“A Different Kind of Birthday”
Monday was an exciting day for me. The 2 week leg surgery follow up appointment went very well. Dr. Haslam was pleased to see good signs of the bones healing – apparently unusual at this juncture. He removed the staples from the incision and it’ll be much smoother for me to shower now. Next appointment is a month from now and I can put 25% weight on the leg until then.
Whew – it was good to get that behind me and feel that I’m on the mend again. Since I was over in Frisco I decided to try a visit to Taco Deli for lunch. I was the only person at a typically very packed restaurant. The only 
option was to park and order online for delivery to the parking space – so I worked through that seemingly overly complicated process. When my lunch was delivered to Penelope (enjoying her first outing in weeks) I learned that I could eat on the nice outdoor patio. What a treat this was – the tacos tasted much better than I remember – amazing what deprivation does to desire. The menu was a subset of normal and the “Space Cowboy” mushroom taco was not available. Not to worry, lots of other good options. All the tacos are very simple but quality, fresh ingredients really make these outstanding.
Tuesday was shaping up to be another exciting day – I had a haircut scheduled in the afternoon. After an all morning work strategy session – you know how those can be – Penelope and I headed over to the Boardroom at Watters Creek. We were foiled – the folks inside told me that they didn’t open until Wednesday and some appointments had been accepted in error online.
We repeated the process on Wednesday with success. The Boardroom had a good system down – temperature check on arrival, followed by mandatory hand washing and then utilizing every other chair. Check out these before and after shots – I might have lost a couple of inches.
While I was messing around with my haircut, Diana was undergoing a root canal. It seems to have gone very well and she got the permanent crown installed on Thursday. Such a process in the best of times.
Diana surprised me with an early Birthday gift on Wednesday evening – an excellent John Prine piano music book. I’ve been working my way through a couple of his classics during extended conference calls.
I believe it was on Wednesday night when Diana came across this camo moth on the patio. A bit intimidating with its 4 inch wingspan and coloring. A quick search reveals this to be Eumorpha pandorus, the Pandora sphinx moth, first discovered in America in 1821. Thank goodness it’s harmless and not some new strain of dangerous bug.
Diana had been telling me for several days to be ready for virtual Happy Hour with her girlfriends at 6pm on Friday. I was a bit confused about why it was necessary for me to be there, but we have to compromise to keep the peace in these times, so I was ready to go on time. This is the Zoom screen that greeted me – not the girlfriends.
What a lovely surprise – a collection of our friends from around the country AND Gordy and Ed from the Band of Heathens. From left to right and top to bottom we have: Damon and daughters in Philadelphia, Alicia in Arroyo Grande, D and K in McKinney, Ed in Austin, Anne in New Orleans, Vince and Lori at their cabin in the Adirondacks (with a huge Moose head behind), Patty and Brent in Corning, NY, Gordy in Austin, Kris and Cat in Del Mar, Adamo, Amy, Frankie , Massimo and Luciano in Pacifica, and Brad and Jocelyn in Austin.
We were all treated to 45 minutes of excellent music. This was a birthday gift to Alicia and me from Diana. What a treat! I enjoyed watching Alicia discussing the first time she saw the band with Gordy and explaining that she went straight home and learned “Hurricane”. That was a risk I took that paid off – I took Diana and Alicia on a surprise outing to see the Band of Heathens at Love and War in Texas. It was over 100 degrees on a Sunday afternoon and I wasn’t sure that Alicia would appreciate either the heat or the music. Fortunately she loved the music and bought a t-shirt at the end of the show as a souvenir. Whew! Here’s a video of the Zoom screen as Gordy and Ed shared “Abraham, Mark and John” – an excellent song from their cover of Ray Charles “A Message From the People” album. The hand off from Gordy to Ed is very smooth.
We hadn’t had much time to chat during the private concert and so jumped on another Zoom after that. We were able to introduce some of our friends to others that they hadn’t met before – always fun.
Birthday Saturday rolled around like another day at home on crutches does. I did take McD out to Taco Deli in the morning and we enjoyed our first meal out in over 2 months on their patio. Lots of fun FaceTime calls started coming in during the afternoon. We had a nice chat with Campbell as he organized his new apartment, and had video chats with Marco, Adamo and crew, Denny and Alex with cameos from Anne and Laura, Alicia, and others that I’m likely forgetting. Massimo was quite energetic during his call – that’s a “Tacosaurus” taco holder that he’s brandishing.
Clorinda wasn’t able to get out for a card so called to describe the art that she was creating for me on her new cabinet doors. Adamo went down and took a picture for me.
Not to be left out, Phoebe (Amy and Adamo’s pup) sent me a greeting:
Alicia had asked several friends and family to submit short videos to her and she played the compiled result for me on Saturday evening – what an excellent surprise.
Diana spoiled me all afternoon with New Orleans meat pies, a Bloody Mary, meat and cheese appetizer platter, and then a delicious salad, scallops, and grilled vegetables. And then the piece de resistance – a perfectly cooked pavlova with grapes that had been soaking in sherry for 2 days – all delicious.
Denny shared this picture of the High School graduation in New Orleans, with his friend Derek Houston playing Pomp and Circumstance as graduates drove through to receive their diplomas. New Orleanians always come up with a special twist.
I tested out my new double insulated french press cafetiere (thanks Mum and Dad) on Sunday morning with great results. It looks very cool, makes good tasting coffee, and keeps it warm on the patio for over an hour. I ordered up a kettle so that I can pour in water at the perfect temperature. This has given Diana an opportunity to reorganize the coffee station area in the kitchen. I think that activity is still in progress as I write this post.
Sunday afternoon is a good time to relax with the New Yorker magazine, and I enjoyed a couple of the cartoons this week. This one felt close to home as one of us has been enjoying the time to do deep organizing:
And I enjoyed this one – crosswords have been a good distraction for me in my less than mobile state:
I heard these two songs on an excellent playlist that Diana had going by the pool. Way too long since I heard Joan Armatrading’s unique vocal sound:
Sitting in the shade of the Magnolia trees I heard this version of J.J. Cale’s classic rumination on missing New Orleans by Poco. I never heard this version before. What do you think? Not too bad?:
Monday was a particularly grumpy day for both of us. Not sure what brought that on, but we moved through it and got on with things. It’s unusual for us both to be in sync with the grumps. The best I could do to cheer myself up was watch the Billions TV show and then listen to the podcast from the creators. There are so many clever references and nuances that I miss without the assist from the podcast.
updates. In the evening we enjoyed a couple of music live streams – Hayes Carll followed by the Band of Heathens, who commented that they were seeing a lot of comments from people jumping over from Carll’s show – similar musical styles I suppose. Hayes was celebrating his first wedding anniversary and showed an album he had purchased on eBay so that he could play his wife’s favourite version of “Stand by Me”. I hadn’t heard Mickey Gilley’s version – quite schmaltzy.
Saturday was a very wet and gloomy day that kept us inside. The magnolias enjoyed the rain and are opening up nicely today. As I write this, Diana is back from her Week 5 run – 2 x 8min segments today. I’m so proud of her for keeping at it – she’ll be doing a 5K very soon.
wonder why she couldn’t have provided those on the phone. Maybe she just wanted to see my reaction to the interesting news. What did it show that wasn’t visible on the x-ray from last week? A stress fracture of the left femur just below where it hooks into the hip. The good news is it wasn’t broken all the way through – only 75%. That explains why I was able to walk with pain and hadn’t gone directly to the Emergency Room. Before you all start telling me, I know the picture is of a right leg, but it was the one I found where I could draw the red fracture line easiest. How did this happen – I really don’t know – some combination of my body rejecting my attempts at Couch to 5K, Zumba, yoga etc.
Dr. Haslam and his team seemed excellent and recommended having a couple of screws inserted through my hip area to aid the bones in healing. They fitted me with a set of crutches and sent me off to get some blood tests that were required before having surgery on Tuesday morning. At this point I was getting a bit tired of driving around in pain. On arriving at Quest diagnostic testing at 4:31pm, they closed at 4:30pm, and explaining the reason that I needed the test, I was rudely sent away. They were very clear to point out that if I had arrived a few seconds earlier then they would have been happy to see me. Unbelievable lack of caring. Another call to the doctor and I was bumbling across the parking lot to a hospital that would do the blood test. I arrived home around 6pm, thoroughly worn out from the day.
Diana picked up her Mother’s Day brunch kit from Rye on Friday afternoon. She did a trial run for dinner on Saturday night, with my only real contribution (other than cheer leading) being the poached eggs. The pork belly and kale benedicts with hash browns turned out very well. They’ll be even better for Sunday brunch.
He’s one of the folks that has a tremendous feel for the music, coupled with ridiculous dexterity. I get exhausted just watching how hard his left hand is working. Joe started with “Classified” by the legendary New Orleans player James Booker. It sounds and looks to me like an incredibly difficult piece to play well. The credits at the end of the show indicated that Joe had a large part in organizing and producing the show.
Jon Cleary, an Englishman who plays piano like he’s a 3rd generation New Orleanian, is another one with a great feel for the music. Jojo Herman, of the jam band Widespread Panic, was a revelation – he clearly has spent a huge amount of time listening to James Booker and Professor Longhair. He had spent some time learning from Dr. John, who passed away earlier this year, and shared a personal video of Mac performing “Tipitina” at the end of the show. “What is a tipitina?”, asked Jojo of the Dr. “Fess (Professor Longhair) told me it was some kind of bird, but I never heard of such a thing.”
The show finished up with my all time favourite, Long Tall Marcia Ball. Excellent as always with a rare performance on a grand piano – we typically see her with her electric keyboard, legs kicking in time to her beat.
our future. We attempted to finish watching “Ford versus Ferrari” after dinner. One of us finished and the other only made it for a few minutes. I really enjoyed this movie and found Christian Bale and Matt Damon to be excellent – particularly Damon as Carroll Shelby – quite different than some of his more typical roles. The tug of war between the GM “suits” and the entrepreneurial and freewheeling Shelby/Ken Miles collaboration was well depicted. What beautiful cars Shelby made.
My first book this week was “Travels with Charley (In Search of America)” by John Steinbeck. I hadn’t heard of this work until it was cited by Stephanie Land as a big reason for her desire to explore Missoula, Montana. I thought maybe the descriptions of that territory may convince McD to give it a try. Or at least that overly optimistic child living inside me thought so.
All the time at the pool this weekend allowed me to finish another book – a fast paced mystery set in Paris during World War II. “Three hours in Paris” by Cara Black tells the story of an assassination attempt on Hitler when he pays a quick visit to attend a mass at Sacre Couer in Montmartre. The sniper is actually an American from Oregon who is recruited while living on a UK Army base in Stornoway with her Scottish husband. Her attempt fails but she does kill the leader of the German Navy by accident as Hitler ducks. The cat and mouse pursuit of Kate through various Parisienne neighbourhoods by the German forces is well written and keeps the pages turning fast. I recommend this as a good pool or beach read and a good one for those that have visited Paris to reminisce over.