“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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.