“A Relaxing Week – for the most part”
The week began with the usual early alarms so that Diana could make her 8am pickleball session. Yeah!
Tuesday began with me joining a retirement financial meeting with Paul and Diana heading off to her pickleball tournament. I followed that with a swim, steam and sauna at the New Orleans Athletic Club (NOAC) in an attempt to stretch out my back. Trivia in the evening worked out well for me for the first time in a while. Here’s Kenny’s scoring and notes sheet.
My contributions: William the Conqueror, correct first names for Lamborghini and Prada, infra-red waveband, and “Francis” as the F in F. Scott Fitzgerald. Denny wore his new “Dude” t-shirt that we got for his birthday in San Sebastian. The design is by the same illustrator who did my Miles Davis cutout wall hanging.
The typical run and yoga in Audubon park sessions kicked off Wednesday for Diana. Then she spent some time packing up for her trip to California.
She left for the trip to attend Ashley’s wedding on Thursday morning. There were delays in Dallas due to weather in San Francisco, but nothing too extreme, arriving on Gypsy Hill in the early evening.
I watched the “Accidental Tourist” movie on Thursday night. This is the 1988 adaptation of Anne Tyler’s wonderful book and stars William Hurt, Geena Davis and Kathleen Turner. Geena Davis won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance.
This is my kind of movie – quiet, understated with deep themes and humour.
I found a recipe for the perfect “Vesper” – the James Bond drink and would have enjoyed one with the movie, but did not have the ingredients. I’m adding it here so that I know where to find the recipe:
Friday, my first “unsupervised” day, was a busy one. I spent the morning and early afternoon at Kenny’s rental houses. We were trying to use my pressure washer to spray “Wet it and forget it” on the bricks and siding of the houses. A series of unfortunate events prevented us from doing that and I’ve now ordered up what I think will be a much easier approach to accomplishing our goal.
After that frustration, Kenny took me on a tour of the Lakeview area of New Orleans (very nice and upscale) and then we shared a burger at Desi Vegas Burger house – one of the better burgers that I’ve had in a while.
In the evening, we gathered at the Bon Temps dive bar to support our friends who were running in the Barathon – a run of around 3.5 miles that visits 5 bars, where participants have to finish a beer before continuing to the next stops. There were a surprising number of participants:
Our team:
Katherine, Fred and Brennen did a good job – coming in the top 25% in my estimation – very impressive. How did the winners complete all of that in around 30 minutes? Crazy.
While all of that was underway, Diana was making the trip from Pacifica to Gardnerville, Nevada. Julie was almost on time for the departure and they made reasonable time on the 4+ hour drive.
I met Chris Peet at Casimiro for breakfast on Saturday. This is a new brunch place from the ladies that operate Acamaya (one of my top 5 New Orleans restaurants.) Mexican breakfast dishes are one of my favourite food groups. We started with the Tetela de Hongos al Ajillo (triangles of corn masa stuffed with mushrooms and served with salsa verde and crema – I will be back just for these. Then I had the chilaquiles with chicken – ridiculously good and enough to eat all day long.
We both tried the Cafe de Olla – coffee with cinnamon, spices and a slight sweetness – I had two and it was not Chris’ thing.
I really enjoyed catching up with Chris – been a while since we got time for a nice chat.
Denny and Anne invited me over for dinner on Saturday evening. Chef Denny did his usual amazing job – hanger steak, gnocchi with spinach, and carrots on a Greek yogurt base. It’s nice to have friends that worry about me when Diana is gone.
Here are some pictures from Ashley and Nick’s wedding in Nevada:
It seems that Diana had a good time and is glad she made the effort to attend.
A week after Mother’s Day and Diana’s flowers from Alicia are still going strong. I’ve been changing out the water and adding ice cubes – apparently the secret to elongated life.
My book this week was “Doxology” by Nell Zink. The online review says “this novel follows three friends – Pam, Daniel, and Joe – through the 1980s and 90s New York City music scene, exploring their relationships, the impact of 9/11, and the subsequent political landscape through the eyes of their daughter, Flora, as she grows up and becomes an activist. The book is an ambitious, generational saga that contrasts the punk-rock idealism of their youth with the political realities of post-9/11 America, touching on themes of family, fame, and the search for meaning. “
I find this book equally entertaining and clever with the musical references, and at the same time overly New York Times hipsterish and trying too hard. I’m about 30% complete and will try to stick with it and have more to report next week.
I did find an interesting reference to Jane Birkin and the role she played in creating the Hermes Birkin bag. This was a trivia clue that I knew because we sold so many of those ridiculously expensive bags in our stores.
Spotify shared some data this week – the first song that I listened to on the platform and how many since:
Let’s see – 31,500 songs over 12 years = 2,625 songs/year. That’s a little over 200 songs/month and 7 songs/day – sounds about right.
I read an article about the albums that most influenced Tom Waits:
Some very good ones in that list.