melodies – in such a caring and nuanced way.

The first teacher:

“At this point (according to my parents) I asked for piano lessons.  They were surprised because of my passionate rejection of the violin, but I’d been banging away at the spinet here and there.  As it happened, a teacher lived right down the street:  Mona Schneiderman.  (Has a more perfect piano teacher name ever been invented?)  And so a new weekly routine began, in lieu of medication or therapy.  Mom was relieved it didn’t involve more driving.  I have unreliable memories of Mona’s face – just a general kindness, light brown hair, glasses.  Her upright piano stood just off the kitchen, sharing space with a formal dining room.

Mona gave me a book of sheet music:  Very Easy Piano Pieces for Children.  On the cover, I scrawled in my loopiest script:  “Love the piano.”  I got assigned my first piece, “Wonderful World”, on March 10, 1976 (I was five and three-quarters).  It had lyrics.”

A synopsis of the fifteen year old Denk:

“My resume:  straight A’s, probable valedictorian, fifteen years old, a year’s worth of college already under my belt, and no chance of my ruining all this by knocking up anyone.  I’d won the Chemistry Olympics, with a super-precise titration.  I had gushing recommendations from my English teachers and my calculus professor.  Bruce Streett arranged for me to meet with Ivy Leagues alumni around town.  He accepted that I wasn’t going to go to Oxford, or become a Rhodes scholar, because I needed to focus on piano, and yet he still wanted to help.”

On studying Beethoven’s Sonata in F Minor, op. 57 at Oberlin college in 1986:

“After a few weeks of hitting the “Appassionata” first movement hard, Joe asked me to start the second.  I opened the music in my practice room.  on the page, it looked innocent: a hymn, one basic chord after another.  I felt this was a scam.  You often encounter a boundary in Beethoven, when he prunes music to the fundamentals: you think he’s gone too far, but then you realize he hasn’t.  I hadn’t evolved to that second stage.  I was more than willing to call out Beethoven for being a hack.

My lesson rolled around.  After I played the theme and one variation, Joe said, “What’s going on?  What happened to you?”

A bad comment – maybe one of the worst.  I decided to confess.  I told Joe I thought the piece was boring, even a bit cheesy.  Joe didn’t order me out of the studio, or lecture me on how this is one of Beethoven’s holiest visions, inhabiting a space between childlike wonder and deep reverence.  He gave me the look that Jerry Seinfeld give George Costanza when George proposes some new morally vacant scheme, and then shook it off with a sigh, and decided there was nothing else to do but approach the problem practically.  God, what I wouldn’t have given for something impractical, I was so tired of sighs and rolled-up sleeves.”

On his love of Brahms:

“If you forced me at gunpoint to pick a favorite tune, I would choose the beginning of Brahms’ first Piano Trio, op. 8, in B Major.  I first heard and played it at age fourteen, and in my mind it still lives there, thinking fourteen-year-old thoughts.  Brahms begins this tune in the piano, in its richest, most chocolaty-register – what’s called the tenor.  The melody launches from a low preamble note, then climbs, one note at a time.  For the first few notes, it’s just a major scale, nothing memorable.  But then Brahms decides to skip one note.  This act is crucial and defining:  the melody acquires identity and purpose.”

More on Brahms.  I love this description of the horn opening:

“Brahms B-flat!  A comical choice for an injured pianist, like deciding to ascend Everest with a broken leg.  It is one of the most difficult pieces in the piano repertoire, more difficult in many ways than Rachmaninoff no.3.  But I kept going over it in my head.  I couldn’t stop obsessing about the opening, a horn call, a rising scale with a little curlicue creating a subtle upward energy, the sense of a question.  And after the horn ascended, how the piano came from the unexpected other side, from the deepest bass, creating a cushion of sound around the horn, a foundation beneath a foundation.  The timbre of the horn, the sense of space, the call in the mountains resounding over the valley (“He wrote it in Italy!” one conductor reminded me; another cellist friend said, “Here is the universe”).”

I have many more dog-eared pages in this book, but you get a sense of it from those quotes.  I will have to delve in again and spend more time listening to the “playlists” from each chapter.  There is a section at the end of the book where Denk lists out his favourite recordings of each piece – through the wonder and curse of Spotify they are all right at our fingertips.

As Monty Python would say, “And now for something completely different.”  At least on the music front.

A couple of songs from Govt. Mule’s latest, “Heavy Load Blues”:

I always loved Whitesnake’s version of this.  Such a shame Coverdale’s amazing voice was wasted on silly rock ‘n roll songs:

And finally, back in the piano realm.  The sublime Keith Jarrett from a recording that I’ve been looking for for many years, and finally tracked down “Moth and the Flame”:

Stay safe, compassionate and kind to everyone!

 

Week in Review – May 22, 2022

“Birthday Week Begins”

I made a quick trip to Queretaro, Mexico from Monday through Wednesday.  It’s an easy flight – just two and a half hours from Dallas, and a small airport.  No COVID test needed to enter and they have a doctor who comes to the office to do a test for return to the United States.  Work wasn’t a lot of fun as I dealt with some employee issues, but I did enjoy a couple of nice dinners.  Argentinian steakhouse with Francisco on Monday, and then a great Italian place, Il Duomo, with Manuel and Juan Pablo on Tuesday.  I was surprised to find a solid selection of French wines and steak tartare (prepared tableside) on the menu.

The queen clams were a delicious appetizer, and the service outstanding throughout.  The ash goat cheese on my salad was a real treat.  Highly recommended if you ever find yourself in the area.

When I returned home, Diana had been busy preparing for my “birthday week.”  Tulips, a card,  drinks, and lots of my favourites in the fridge.  Thanks, my D!

She even brought me my favourite crunchwrap combo lunch from Taco Bell on Friday – delivered to my office.  I am seriously being spoiled this week.

Earlier on Wednesday, Diana drove Finn to pick up his car from Tony.  Will had arranged for a ceramic coating on the new paint job.  It does look amazing.

Janelle came over to visit with Diana on Thursday.  They got a kick out of some of the pictures that I was gathering up for a presentation that I’m giving next week – younger and much younger K.

Out for our walk on Saturday morning, we came across the monthly Cars and Coffee gathering.  I had to take pictures of the original Toyota Supra model – the first car that Will learned to drive in – stick shift and all.

The weather wasn’t good on Saturday afternoon, so no pool time for McD.  I suggested she try a jigsaw puzzle.  She can’t stop after she starts – straight back to it when she got up this morning.  It’s a puzzle of “Where the Crawdads Sing” – just the right degree of difficulty so that she wasn’t at it for several days.

I found some new puzzles this week – Phrasle, works like Wheel of Fortune with allowance for up to 4 wrong letter choices, and then Phrazle, which works like Wordle, with up to 6 chances to guess the entire phrase.

At sushi lunch on Saturday, Finn was telling us a story about Clorinda educating him on how to eat arancini (Italian rice balls).  Apparently it’s important to tear them in two before adding sauce.  Neither D or I have received this advice.  And then what shows up in the crossword this morning?

I enjoyed a nice long swim this morning, and now I’m relaxing and watching the PGA golf tournament as I write this.  Diana is out working in the garden where everything is blooming and perking up – even C-boy the cactus.

My book this week was “The Candy House” by Jennifer Egan.  The story includes several of the characters from her Pulitzer Prize winning “A Visit from the Goon Squad”, a book that I really enjoyed.  The first few chapters were engaging and funny and had me looking forward to the rest of the book.  But things went downhill for me – too many characters that it seemed were supposed to be related, but I couldn’t keep up with the connections.  Then changing into different formats – a chapter of email/twitter exchanges that didn’t work for me at all.  The concept of being able to store the history of one’s consciousness is quite interesting though.  Overall an enjoyable read, just didn’t live up to my expectations.

The critics seem to love the book, so maybe you’ll like it more than I did.   Here’s the synopsis:

“It’s 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix  Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He’s forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, Own Your Unconscious—that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

In spellbinding linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of styles—from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter, and a chapter of tweets. In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters” who track and exploit desires and there are “eluders,” those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.

Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. With a focus on social media, gaming, and alternate worlds, you can almost experience moving among dimensions in a role-playing game.​ Egan delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption.”

The gentleman next to me on my flight to Queretaro was wearing a hat that said “Camel”, with a guitar logo.  I asked him if that was the band Camel that recorded the Snow Goose album.  It was, and a fun conversation ensued about his trip to the Albert Hall to see the band perform that album recently.  He is also a big Wishbone Ash fan, and was excited to meet someone who knew about the music he loves.

This one from Ray LaMontagne really caught my ear – lovely song:

Here’s an INXS cover from fellow Australians, The Teskey Brothers:

And finally, something from Amy Helm, Levon’s daughter:

Stay safe, compassionate and kind to everyone!

Week in Review – May 15, 2022

“Bastion is still just as good”

We had raved about Bastion, a tiny restaurant in Nashville, to Denny and Anne several times.  They were attending a carwash convention there this week, and suggested we join them for dinner.  I made the reservation exactly one month in advance, as necessary to get in, and we have been looking forward to revisiting for a while now.  More on that experience shortly.

The latest car wash in the Ogan empire opened Monday in Gentilly.  Then Denny and Anne flew to Nashville to celebrate.  They had been concerned that city approvals were going to cause delays and impact our trip.  Here’s a local councilman reading a grand opening proclamation.

 

 

Hotels were exorbitantly expensive this week, and so I booked a “Nashville Riverfront Loft”.  This worked out very well, with lots of extra space and a great location – half a block of Broadway.

Interestingly, there is a unique Taco Bell across the street – apparently has a special food and drink menu.  Didn’t have a chance to check it out.

 

After check-in, we met up with Denny and Anne for a tapas lunch and to sample some music at the honky-tonk bars on Broadway.

The Ogans were busy on Tuesday night with carwash stuff, and so Diana and I had dinner at an old favourite – the Butcher and Bee in East Nashville.  The whipped feta with honey is so delicious.  Not sure if Diana thought her champagne was more delicious?  We couldn’t resist the strawberry pavlova – a pretty faithful rendition with a creative twist.

 

After dinner, the carwash festivities were still underway at the Wild Horse Saloon (conveniently right next to our loft), and so we joined Denny and Anne for some shuffleboard games and were able to meet the carwash partners.

 

 

 

After some work on Wednesday morning, McD and I went for a walk across the bridge over the Cumberland river to check out the football stadium.  It was certainly starting to warm up as we took in the sites and enjoyed the riverside stroll.

It really is impressive to have the football stadium right next to downtown, and easily accessible with the pedestrian bridge.

I even learned a little history of Nashville on the walk.

While we were walking, the Ogans were touring the Glen Campbell museum – Anne really enjoyed it, with Denny commenting on having to read every little sign.  They shared pictures of Campbell’s Scottish outfit.

We enjoyed a casual Taco Deli lunch and discussed what to do next.  Denny found the Nashville Museum of African American Music (NMAAM), right under where we were enjoying lunch.  This was an outstanding museum – one of the best that I can remember visiting.  The use of technology, the variety of exhibits,  and the interactive opportunities were all excellent.  We were issued wrist bands on entry that were used to record many of our activities.  An email later shared all the songs you had listened to, beats you had created and more.

Here are some more of the interesting things in the museum – including a Louis Armstrong trumpet, and pictures of the first brass bands:

And here’s one of the most interesting sights I saw, Diana and Anne following along to dance moves through the years:

After the museum, we visited a rooftop bar and then freshened up and changed for dinner.

Anne had been given the action item to find the secret code to gain entry to the “Red Phone Booth” speakeasy bar.  She completed that with the concierge at the hotel with the rooftop.  So we needed to make that stop before dinner.

I think the code was a complete ruse, as there was no dialtone on the phone – suspect they just look on the camera and decide if they want to let you in.  It is clever how the backside of the phone booth opens for entry.  The place was lovely inside – lots of wood, comfy leather sofas, and a great cigar and drink selection.

Now it was finally time for the main reason for the trip.  Dinner at Bastion.

Here’s the menu for the evening:

Six courses with wine pairings – although several courses had multiple items involved – I think it was really thirteen separate dishes.  The first course was four appetizers – all great, and I think the group consensus was with the oyster.

So many things to love about this restaurant – wonderful food, creative presentation, the pride which accompanies the description of the food as the chefs deliver it, and the detailed explanations of the wonderful wine pairings.

The raw course was a delight – everyone raving about the scallops.

The pasta dish in the veggie course was Denny’s favourite.  It was an explosion of flavours in your mouth.

The salmon was beautifully cooked, with a yummy pumpkin seed sauce.

The duck might have been my favourite – perfectly cooked with another great sauce.

Dessert and the excellent wine pairing were a terrific end to a wonderful meal.

Chef was playing one of our favourite albums as we finished, and so we retired to the little bar to listen some more.

Whew – that was a busy day!

We had a relaxing, long lunch at Etch on Thursday as we killed time before our flight home.  Another very good Nashville restaurant.

Back home the magnolias are blooming nicely.  Can you see my red bird friend in the middle.  I whistle his song to him every morning.

I followed Finn to Tony’s car detail place on Saturday morning.  Tony is going to finish up protective coating that Will wants on the paint – ran out of time to finish before the car was shipped here.  We enjoyed a nice coffee in downtown Plano after drop off.

We had an early walk on Sunday morning – our later start on Saturday was a bit too hot for both of us.  After the walk I enjoyed a swim and picked up some new books from the library for my travels next week.

Some other interesting things from the week – Ollie earned his therapy dog certificate:

And my job made it into the puzzle as “data head”:

I had a good day on the puzzle yesterday, breaking five minutes, but lost to D by 5 seconds today.

My book this week was “Memphis” by Tara M. Stringfellow.  I enjoyed the last part of the jacket biography:

“Poet, former attorney, and Northwestern University MFA graduate Tara M. Stringfellow has written for…  After having lived in Okinawa, Ghana, Chicago, Cuba, Spain, Italy, and Washington, DC, she moved back home to Memphis, where she sits on her porch swing every evening with her hound, Huckleberry, listening to records and chatting with neighbors.”

Here’s a summary of the book – there’s a lot going on in every chapter, bouncing through generations and incorporating reactions to historical events like the MLK assassination and September 11th:

“Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.

As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush.

Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.”

An example of some of the descriptive narrative, capturing Memphis and the South:

“The beginning of fall in the South was something to behold.  The summer heat – a slow moving tornado – had finally left the area.  Nights were a pleasant cool.  We could sit on the front porch unbothered because there were fewer bees, fewer birds, fewer cats even.  Magnolias in Memphis, including the big one in the backyard, had blossomed their last flowers.  The plum tree alongside the house had dropped its last fruit some time ago, but the area around the tree base was still stained indigo.  The dogwoods and maples and cherry trees lining Poplar Avenue had a slight touch of corn husk yellow as if God had placed dabs of butter on each leaf, so that when a breeze caught, the trees ignited in soft flame.  Fall in the South meant Midas came down and touched everything.  The trees seemed to be made of gold itself.  Leaves became copper coins catching in the wind.”

A key theme of the novel, is Joan’s love of art and her desire to do only that as a career.  Here she receives support from her Aunt August:

“”I can sing,” she said, exhaling a plume of cigarette smoke, then taking another puff.  “You’ve heard me before.  Don’t do it that often.  Folk pass out.  Once, years back, at your mama’s wedding, man fainted in a back pew.  Had to be carried out.  Hadn’t even noticed.  Just went on singing Aretha in a way I do doubt Aretha could do it.  But I never did anything with it.  My voice.  Not sure I wanted to, how folk went on and on whenever I let out a note.  Any well, I knew Who gave me this voice.  But I did love piano.  Wanted to play jazz.  Loved Gershwin.”

She sat smoking in silence for a few moments before she continued.

“I will help you, niece.  And I’ll work on your mama.  Win her over.  Guess I must.  Because you have a gift.  I think it’s high time somebody in this damn family with a gift use it.””

A very good read overall.

I read an old article by Chris Rose (ex-husband of Kelly) that I think sums up New Orleans and why it’s so wonderful, in a perfect way:

 

Chris Rose on New Orleans Culture: “Life-Changing, Spirit-Avenging”

I heard this at Bastion and really enjoyed the mix of jazz, rock, and funk:

Here’s a deeper cut from Elvis Costello, showcasing the wonderful piano of Steve Nieve:

Stay safe, compassionate, and kind to everyone!

Week in Review – May 1, 2022

“Argus turns 50”

I got my D back on Tuesday – picked her up at the airport just before 9pm on Tuesday.  She seemed happy with my house cleaning and her welcome home flowers.

We caught up on several weeks of “This is Us” episodes with popcorn on Wednesday night.  We’re going to miss this show – I think there are only four episodes left in the final season.  I can sense that eye-roll Brent!

Finn came over for dinner on Thursday.  He was in good spirits as he told us about his work as acting produce manager – he submitted the order for all the produce to be delivered, taking into account what was on special in the mail flyers.  I hope he didn’t order too much or too little of anything – but he seemed confident.  We enjoyed the regular ready made dishes that Finn likes from Market Street – salmon, parmesan crusted chicken, stuffed mushrooms and green beans.  Diana put together a belated Easter bag for him and we made sure he didn’t eat it all before he left – such a sweet tooth.

We signed up for memberships at the local fitness center, Apex on Friday afternoon.  It’s just around the corner and has a very large pool, as well as indoor running track and machines.  I took advantage of this on Sunday morning with my first swim in many months.  I’m sure I’ll be a bit achy in my shoulders tomorrow.

On a long walk earlier in the week, I saw Wishbone Ash advertised on the sign at the Guitar Sanctuary in Adriatica.  This is a band that I first enjoyed in University, 40 years ago.  I still play their Argus album on a regular basis.  Could they really be playing within walking distance of our home?  Some research indicated they were indeed – on Friday, and tickets were still available.  Done!

We walked to the concert, and enjoyed chatting with the folks in line – the majority of whom had seen the band many times – they have a very loyal following.  The couple next to us were from Motherwell, Scotland and have lived in Austin for 30 years – it was nice to hear a Scottish accent in McKinney.   Bo and Jim from the local radio morning show introduced the band.  It’s been a while since I heard radio personalities introducing a band – used to happen pretty regularly.  Those two have been doing the same morning show, with all the crazy characters, since before I moved to Dallas in 1986.

Andy Powell and the band served up a treat – the first part of the show was Argus from start to finish, a celebration of the album turning fifty years old the day before.  Here are my three favourites:

What a great evening of twin lead guitars and nostalgia.  Thanks to Diana for putting up with the guitar noodling and music that she didn’t know at all.  It was so nice to have a quick walk home rather than a long drive home from downtown Dallas.

Rachel joined us for dinner on Saturday night and regaled us with stories of her work and dating lives.

At some point during the week, Clorinda made a visit to Costco and got to drive a buggy around, chasing Caroline down.  She really loves these outings:

I just left Diana outside, watching Season 1, Episode 5 of “Somebody Feed Phil” on Netflix – an excellent tour of New Orleans restaurants.  She’s going to be ready to go back again when she finishes the episode, featuring Shaya several times.

I enjoyed three relatively short books this week.

The first was “Pops” be Michael Chabon, one of my very favourite authors.  This is a collection of short stories, published in various magazines, and all on the topic of raising his children.  I thoroughly enjoyed this quick read.

 

 

I enjoyed the introductory quote:

“I’ve been there and back

And I know how far it is”

Ronnie Lane

From “Introduction: The Opposite of Writing”:

“At a literary party the summer before my first novel was published, I found myself alone with a writer I admired, on the deck of our hosts’ house along the Truckee River.  People came and went with blue Mexican wineglasses and bottles of beer, but I sensed that, for whatever reason, I had the man’s attention.

“I’m going to give you some advice,” he told me, a warning edge in his voice.

I said I would appreciate that.  I was curious to hear what he had to say, not because I felt in need of advice but as a clue to the mystery of the great man himself.  He presented a smooth surface without chinks or toeholds, the studied amiability of someone unaccustomed to giving himself away.  Advice might be the only clue I was going to get.

The great man said that his advice was going to be painful – or maybe that was just his tone – but he knew what he was talking about, and if I wanted to make a go of it as a novelist, I would do well to pay attention.  The guy was nearly twice my age, but he was not old.  He was young enough, for example, to wear black Chuck Taylors.  He was young enough to smile ironically at himself, laying the Polonius routine on some raw hurler of metaphors our of UC Irvine.

“Don’t have children,” he said.  “That’s it.  Do not.”  The smile faded, but its ghost lingered a moment in his blue eyes.  “That is the whole of the law.”

From “Little Man”:

In a story about accompanying his son to Paris fashion week (in a bout of synchronicity – I was listening to Rush while reading this – D doesn’t care for them, and I overdose on the complex, progressive time changes and the like while I’m alone):

“It takes a profound love of clothes, and some fairly decent luck, to stumble on somebody who wants to converse about cutting-edge men’s fashion at a Rush concert, and yet a year before his trip to Paris, in the aftermath of the Canadian band’s last show at Madison Square Garden, Abe had managed to stumble on John Varvatos.”

From “Be Cool or be Cast Out”:

“In seventh grade, at Hanukkah, my son asked for, and received a peacoat.  It was a classic number, navy blue, double-breasted wool, great big plastic buttons stamped – oh, the coolness! – with little anchors.  We got it from an online army-navy store.  It had a quilted lining, and when he wore it on a gray East Bay afternoon, with an extra-long scarf striped in muted colors wrapped around his neck, and his hair cut in a late-’65, early -’66 Small Faces shag, he looked terrific.  Stylish and lanky and handsome; and warm.  over Christmas break he wore it constantly, and to everything he said and did, with that scarf blowing out behind him, there was a whiff of oracular Blonde on Blonde cool.  He did not so much walk around in it as lope.”

My second read was “Let me tell you what I mean” by Joan Didion, another big favourite of mine.  This is a collection of twelve essays from 1968 to 2000, that showcase her unique reporting style.

From “A Trip to Xanadu”, reminding me of visiting with Mum and Dad years ago:

“It has been for almost half a century a peculiar and affecting image in the California mind.  San Simeon, “La Cuesta Encantada,” the phantasmagoric barony that William Randolph Hearst made for himself on the sunburned hills above the San Luis Obispo County coast.  California children used to hear about San Simeon when they were very small (I know because I was one of them), used to be told to watch for it from Highway 1, quite far in the distance, crested on the hill, the great Moorish towers and battlements shimmering in the sun or floating fantastically just above the coastal fog; San Simeon was a place which, once seen from the highway, was ever in the mind, a material fact which existed in proof of certain abstract principles.”

From “On Being Unchosen by the College of One’s Choice”:

“The Committee on Admissions asks me to inform you that it is unable to take favorable action upon your application for admission to Stanford University.  While you have met the minimum requirements, we regret that because of the severity of the competition, the Committee cannot include you in the group to be admitted.  The Committee joins me in extending you every good wish for the successful continuation of your education.  Sincerely yours, Rixford K. Snyder, Director of Admissions.”

I wonder how Rixford feels about that decision in the years after.  Here Didion gets her own back:

“The next year a friend at Stanford asked me to write him a paper on Conrad’s “Nostromo”, and I did, and he got an A on it.  I got a B- on the same paper at Berkeley, and the specter of Rixford K. Snyder was exorcised.”

From “Pretty Nancy”, the essay that I enjoyed most, for its somewhat scathing and sarcastic portrait of the former First Lady:

“Pretty Nancy Reagan, the wife of the governor of California, was standing in the dining room of her rented house on Forty-fifth Street in Sacramento listening to a television newsman explain what he wanted to do.  She was listening attentively.  Nancy Reagan is a very attentive listener.”

And my last book is quite a bit different.  “Whereabouts” by Jhumpa Lahiri was originally written in Italian and translated to English by the author.  Here’s an online summary:

“Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. In the arc of one year, an unnamed narrator in an unnamed city, in the middle of her life’s journey, realizes that she’s lost her way. The city she calls home acts as a companion and interlocutor: traversing the streets around her house, and in parks, piazzas, museums, stores, and coffee bars, she feels less alone.

We follow her to the pool she frequents, and to the train station that leads to her mother, who is mired in her own solitude after her husband’s untimely death. Among those who appear on this woman’s path are colleagues with whom she feels ill at ease, casual acquaintances, and “him,” a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. Until one day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun’s vital heat, her perspective will abruptly change.”

In a typically grumpy mood, from the chapter “In Spring”:

“In spring I suffer.  The season doesn’t invigorate me.  I find it depleting.  The new light disorients, the fulminating nature overwhelms, and the air, dense with pollen, bothers my eyes.  to calm my allergies I take a pill in the morning that makes me sleep.  It knocks me out.  I can’t focus, and by lunchtime I’m tired enough to go to bed.  I sweat all day and at night I’m freezing.  No shoe seems right for this temperamental time of year.”

From the chapter “On the Couch”:

“She was an attractive woman with dary eyes and a space between her front teeth.  Behind a set of doors was he life she led with the rest of her family:  the pantry full of food, dirty dishes to wash, the laundry drying on the rack.  All I knew was the space dedicated to curing her patients: an individual sanatorium that hosted one anguished soul at a time.  

She always started by saying the same thing: Please begin.  As if each session were the first and only time we met.  Every session was like the start of a novel abandoned after the first chapter.”

And finally, from “In the Pool”:

” I swim for about forty minutes, maybe fifty, before I get tired.  I’m not a strong swimmer, I can’t do a flip turn, I never learned how.  The idea of being on my back underwater scares me a little.  I typically do the crawl, with a weak but decent stroke.

In the pool I lose myself.  My thoughts merge and flow.”

I loved this article about the Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans that I came across in Relix magazine, “Preservation Hall @ 60, Culture is a Verb.”

https://relix.com/articles/detail/preservation-hall-at-60-culture-is-a-verb/

Keeping with the New Orleans theme, there’s a new Trombone Shorty album out (I’m awaiting delivery from Tipitina’s record club) and here’s the title track:

We hadn’t heard this song from an episode of “This is Us” that we watched.  Turns out it’s an original composed by Mandy Moore’s husband, singer in the band Dawes:

Lastly, a great outtake from Bob Dylan’s Infidels recordings – featuring the world’s best rhythm section (Sly and Robbie) and Mark Knopfler on guitar:

Stay safe, kind and patient!

Fortnight in Review – April 24th, 2022

“Happy Easter”

Diana flew to San Francisco for Easter on Monday, and I joined on Thursday afternoon.  Julie celebrated her 50th birthday a few days earlier, and I was put to work on Clorinda’s “labor of love” – rolling up 50 dollar bills and bow tying them on to a necklace.  What a finnicky project.  It did look good when completed.

The weather was mostly very nice, and we were able to get out for some walks on Gypsy Hill.  Somebody has entirely too much energy on those walks:

 

 

Clorinda and I got to enjoy the sun on the deck, and enjoy the view for a while in the afternoon.

John and Maddie’s 5 year old son, Ben, was out showcasing his amazing swing on the golf course – he might be even better at golf than he is at baseball.  College scouts pay attention!

Andy and Jude (best neighbours ever) came over on Friday afternoon.  It’s always so much fun to hang out with them.  Alicia and her friend Yenni put together an impressive appetizer display – particularly Yenni’s fruit arrangement.

Easter Sunday dinner was quite the feast – lobsters from Adamo’s recent diving expedition, and our gorgonzola lamb chop lollipops – been way too long since we made those.

 

 

 

And Julie got to wear the “labor of love” necklace.

Diana and Alicia posed for some pictures – D looking like a teenager with Alicia’s funny hat.

Caroline recommended a “new” walk for us – along the levee by Sharp Park golf course.  Diana had never been there in all her Pacifica years.  This was a pleasant, well maintained trail by the beach and up into the hills.

I flew back to Dallas on Tuesday – the first day of masks not being required for air travel.  It was interesting to observe about 70% of folks with masks in San Francisco airport and maybe 10% at best in Dallas.

I enjoyed a long walk to Duino for coffee on Thursday afternoon.  Ended up being more than 6 miles – a bit more than I had bargained on.

I dropped the VW Atlas off at Discount Tire to get the wheels balanced on Thursday, and Finn picked me up there and took me to lunch at Mexican Cactus – those tacos are so good.  The tire guys called me at lunch to say they couldn’t find the wheel nut locking adapter anywhere.  Nothing’s easy.  I ended up having to pick up a new one at the dealership – must not have replaced it when they powder coated the wheel rims.  The wheels did get balanced ultimately on Friday, and I found an interesting sub-woofer mounted on top of the spare tire when replacing the tool.  I had no idea it was in there.

Diana and Alicia spent Saturday down in San Jose and McD enjoyed one of her staples – steak tartare at the Left Bank at Santana Row.

My first book was “Whiteout” by Ken Follett.  I don’t remember reading Follett before, other than the “On Wings of Eagles” EDS Iran hostage rescue story, and really enjoyed this tale.  Set in a castle in northern Scotland that has been converted into a medical research facility, the story revolves around a plot to steal a deadly virus from the lab during a blizzard.

There is a lot of family drama involved as the owner of the laboratory gathers with this extended family to celebrate Christmas.  I’ll have to try some other Follett books.

My next book was “Mother, May I” by Joshilyn Jackson.  Here’s the online summary:

“Growing up poor in rural Georgia, Bree Cabbat’s single mother warned her that the world was a dark and scary place. Bree rejected her mother’s fearful outlook, and life has proved her right. Marrying into a family with wealth, power, and connections, Bree has all a woman could ever dream: a loving lawyer husband, two talented young teenage daughters, a new baby boy, a gorgeous home, and every opportunity in the world – until the day Bree awakens and sees a witch peering into her bedroom window, an old gray-haired woman all dressed in black who vanishes as quickly as she appears.”

The witch ends up being the mother of a woman who was badly wronged by Bree’s lawyer husband many years ago.  As she is terminal with cancer, she decides to exact revenge by kidnapping their baby.  A decent, quick read, but nothing to rave about.

I enjoy reading the “5 Albums I Can’t Live Without” article in Spin magazine – similar to Desert Island Disks.  This week included a rave about this album by Larry Goldings – hadn’t ever heard his music, but really like this stuff.  The organ creeping in part way through is excellent:

Spotify took me on a trip through similar music as I enjoyed some quiet reading time.  This was a highlight of the mix – Mehldau is so creative with such an excellent touch on the piano:

And finally, a classic I heard on the soundtrack to an HBO series that I was watching last night:

Stay safe, patient and kind to everyone!