“Playoffs?”
I had only had one entrant for the name the octopus and cactus contest from last week. Brent suggested “Squid Rock” for the octopus – get it? (a play on Kid Rock – Brent would say it isn’t funny if you have to explain it). Much better than “Blink” that I had come up with – he’s blue and shoots ink: bl-ink. I know – much lamer creativity. “Wily Peyote” was his best entrant for the plant. I like that better than “Tortoise” – my idea based on carrying your house on your back in a self contained and mobile unit. I’ll leave this open for one more week for late entrants before the official naming ceremonies.
Delbert McClinton was the special guest on the BoH Tuesday night supper club this week. It’s hard to believe he is 80 years old. I’ve mentioned before that I saw him at the sorely missed Caravan of Dreams club in downtown Fort Worth on my second night in Texas back in 1985. I was in heaven. Gordy told a similar story of going to see him at the classic honky tonk, Gruene Hall, in the late 90s. He made his way to the front row with his girlfriend, now wife, and Delbert sang an entire verse of a ballad to her while holding her hand. McClinton had a lot of good stories to share.
Vince and I have made a point of sampling many gourmet scotch eggs over the years on our work visits to New York. The current first place winner is from the Dead Rabbit cocktail bar in downtown. He sent me this recipe for a Pastrami scotch egg:
Here’s what the author had to say about these:
“Most Scotch eggs begin with loose sausage meat, befitting a dish with roots as an English roadside snack. But as I sat at Pastrami Queen on New York’s Upper East Side a few weeks back eating the city’s best deli sandwich (sorry, Katz’s), it dawned on me that pastrami had serious potential as a Scotch egg sausage swap-in. Crusted with a mixture of coriander, garlic, black pepper and mustard — and blessed with a prodigious fat streak — it has a spice blend that can stand up to even the best sausage meat, not to mention an immutable connection to the city I call my home.
Make sure you get the fattiest pastrami you can find (specify when you order a pound from your butcher), and please (I’m begging) don’t opt for turkey pastrami. You’ll also need to dust off the food processor for this one; giving the pastrami a high-speed whirl binds the meat into an ideal liaison, making it relatively easy to wrap around the eggs. Serve them with a mustardy dressing and your next New York deli-style craving may just be satisfied at home.”
I’m not a huge pastrami fan, but these do sound worth a try.
I received some uplifting news from Alex in New Orleans on Friday. Finally something to put on the calendar to look forward to – Jazzfest has been rescheduled for the 2nd and 3rd weekends of October. We’ll have to see about changing our flights that were booked for April. Should we go for the first or second weekend? Maybe just move into Denny and Anne’s cottage for both?
Diana had to wait until after 10am for her run on Saturday morning – that’s when the temperature broke into the 40s. I went upstairs to the elliptical while she was working much harder on the road. We rewarded ourselves with a trip to Filtered in downtown McKinney for coffee, crossword, and quiche.
After returning home, I was determined to try and fix Penelope’s cup holder cover latch. This has been a recurring problem for years and I’m usually able to jiggle it just the right way and get it closed. The last few days it has refused to play along. A replacement of the whole unit is available for over $300. With that information, it seemed like an hour or so of my time to attempt a repair was a good trade.
The hardest part of the endeavor was figuring out the location of the Allen bolts in the glove box that held the unit in place. That was a solid 20 minutes of effort to extract the annoyance.
That little white piece in the middle is the guilty party. It doesn’t seem to have quite enough weight to it to fall down and latch reliably. Cleaning and lubing didn’t help. I wonder what will happen if I attach a small piece of mounting tape on the top?
It certainly seemed to work with the top off and not mounted back in the car. I decided to give it a shot. Reattaching with the Allen bolts wasn’t quite as onerous as the extraction. Et voila merci!
That was a fun project – made more rewarding by the $300+ saved. I put air in Penelope’s tires (pressure too low with the cold weather), made some minor repairs to the convertible top, and bid her good night.
A nice steam shower session had me fully relaxed and ready to watch the Rams vs Packers playoff game.
We attempted to ordered Thai for dinner from the new “Spoon and Fork” restaurant – but no delivery option available. The old stand by of Zin Zen with their fungi salad and shrimp pesto flatbread worked out just fine.
We finished up Saturday watching the documentary “Carter: Rock and Roll President”. I really enjoyed this film as it showed how much Jimmy Carter enjoyed all kinds of music and what an impact various groups like the Allman Bros had on his election. A highlight was Bob Dylan quoting “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Synyrd at the end of the film and applying the lyrics to Carter:
“Take your time, don’t live too fast
Troubles will come, and they will pass”
Sunday began with a somewhat earlier run for both of us – temperatures were well into the 40s by 9am. Then we were off on some shopping return excursions to Target and Lulu Lemon. The latter unsuccessful as the wait line to enter the store was too long. The things I do…
I’ve been looking forward to the Saints vs Buccaneers playoff game all week. This photoshopped picture from Tom Brady is great. He will be the oldest quarterback to ever compete in a playoff game at 43 and Drew Brees is 41, making for by far the oldest quarterback combination in a game ever. Both are playing at a very high level and this should be a good game.
I read “& Sons” by David Gilbert this week. I really enjoyed Gilbert’s short story “Cicadia” in an August 2020 edition of the New Yorker and decided to try one of his novels – “& Sons” got great reviews on its publication back in 2013.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/24/cicadia
NPR said “Smart and savage…Seductive and ripe with both comedy and heartbreak, “& Sons” made me reconsider my stance on…the term “instant classic””
Do you ever look at the author photo inside the back cover of books and try to analyze what kind of person wrote this book? I am somewhat guilty of that. Here are two pretty different pictures of David Gilbert and then what he writes about one of the main characters of “&Sons”:
“A. N. Dyer stands in front of us as forever young, peering from his author photo, the only photo he ever used on all of his books, starting with “Ampersand.” In that picture he’s pure knowing, his darkly amused eyes in league with a smile that edges toward a smirk, as if he’s seen what you’ve underlined, you fiend, you who might read a few pages and then pause and glance back at his face like you’ve spotted something magical yet familiar, a new best friend waiting for you on the other end.”
I loved these two descriptions from a section where one of Dyer’s sons thinks he has successfully pitched a screenplay to a studio, only to find that it’s a ruse to get him to convince his father to offer film rights to “Ampersand”:
“”Well he’s still dead.” Rainer rose from his chair, like Oscar Wilde playing Winston Churchill getting bad news from the front.”
“The bubbles in the champagne shimmied up the flutes, a hundred phony smiles breaking the surface, like some Esther Williams routine, Richard thought, a memory of stinging sweetness flooding his mouth.”
I love the thought of champagne bubbles performing a synchronized swimming routine.
“He had always been a decent typist. (Thanks to Exeter, we were all decent typists.) The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy log. Instead of sheep he tried counting foxes, the image of fox inspired by the crafty Mr. Tod. Andrew loved Beatrix Potter as a boy, the fond memory of being read to aloud, the words coming on trails of smoke and scotch, his father’s wonderful voice.”
I was telling Diana about the beautiful illustrations in Beatrix Potter as we were reading a Winnie the Pooh story and admiring the drawings this week. Something she missed out on that we’ll have to remedy.
I enjoyed the number of Talking Heads “Once in a Lifetime” references included in this paragraph:
“Twitchy and sweaty, with a brand-new retro haircut, horn-rimmed glasses, a vintage suit, a bow tie, he had the vibe of early-to-mid David Byrne, and what with Richard’s and Jamie’s appreciation for New Wave music and their teenage days watching those first videos on MTV, what with the water flowing underground and the large automobile, what with the early evening sky and its remains of light, you may find yourself hearing the same song and asking yourself the same question: How did I get here?”
This book was very large and broad in scale, albeit a bit pompous in places. I did enjoy the read and being back in New York for a while.
“Greenlights”, the recent autobiography by Matthew McConaughey was a much quicker and lighter read. It feels like sitting down and having a drink with the author and listening to entertaining and engaging stories about his life.
He attended the University of Texas in Austin to study law – hoping to be a criminal defense attorney, and while his grades were very good, he decided after 2 years that his heart really wasn’t in it and switched to the film school.
All the classic tales are in here – “Alright, Alright, Alright”, arrested for playing the bongos naked inside his house – later dropped for unlawful entry, the efforts McConaughey went to to land the lead role in Grisham’s “A Time to Kill”, and many others.
I particularly enjoyed a tale where he takes an impromptu trip to Mali in search of his favorite musician, Ali Farka Toure. This was a big surprise – I wasn’t sure anyone else in the state of Texas was familiar with this musician. I had been listening to Farka Toure’s excellent album with Ry Cooder earlier in the morning while starting the book. Weird.
I enjoyed reading McConaughey’s love letter to New Orleans.
“Places are like people. They each have a particular identity. In all my travels around the globe I’ve written in my journal about the culture of a place, its identity. If a place and a people move me, I’ll write them a love letter. New Orleans is one of those places.”
“Home of the front porch, not the back. This engineering feat provides so much of your sense of community and fellowship as you relax facing the street and your neighbors across it. Rather than retreating into the seclusion of the backyard, you engage with the goings-on of the world around you, on your front porch.”
“You don’t use vacuum cleaners, no, you use brooms and rakes to manicure. Where it falls is where it lays, the swerve around the pothole, the duck beneath the branch. Like a gumbo, your medley’s in the mix.”
I was pleased to read that on a recent episode of BBC radio’s desert island discs, David Gilmour, guitarist with Pink Floyd, picked the Kinks “Waterloo Sunset” as the number one disc he would take with him to a desert island. This would be one of mine too, as evidenced by the Ray Davies signed soundwaves painting of this song hanging in the piano room – thanks Diana.
Paul McCartney released a new album a few weeks ago. It’s the third installment in his series and is naturally called “McCartney III”. I enjoyed listening to the record but it’s not one that I’ll be rushing back to. I did enjoy this video by Roman Coppola (Francis Ford Coppola of Godfather and Apocalypse Now fame’s son). Coppola made this completely remotely from the family vineyard in Napa – utilizing 46 remote cameras to capture McCartney as he played all the instruments and built up the track. Oh to have ten percent of that talent.
That and the Coppolas – Sofia’s “Lost in Translation” with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson is one of my all time favourite movies. I use this Teams backdrop sometimes and put myself at the bar of the Tokyo Park Hyatt having a drink with Scarlett and keeping her safe from Murray:
I had the luxury of quite a bit of quiet reading time this week. I found myself on a Bob Dylan kick early in the week and a Brian Eno kick later in the week. Two entirely different artists for sure. I think I was looking for some calm and soothing escape as the week unfolded. I decided on a chronological Dylan exploration. Having never listened to “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” from 1963 from start to finish, I was astounded by the number of all time classics on this album – “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “Girl form the North Country”, “Master of War”, and this favourite:
Brian Eno has a catalog almost as vast as Dylan’s, with quite a variety from his ambient albums, to soundtracks, and numerous collaborations. Here’s one that I hadn’t heard before and really enjoyed:
The weekend brought some jazz, having just introduced Alicia to the classic “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis, I explored some not heard before John Coltrane:
And another 80 year old, the guy with the amazing sax tone – Charles Lloyd:
Stay calm and patient with everyone.
It seems just completely crazy that we were able to drive almost 5,000 miles over the last few weeks. How did we do that? One long day at a time. Monday: Las Vegas to Albuquerque. Tuesday: Albuquerque to McKinney. Wednesday: “Rest Day”. Thursday: McKinney to New Orleans. Sunday: New Orleans to McKinney (and the reason this post is late again).
Driving to NOLA on New Year’s Eve was a bit more work. Things started badly with pouring rain and multiple accidents and lane closures before we ever left Dallas. There were some brief respites but I was mostly driving in rain and truck spray all day. It was lovely to see Denny and Anne on arrival and they really spoiled us with some yummy snacks – an amazing cheese board, crab fingers from Tableaux, and some amazing Denny oyster and sauce combinations.
We did manage to stay awake to usher in the New Year but were asleep in the wonderful guest cottage soon after.
I have nothing much to report on the reading front this week – too much time behind the wheel and enjoying friends. We did listen to “The Last Days of John Lennon” by James Patterson on the drive. This is mostly a very detailed and interesting history of Lennon and the Beatles, with small sections interspersed about Mark Chapman planning his assassination. I would recommend this to anyone looking to learn more about the Beatles and their interactions over the years.
Marco and kids arrived on Thursday afternoon to exchange gifts with Alicia before she left early on Friday to spend Christmas day with her Dad and brothers. Alicia’s gift to Marco was a Dopp kit (toilet bag where I’m from) that was hilariously filled with tiny bottles of different liquors. “Dopp” is such a weird word for a toilet bag that I did some research: the name derives from the early 20th century leather craftsman Charles Doppelt, whose company designed the case in 1926.
That seemed like an awful lot of scallops but only two were left after dinner. Adamo did a great job of cooking up all the fishes and then Alicia was a huge help with the clean up. Alicia and Diana exhibited some superior team work putting together the requisite meat and cheese platter.
Christmas Day started with a photo shoot so that we had some pictures of Diana and Alicia together. I think I did a passable job as the official photographer. We had to start early as the angry red sunrise foretold bad weather coming.
Next was a visit to Adamo’s home to exchange gifts. Amy and Adamo were so excited about their gift for us – they adopted a penguin in our names from the World Wildlife Fund. Amy was jumping up and down and so excited. Frankie was very gentle with the new adoptee – subsequently named Parker.
I finally finished reading “Utopia Avenue” by David Mitchell this week. I really enjoyed parts of the book and found other parts just silly and a bit nonsensical.
the crossing. I continue to turn into a “grumpy old man” – night driving with oncoming traffic not separated by a median is getting pretty difficult. I struggle to see where I’m going with the oncoming glare. So, the Pacheco Pass at night wasn’t really much fun. It’s very twisty and ill lit. That whining aside, we arrived at the hotel in Pacifica around 9pm. 1,950 miles in the books. I should have about 10 days now with no lengthy drives.
Once in our hotel room, Diana went on a mission to install the Amazon Firestick so that we could watch all our normal TV and streaming shows. She was so tired that it was easy to see her brain working but not easy to interpret what was (or wasn’t) being said. Problem one was that in order to connect to the hotel WiFi one needed to check the “Accept Terms and Conditions” box, but the remote wouldn’t go to the box. An hour later Diana noticed the “cursor mode” option and that problem was solved. Problem two – the firestick was installed and working fine but the remote wouldn’t control the TV volume and power, even after a bunch of fancy settings updates by McD. I looked at some YouTube videos of how to fix the issue and tried a number of things. An hour later, Diana finally gave up and sat down at her computer. I decided to try the regular TV remote that we had thought only controlled the Dish satellite system. Whaddaya know? Controlled volume perfectly. Two hours lost, but all TV and streaming options fully installed for our hotel stay. I wish I had some of that escapade on video. Funnily enough the firestick remote started controlling the volume just fine the next day with no changes.
After that interesting activity we were ready for some lunch. I spotted the City Kebabs and Gyros shop as we approached a traffic light and we decided to give it a try. The Mediterranean food was delicious with all my favourites – humus, falafels, dolmas, chicken and lamb. We were able to eat at the little table outside – one day before even patio dining was shut down.
We met Will and Christine for dinner at Town in San Carlos on Tuesday evening. The street was closed off and the restaurants had made some big investments in building outdoor dining. We were warm with the heaters and shades even though the temperature was in the forties. It was funny to listen to Diana and Will deciding on which steak and preparation they were going to share. I loved my sea bass and had some leftovers for lunch on Wednesday. It was a real treat to hang out and have a meal with Will and Christine. We had debated which night to meet and it was fortuitous that we chose Tuesday as all onsite dining shut down in California on Wednesday.
Diana chose to start her birthday with a run – and conquered the zig-zag path up the hill – most impressive. She had texted a picture to Marco (the ultra-marathoner) and asked if he thought she could do it. He coached her to stand up straight and take little strides – seemed to work. After her run we did another walk over for coffee and then enjoyed a sandwich from Dinosaur’s – such great Vietnamese sandwiches on yummy bread.
Those are lobsters that he caught diving and they were delicious. While the cooking was underway, Diana was reviewing her hand made cards from the boys.
We listened to the Ann Cleeves book “Raven Black” on the second section of our drive. This is the first in the Shetland series – I read the 4th “Blue Lighting” a year or two ago, a gift from Mum and Dad and enjoyed it. This one was a tad formulaic with the introduction and exploration of all potential guilty parties and Diana and I enjoyed trying to figure out who we thought were the leading contenders. Neither one of us was close.
The reprise of the road trip to California was scheduled to begin early on Friday morning and so we exchanged some gifts from under the tree on Thursday evening. I’m always so impressed with Diana’s wrapping skills. She got a special edition book of Winnie the Pooh stories and is looking forward to me reading bedtime stories from it. I’m working on the voices – it seems like everyone sounds a bit like Eeyore.
Saturday began with a walk across the hotel parking lot to the Marigold Café, a new place since our last trip. It combines Indian and American foods with New Mexico influences in creative ways. For example, my breakfast taco was served in fresh naan bread rather than a tortilla and included some delicious green chilis. Diana’s avocado toast was also excellent and she raved about the bacon. I’d like to return and sample the tikka mac ‘n cheese.
After checking into the lovely, historic La Fonda hotel, we walked over to Canyon Road and had a ramble past all the art galleries and sculpture gardens that line the street. I really enjoyed these wind machines – so creative and attention grabbing.
We walked back to the square and then enjoyed coffee and a slice of quiche at the hotel. I was interested to see the red chilis hung as ornaments on the square. Here’s the view from our hotel room balcony. The cathedral bells are quite loud. Fortunately the Trump rally (no masks in sight) in front of the cathedral cleared out quickly.
Why did we take the time to detour up to Santa Fe on an already long road trip you ask? Very solid question. Our friends Amy and Ray were getting married on Saturday evening at the La Fonda hotel. We hadn’t planned on attending but couldn’t say no after Amy heard we were just going to be an hour away in Albuquerque. Here’s Diana dressed up for the wedding with the favour that Amy left at the front desk – red chili peppers.
We loaded up and headed out early on Sunday morning – destination Las Vegas – a mere 8 hours of driving away. On the road by 8am and we should be relaxing at the lovely Aria hotel on the Vegas strip by 6pm or so. All was smooth with some slow initial going on the snow in Santa Fe and the pace picking up when we merged onto the interstate down to Albuquerque. And then everything changed – and not for the better. There were multiple semi-truck accidents on I40 – we sat stopped on the highway amidst all the trucks for 2 hours straight at one point.
After our quick dinner, we walked down the strip to Bellagio and watched the fountain show with Christmas music. Always such an impressive sight. On the way we passed through a new and extremely upscale mall called “Crystals” something or other. We were amazed at this tree where each ornament was one of the Swarovski crystal special editions – I hate to think how much it cost to decorate that tree.
Passing the smaller Eiffel tower at Paris hotel reminded us of a wonderful dinner we enjoyed there and of the very special 50th birthday dinner that we enjoyed with Mum and Dad at the real version in the real Paris.
After a busy Thanksgiving weekend, this week was very quiet with our only real outing to downtown McKinney for coffee today. Diana took my picture with the Xmas display outside the coffee shop. Not quite a Christmas card since Diana and BP didn’t make it in.
She said several times that the grilled lobsters were perfectly cooked. A nicely cooked sea bass makes me happy. So we were both very happy with our meals – and had plenty of leftovers for a late dinner. I laughed when we checked in on the chaos at Amy and Adamo’s home and heard that Adamo had said, “maybe we can go out for lobster on Thanksgiving twenty years from now.”
After Peche, we walked across the street to the Parker Jazz Club (capacity reduced from over 100 to 30) and enjoyed our first live music in 9 months with 12 other folks. Kris and the team are trying really hard to keep the place going with very limited seating weekend shows and live-streaming. The house band was excellent as always – although the new drummer over plays too much for my liking. Kris might have played almost all of his 8 or 9 instruments – going from bass flute to multiple saxophones and a flugelhorn.
Brunch was at the Odd Duck – one of my top three Austin brunch spots. The shrimp and grits with a perfectly cooked deep fried egg were fabulous, as was the ceviche with green curry sauce. It’s always so hard to choose from all the options – and the menu is new every time we go. Diana loved their take on the Paloma cocktail. I’m now expected to try and replicate that – oops, maybe she’d forgotten already and I just reminded her.
Sunday was a dry day and so we were able to execute a 4 mile circuit around the river trail, culminating with another snack at TacoDeli. Then another excellent brunch at Suerte – my top ranked Mexican restaurant. The masa that they make all the corn tortillas and tostadas from is ridiculously good. Diana had a smoked salmon tostada and I tried the bacon and sweet potato tetela (like a corn based pie with bacon and sweet potato puree inside). They were both perfect – particularly the mornay sauce, which I learned is a classic béchamel sauce enriched with a blend of Gruyère and Parmesan cheeses. We have really missed the creative food that is so readily available in Austin. And the great live music.
After brunch we met our friend Neffie at Fixe – a new place she introduced us to that specializes in southern comfort food – supposedly the best biscuits (scones) in Austin.
We passed this sign on the walk to Fixe – so nice to be able to walk everywhere again. My Mum had just been telling us the story of the Battle of Bannockburn where the English tried to sneak up on the Scots at night, taking their boots off for stealth, but were foiled by the thistles that made them yelp and awake the sleeping Scots. And like a responsible Scotsman who payed attention in History class, I do indeed remember that happened in 1314.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.