Our second wedding anniversary on Monday was welcomed with a pretty sunrise. After a long work day, we celebrated at Uchi, a sushi restaurant close to the apartment and rated one of the best in the United States. The food was excellent, as you can tell by the smile on D’s face. The service was equally outstanding, from the initial greeter, to Sam our waitress, and everyone else that interacted with us.
The rest of the week was busy with work and quite hot outside. On Wednesday evening we braved the heat for a walk along the river, passing by the movie on the lawn event on the way home. “The Goonies” was showing on a giant inflatable screen. Temperatures continued to heat up, with Thursday being the first 100 degree day of the year.
Friday afternoon took me to one of our stores on far South Congress to observe system performance during the peak time and close process. As luck would have it, C-Boys Heart and Soul was close by. Diana joined me and a couple of work colleagues for happy hour. The Rosie Flores Revue was playing (as they apparently do every Friday) – what a pleasant surprise. We’ll have to return again soon.
We met our friend Vinod for dinner on Saturday night at the newly re-opened Swift’s Attic on Congress Avenue. They had a fire several months ago and we’ve been looking forward to enjoying the amazing scallops again.
That’s the table we occupied in the bar area. The word seems to be out on the re-opening after just a few days – the whole place was quite busy.
Sunday kicked off with a nice long swim and very relaxing sauna, followed by coffee at Opa! The puzzle was by creators and an editor we didn’t know – where did Fred Piscop go? It took us both over 30 minutes to finish the “Doing the Splits” crossword.
Sean and Sheri were in Austin looking at houses and evaluating a move from San Jose. We had a drink together in the Catherine Sky Bar on Sunday evening and then a lovely dinner at Peche.
Diana and I split steak tartare (one of our favorite renditions but Justine is still the winner in Austin) and a decadent burger and fries. Sheri loved the braised short ribs and duck fat mashed potatoes, and Sean was quite happy with his bouillabaisse. Of course McD couldn’t pass up the fig foam Manhattan.
After dinner we finished off the evening at the Roosevelt Room. The bar is lovely and the cocktails good, but we decided it was just a bit too much work to get a drink in that place. I did like the interior and particularly the musician paintings – here’s one of Austin native Gary Clark Jr.
I continue to slog through my current book with a firm goal of finishing it up this coming week and getting on to some quicker, lighter summertime fare.
A work colleague told me about a solo release by Ed Jurdi of the Band of Heathens – “Bumblebee” – very nice. Diana was listening to it on Sunday morning and wondering why it sounded like the Band of Heathens, but not quite right.
The other lead singer from BoH also released a solo album a few years back. I love this song from Gordi Quist, “Satisfied Mind”:
Thinking about local musicians brought me around to Ian Moore and one of his underappreciated albums, Luminaria:
And here’s a late addition that just popped up on my Spotify playlist – seems appropriate as we enter summer. The great songwriter and performer Chuck Prophet – will never forget seeing him in Denton with less than 10 other folks – hard to believe.