“Happy Thanksgiving – Cowboys win 3 in a row”
We had a smooth flight to San Francisco on Tuesday afternoon with a helpful MUber (Marco’s Uber) pickup. Caroline had kindly cleaned the house, made up the bed, and shopped for some staples. What Marco calls our “advance party.”
Wednesday was pretty much an all day preparation day for Diana and Alicia. The scalloped potatoes are usually Alicia’s dish and this year I gave her a “loaded” version of the recipe – adds in bacon and other cheeses. Diana worked on her regular and vegan stuffings. I think I provided adequate supervision as all dishes turned out well. Ouch – that punch hurt.
One thing you can count on in most Pacifica visits – amazing sunsets. No disappointment on this trip:
Thanksgiving started out well with ANOTHER Cowboys win – this time over the Kansas City Chiefs – the other Superbowl team from last year. This is what makes it so difficult to be a Cowboys fan – they beat the elite teams and lose to all kinds of others.
We had a delicious meal and enjoyed the company and particularly the usual excellent hospitality from Amy and Adamo.
Friday was a take a breath day, with Diana enjoying some well deserved veggie time.
Joey (Diana’s stepson) and his lovely family came up to visit on Saturday. The little monsters were selling cards and gift tags outside of Grace’s shop, Sirens, and so they all went down to support them. Some amount of the money they raised is going to support a local “resource center.”
Joey’s wife, Bonna, made a wonderful tart with fig jam, goat cheese, and onions. I’m hoping Diana was paying attention (think she was) as it seemed like a great party guest recipe.
Marco and Julie joined later on Saturday afternoon and we had a fun visit with everyone.
Caroline and Carolyn (Clorinda’s caregivers) came over on Sunday afternoon. It was so nice to hang out with them in a non-stressful situation. Carolyn brought over a deep frier and all the stuff to make her famous wontons – yummy! And she cranks them out so effortlessly. Caroline told me a funny story that I’m going to call “Tsunami’s Over!” You can ask me to hear it – think I’ll get in too much trouble if I publish it here.
Later on Sunday the Gypsy Hill krewe – Adamo’s group plus Andy and Jude, Diana, Carolyn, and Caroline – decorated the tree by the entrance to the hill. Apparently this has become an annual thing with hot chocolate, champagne and carols. I like it!
I continued with the two books I started last week. The first was “Licks of Love” by John Updike. Not at the level of his prime “Rabbit” and other work, but still a great read.
Updike has a way of capturing things that just makes me smile. For example:
“She was a solid, smooth-faced woman, so nearsighted that she moved with a splay-footed pugnacity, as if something she didn’t quite see might knock her over.”
Not necessarily a kind description, but paints a picture so elegantly.
One more example:
Just wonderful – “an increase of pedantry in her fluting voice.”
Here’s an online summary of the collection:
“In this brilliant late-career collection, John Updike revisits many of the locales of his early fiction: the small-town Pennsylvania of Olinger Stories, the sandstone farmhouse of Of the Farm, the exurban New England of Couples and Marry Me, and Henry Bech’s Manhattan of artistic ambition and taunting glamour. To a dozen short stories spanning the American Century, the author has added a novella-length coda to his quartet of novels about Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. Several strands of the Rabbit saga come together here as, during the fall and winter holidays of 1999, Harry’s survivors fitfully entertain his memory while pursuing their own happiness up to the edge of a new millennium. Love makes Updike’s fictional world go round—married love, filial love, feathery licks of erotic love, and love for the domestic particulars of Middle American life.”
The other book I dabbled in this week was “Flesh” by David Szalay. I’ll say more about it next week. It did win the Booker prize and is written in a quite different style – like a terse Hemingway.
I came across this on Youtube – just ridiculously talented:
Tom Stoppard died a few days ago. You may not have heard of him – a famous British playwright who was knighted. I studied “The Real Inspector Hound” in high school and may even have attended a performance at a theater in Glasgow. I can still remember one line “vilified and pilloried in the stocks of common gossip.” Crazy that just jumped into my head, given all that I can’t remember to save my life.
What’s this doing in the music section? Fair question. Be patient.
I read a post from our wonderful New Orleanian, originally from England, Jon Cleary. He describes an evening from Jazzfest last year or the one before when he had Tom Stoppard at a backyard party. Stoppard comes to see him at the tiny Chickie Wah Wah music club the following evening, and finds himself seated at the bar next to another Sir Tom – Jones.
Here’s a video of Sir Tom Jones joining in with Jon Cleary:
Here’s some of what Cleary reported:
“One Sir Tom, Tom Stoppard, the English one, was a knighted playwright, an icon of sixties and seventies London. The other Sir Tom, Tom Jones, the Welsh one, is a knighted singer of equal stature and also in the arts. They chatted amiably, amused to be seated next to one another by chance, caught up in the bonhomie, enjoying the ambience of a neighbourhood saloon bar in New Orleans at night. My job was to play the piano and and Sir Tom, the Welsh one, needed no arm-twisting to bounce over with jaunty enthusiasm to join me on the small stage to belt out an old Joe Turner tune to the delight and surprise of all the ladies in the audience (and the fellas too).”
I like that Jon uses the “proper” spelling on neighbourhood – generating a red spelling underline warning. Don’t change it Jon.
I cite this as another example of things that only happen in New Orleans.