Month: May 2019

My Birthday Week is now officially over.  The torch was passed to Alicia on Saturday morning.  I did enjoy a lovely week of celebrations and gifts – thanks Diana.  And again, I jump ahead of myself…

The streak was broken on Monday – we had arranged to meet for lunch and then work things got in the way.  I used the extra time to take Diana’s car for a bath – first time since moving to Austin, so the Passat had many layers of dust built up.  I’ll have to tell Denny about the features at this car wash – free shoe shine and massage while you wait.  The shoe shine guy was quite the showman, flipping his brushes around and polishing in different directions with each hand.  Not sure these shoes have ever been this shiny and well oiled.

Another excellent card and gift were waiting on me when I arrived home.  And it was another hand crafted card at that, from the “Kards for Keith” collection.  The card talks about “Happy Music” and was accompanied by a Saxon Pub coaster – a place where my “Happy Music Face” has been seen several times.

For dinner on Monday night I chose TLV, an Israeli street food counter in the Fareground food hall.  This is a collection of 5 or 6 restaurants in the bottom of the building at the corner of Congress Ave and 2nd Street – so a short walk for us.  The food was excellent, with the hummus almost on a par with Shaya in New Orleans.

We explored the new Line hotel, across the street from Fareground, after dinner.  Very nice restaurants and bars and there was an author presenting their book to a pretty large crowd as well.

We made a visit to the Continental Club for the free happy hour show on Tuesday night.  Shelley King and her band were performing.  We’ve seen Shelley several times now, and always enjoyed her songs.  Four Aussies took the seats in the row in front of us and we had a great chat while we waited for the band to start.  Then the first of several surprises happened.  Diana noticed Carolyn Wonderland setting up her guitar.  She’s not a regular part of Shelley’s band and was obviously going to sit in.  We love her singing and guitar playing – this is the lady that I took my sister and family to see when they visited almost 2 years ago now.  I really enjoyed the smile on Carolyn’s face as she listened to Shelley and band before sitting in.

Here’s what Carolyn sounds like on the guitar:

Then the next surprise – my friend Damon showed up.  There had been some unauthorized texting by McD.  The band took a break and Shelly announced surprise number three – Marcia Ball would be joining after the break.  Marcia is one of my very favourite performers.  What a birthday week treat – and all for no cover charge.  Here’s one of their great songs together:

Surprise number four – my friend Mark showed up.  Some more unauthorized communication from both McD and Damon.  Mark lived behind the Continental Club for a while and had been too intimated to try it out – it doesn’t look fancy from the outside at all.  He loved the music.  Here’s a highlight from the second set:

I have to finish up by sharing a song that Marcia Ball took the lead on, with great lyrics:

By this point, everyone was quite hungry and so the four of us plus the four Aussies headed across the street to Hopdoddy for burgers.

We stopped into the beautiful courtyard at the San Jose hotel on the walk home and then came surprise number five.    As we were almost home, we saw an electric scooter rider take a hard fall on the Congress Ave bridge.  We got him off the street to find that he had a broken wrist and some nasty cuts on his head and legs.  He called some friends but they hadn’t showed up after 20 minutes and he wasn’t doing very well with the wrist pain and head bonk.  Damon saw Diana home and I took Brandon (scooter rider) to the emergency room in an Uber.  I got him checked in (without any ID), handed over to the triage nurse, and then Ubered back home.  An exceptionally fun evening (minus the ER trip) – thanks Diana for organizing and going with the flow with the surprises that you didn’t orchestrate!

My birthday present from Mum and Dad was waiting when I got back to the apartment from the ER, a bit after 1am, and McD was quite insistent that I open it up.  Meet Harris McCoo (left) and Donald McDee (right).  There from the Scottish artist Steven Brown who is becoming quite famous these days.  I really love his work and these selections.

My poor wife had a long day on Wednesday – bus ride back to Dallas and then a fancy work dinner that didn’t end until around 10pm.  I had considered going to see the Blues on the Green concert in Zilker Park, but was too tired leaving work to deal with getting there and back.  Diana did make it home with a load of great leftovers that I enjoyed after driving up from Austin on Thursday night.

I was happy to find the garden doing very well in my absence – it’s amazing what a lot of rain does for the plants.

While troubleshooting a big work issue, my amazing and fierce wife also whipped up a delicious made from scratch “end of birthday week” dinner of my favourites.  Pavlova birthday cake and two kinds of meat pies (the best versions yet).  Alicia gets a lot of credit for helping as Diana had to jump on and off calls and send update emails.  The results of all their toil were excellent.

I almost forgot to mention the delicious cheese and meat appetizer platter they created for me:

I was quick to make a wish and blow out those double nickel candles.

Then it was time to open some more presents.  A very unique “Cool Stones” box from Campbell – stones that you put in the freezer and use in your drink to prevent melting ice from watering it down.

And Will with an equally unique gift of some “Maritime” cologne.

Midnight rolled around and the birthday week torch was passed over to Alicia.  We started with a lovely dinner out at The Keeper in Plano.  Diana and I think they have the best calamari we’ve tasted, and all of their seafood is fresh and tasty.  Alicia enjoyed her meal very much.

We got some bad news as we left to go for workouts on Sunday morning.  Our favourite neighbours across the street are moving to Frisco.  Apparently they started out looking to downsize, and then found a home with the perfect outdoor living situation and couldn’t resist.  We’ll really miss having them there if we ever need anything.  I enjoyed a good, long swim and then we came home to complete the crosswords as McD was still working to finish up the work issue.  I did some yard work and then retired inside to the air conditioning, while Diana was ultimately able to enjoy some well deserved pool time.

This excellent live version of Greg Allman covering Jackson Browne’s “These Days” popped up on my Discover Weekly list from Spotify – what a nice pop-up surprise.

I heard this amazing song from the most underrated band, The Kinks on the radio this week.

The Boz Scaggs album “Out of the Blues” got my attention this week.  I listened to it last year on release, but missed that the excellent guitar work was from the combination of Doyle Bramhall II and Charlie Sexton (of Arc Angels fame).  Jim Keltner also provides solid drumming.

Finally, a new album from a jazz pianist that I enjoy very much, Brad Mehdlau.  This is quite an experimental album with a bit of political commentary.  I’ve only listened once and think I’ll enjoy it more and more with repeated listens.

The gorgeous Austin weather continued on Monday and I was surprised by a very rare occurrence.   My wife declared that she had a break in the middle of the day and invited me to go to lunch with her.  I jumped at the opportunity before a meeting filled in her open slot and we enjoyed a lovely lunch on the patio at Shady Grove.  I’m working hard to enjoy al fresco dining as much as I can before the summer weather arrives.  We even had time for an after lunch coffee on the patio at Opa.  The surprises continued when I got home to find work had been completed for the day at the apartment.  Wow – I wonder how long this might last?

On Tuesday we tried the restaurant Zax, which is located right next to the Catherine and has what they describe as a “perfect patio”.  We sat at the bar and shared a “Blues Burger” – blue cheese and crumbled onion rings.  The visit was actually a scouting trip to see if this would be a good place to meet our friend Rob and his wife for dinner on Wednesday (he ended up having to cancel).   Somebody told us a few years ago that the easiest test of a restaurant is to see if they make a good burger.  Zax passed the test with a tasty and nicely cooked burger.  The ambiance inside was a bit quiet and dated but the patio looked fun.

My friend Rodrigo from Guatemala met us at the Sky Bar on Wednesday night.  He was having such a good time getting to know Diana and catching up with me that we ended up closing the place down.  K was quite sleepy on Thursday.

And speaking of Thursday – something strange and wonderful happened.  Can you guess what?  There was a hint early in this post.  That’s right – my wife was free for lunch for a second time in the same week.  This time we enjoyed another perfect weather day on the patio at Opa with lamb gyros and a greek salad.  I was really sleepy after that.

Having selected our apartment for the shortest possible (within reason) commute to the office, I was irked to see the news on Thursday night.  A new high rise building going in next to us is requiring lane closures right next to the Catherine building for three months.  Ugh!  I’m sure it won’t add too much time to my commute, but I’ve really been enjoying getting to the office in 10 minutes rather than the hour it took in Dallas.

It happened again on Friday!  What a surprising week.  McD had time for a Target run in the morning and so dropped me at the office and then….wait for it…met me for lunch again.  I didn’t have a lot of time and so we had a quick bite at Cava, a Mediterranean place where you select the ingredients for a salad or grains bowl – all very fresh and tasty.

My official birthday week kicked off when I got home on Friday evening with a bowl of one of my favourite food groups presented by BP (Baby Penguin).  All of the penguins also put together a very creative card to recognize the birthday week.

Diana pulled together a tasty kickoff dinner of gnocchi with a garlic mustard aioli.  I just enjoyed the leftovers for lunch as I was writing this post.

I tried something new on Saturday morning – swimming laps in the apartment pool.  The temperature was a bit bracing initially but I had a nice long swim, followed by some relaxation time in the sauna.  Swimming really eases my back pain and so I look forward to repeating this start to the day until the pool gets too hot.

I chose a new destination for coffee and a crossword with Keith.  High Note is a new restaurant from the Kerbey Lane group and features fresh and healthy breakfast and brunch options with a Mediterranean flair.  We shared blistered shishito peppers and I enjoyed a Kale Mary (very green and healthy).  We both liked High Note and the food coming out around us looked very good.  Another good coffee and brunch option in walking distance.

My official birthday dinner out was on Saturday night.  We tried a french restaurant in East Austin called Justine’s Brasserie for the first time and were very pleased.

We shared steak tartare as an appetizer and both agreed it was the best we’ve had in a long time – very tender and perfectly seasoned.  I followed that with a scallop special dish with corn and beurre blanc – again very good scallops and perfectly cooked.  Diana’s rib-eye steak was very tasty but just a little bit too rare for me – she’s turning into quite the rare meat connoisseur.  Brent will be proud.

Arriving home after dinner, I was presented with this excellent gift.  It’s a quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a 19th century poet most famous for “Paul Revere’s Ride”.  It makes me think of the Playing for Change series that I shared a couple of weeks ago where musicians from around the world collaborate on songs.

Sunday started with a swim and sauna.  While Diana sunned herself by the pool, I walked down South Congress to the Continental Club to see the matinee show (3:30pm) with the Marshall Hood band.  It was interesting to step into the dark and well air conditioned club from the bright, hot day outside.

This was a very enjoyable afternoon jam session.  The piano player was particularly impressive.

The band would have a short discussion after each song about what they would like to play next.  I have the sense they have an exceptionally large repertoire.

I was checking to see if my favourite Austin band, Western Youth, were playing anywhere close this week and came across this video of them playing on Balcony TV – a show filmed up at the Catherine Sky Bar.  It’s interesting to hear how much this song has evolved from this early performance.

I heard this Split Enz song on the radio this week.  Made me think of the Leaky Boat song and how this band was the precursor to the excellent Crowded House band.

The National’s new album has been on heavy rotation on my office music playlist this week – very good and quite different than their previous offerings.

Eric Tessmer is playing at the Granada theater where they do a good job of advertising, “Goes Great With…a list of similar artists”, as a way to introduce us to new artists.  The list for Eric Tessmer included several of our favourites and so I gave him a listen on Spotify.  What do you think?

I agree, not bad, but not someone I’m going to go out of my way to hear.

Western Youth on Balcony TV.

A belated Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who were celebrating on Sunday.

We had a lovely day, but wait…, I’m jumping way ahead of myself already…

I meant to share this New Yorker cartoon last week as “May the 4th be with you” is a big day for Star Wars fans.  Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca in most of the Star Wars movies, also passed away last week.  I didn’t realize that he was 7 feet 3 inches tall at his prime.

Also from last week:  Brent published the long awaited “Sometimes Less Lean is Mo’ Lean” article.  I say “long awaited” because this was inspired by a Keb’ Mo’ concert that we saw in 2014 for my birthday – the night of the now infamous Velvet Taco stop in a torrential downpour.

https://www.lean.org/LeanPost/Posting.cfm?LeanPostId=1038

I really enjoy the way Brent links process efficiency concepts to the concert experience and encourage you to give this excellent short article a read.

Now on to this week – a very wet one in Austin, starting from my bus ride down on Monday all the way through Saturday.    Lots of flash flood warnings were issued as river and lake levels rose – Lake Travis peaked at over 104% full.  The basement level of our office experienced some flooding and required a lot of drying machines to avoid mold developing:

While I was navigating through all the rain in Austin, my Mum and Dad were enjoying a trip to St. Anne’s with their church friends.  They made a day trip to Liverpool, where it was also wet when this picture of the fifth Beatle was taken:

“How far is Liverpool from their home in Scotland?”, I hear you asking.  About a 4 hour drive as you can see on this map of the UK or in much smaller scale on the World satellite view.

My parents enjoyed the architecture on their tour, including the “Liver Birds” atop these buildings:

These were the inspiration for the Seventies sitcom featuring the antics of two Liverpudlian lasses.  Guess what they called it?  You nailed it – “The Liver Birds”.  I didn’t remember it from the name, but after watching a YouTube video, I remember it quite well from my childhood.

The “Ferry Cross the Mersey” (main river in Liverpool where much of the ship building industry was based) was passed up due to the weather.

The rain has certainly been doing wonders for my Dad’s garden.  Spring has certainly sprung in Stewarton.

Back in Austin, Diana arrived on the bus on Thursday evening.   We enjoyed the standing Friday happy hour show at the Saxon Pub – Diana’s first visit.  Denny Freeman and his band played a mixture of blues and rock hits from the 60s and 70s.  Here’s their version of the Jagger/Richards song, “Heart of Stone”:

Diana enjoyed the Saxon Pub experience and particularly the folks “dancing like nobody was watching”.  This place is full of happy, friendly people looking to enjoy the music.  An interesting couple joined us at our table.  Bill and Marianne met in a Chinese restaurant in Peurto Vallarta during a thunderstorm.  Bill attended UT before riding his Harley across country to San Francisco, where he got a job as a mailman,  during the “Summer of Love” in 1967.  He had just had ankle replacement surgery – did you know that was an option?  We’ve heard of hips and knees, but I hadn’t heard of ankles.

We walked across the street from the Saxon Pub to Chi’lantro for a snack.  This is an Asian Fusion, Korean style restaurant with excellent “Kimchi” fries and Korean chicken wings.  Not familiar with kimchi?  I wasn’t either but it’s kind of a cabbagey concoction.  Wiki says:  a staple in Korean cuisine, kimchi is a famous traditional side dish of salted and fermented vegetables, such as napa cabbage and Korean radish, made with a widely varying selection of seasonings including gochugaru (chili powder), scallions, garlic, ginger, and jeotgal (salted seafood).

I was managing the amount of time that we spent at Chi’lantro very diligently.  Why was  that necessary at 8pm on a Friday night?  Well, I had a surprise planned for Diana, and needed to arrive back at the apartment as close to 8:36pm as possible.  I know, a pretty precise and strange time for a surprise.  Ok, I know the suspense is killing you.  I had arranged for Alicia to surprise McD for Mother’s Day and that was the estimated arrival time of her Uber from the airport.  I was a tad concerned that Diana would be upset with me for flying Alicia out when she should be studying for finals, but the visit was very well received and some pretend studying did occur.

We added Alicia to the typical weekend morning routine.  Workout, followed by Keith’s famous breakfast tacos, then a trip to Trianon coffee (my favourite close to work) for coffee and crossword (Alicia made a genuine attempt to participate).  Then we made a run through Trader Joe’s to fill back up the empty fridge and pantry.

The weather cleared up nicely on Saturday afternoon and I dropped the ladies off on South Congress Avenue for a ramble around the shops and restaurants.  I went to try out the Austin Film Society and a documentary called “Carmine Street Guitars”.

Greenwich Village was once the center of New York bohemia and, like many other artsy neighborhoods around the country, has gone through significant gentrification in recent years.  But one shop in the heart of the Village had remained resilient to the encroaching gentrification: Carmine Street Guitars. There, custom guitar maker Rick Kelly and his young apprentice, Cindy Hulej, build handcrafted guitars out of reclaimed wood from old hotels, bars, churches, and other local buildings.  Nothing looks or sounds quite like a Rick Kelly guitar, which is the reason they are embraced by the likes of Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, and Patti Smith.  The film captures five days in the life of Carmine Street Guitars, while examining an all-too-quickly vanishing way of life.

I enjoyed the movie but felt it was a bit too contrived and staged for my liking.  The visit to the store by Charlie Sexton and the McSorley’s (oldest bar in New York) guitar he plays were worth the price of admission.

This video was playing as we were seated for the movie (Heatwave performing “Too Hot to Handle”).  Hilarious seventies funk performance.  Stick with it until the part where the guitar and bass player are on the shoulders of the two singers.  Hadn’t seen anything like this in years.

We reconvened at the Apartment for dinner and then walked across the bridge to Antone’s for a concert.  Roxy Roca was opening for Big Sam’s Funky Nation.  Diana chose this as her Mother’s Day eve show over Sis DeVille at the One to One Club.  Unfortunately the show was over 21 only and so Alicia practiced her story on the walk over.  No real problem getting in – just a couple of questions that she handled well.

We hadn’t heard of Roxy Roca and were going to skip the opening act, but some YouTube research showed a great brass section and music that we thought we’d enjoy.  They are an Austin based band and put on a good opening set.

We enjoyed Big Sam’s Funky Nation a few months ago at the Kessler, when they opened for the Rebirth Brass Band.  It was great to see them as the main attraction.  Happy, fun music very well presented.  So much so that we couldn’t drag Alicia out of the show.  “Two more songs and we’re leaving!”  “No we’re not!”.  We did finally leave a little after midnight and tried again to make a visit to the Elephant Room for some late night jazz.  The band was on a break and the place was crowded, so we made the walk back to the apartment earlier than we might have – probably a good thing.

At around the same time in California, Cat was finishing up a very grueling day of testing for his black belt.  He’s trying to look mean and tough in this picture and I can tell he’s exhausted.   A very impressive and dedicated effort he’s made to get this far over the last few years.  Late breaking update as I’m about to publish – Cat passed the test and received his official black belt!

I chose the Launderette restaurant in East Austin for Mother’s Day brunch, based on a strong recommendation from my friend Issac, who lives nearby.  We sat on the front patio and enjoyed the lovely weather – that’s where the picture at the top of this posting was snapped.   The restaurant used to be the “Kleen Wash” launderette.

What an amazing meal we enjoyed.  My duck confit hash was excellent and Alicia’s turkish egg was an outstanding blend of flavours.    I’m looking forward to trying dinner.  I included the second picture below just in case you were concerned that we were able to finish the feast in the first.

But wait, there’s more.  I had read that the pastry chef was excellent and so we agreed to share a desert.  The arugula cake with meringue, rhubarb, and strawberries was both completely unique and delicious.  The presentation reminded us of the garden dish at Manresa on our anniversary dinner.

After lunch we explored the riverside park just a couple of blocks from the restaurant.  The city of Austin does such a great job maintaining the 10 miles of trails along the riverside.  This section had some impressive fields of wild flowers.

We dropped Alicia back at the apartment for some more “studying” and then walked across the 1st Street bridge and down the riverside trail to Rainey Street.  This is the historic area that I took Denny on his visit, where small houses have been turned into bars and restaurants.  The street was hopping on Sunday afternoon and McD and I chose the back patio at Lucille as a good spot to relax for a while.   There was a lot of entertaining activity – karaoke in progress, various games with rings and bean bags, puppies entertaining themselves trying to eat the Jasmine plant and then falling fast asleep.  We walked up the street and back over the Congress bridge, pausing to take a funny picture at the Little Brother bar.

Mother’s Day celebrations wound down with a visit to the Sky Bar for mimosas by mother and daughter.

I heard this song from Shriekback, an English band most popular in the mid-80s but still playing today, on Radio Paradise and enjoyed the sound.

Shortly after that song, this Morcheeba song came along.  I listened to this band quite a bit many years ago and enjoyed this newer song.

The National is often a bit too mopey and down for me, but I enjoyed this one.

And to close out the post, a brand new band to me, Pedro the Lion.  NPR was raving about this album in a post and I did enjoy most of it.