Week in Review – January 22nd, 2023

“Cowboys Lose”

Monday was a beautiful day for January – 76 degrees.  I drove Penelope over to Watters Creek for a haircut, and she was excited to have the convertible top down for the first time in 2023.  Diana had a dental cleaning around the same time, and so we were able to meet at the Lion and Crown (used to be the Londoner when I lived there) and enjoyed some scotch eggs and “English nachos” – waffle fries loaded up with all sorts of goodies.  A nice treat to start out the week.  A fun couple who had just moved from Woodland Hills, CA sat next to us as we were finishing up.  We could easily have stayed and chatted with them longer.
Diana finished up her cacti puzzle before the Cowboys played on Monday night.  Yes! – they beat Tom Brady and the Buccaneers to advance in the playoffs.  Can they best San Francisco tonight?  Of course, if the right team shows up!
I gave Diana her next puzzle, a Hawaiian sunset, and she made fast work of that one.  A minimum of 1,000 pieces from here on out.
I took Finn to get his wisdom teeth out early Tuesday morning.  All went smoothly except for his seizure type thing at the beginning, when he saw the needle.  Just like his first COVID shot experience.  The dentist was all over it – “I just cranked up the oxygen and raised his feet above his heart.”  Apparently Finn apologized when he came back around.  Poor guy.  He slept for a few hours at our home, and then wanted to rest in his own bed.  Isn’t that a nifty ice pack setup that straps around your head.
He had some pain on Tuesday night and has been doing really well since.
I had my annual eye exam on Wednesday, and as usual the crossword was tracking along with my activities.  I was doing it while waiting for my eyes to fully dilate:
We watched a new to us series during the week.  “In the Dark” stars a blind girl who is involved in solving a crime.  We enjoyed it a lot and have three more series to enjoy.
We had an outing to Denton on Saturday afternoon.  “A Taste of Herb”, a Herb Alpert tribute group, was playing at Dan’s Silverleaf.  It’s been a while since we made that drive, and I almost turned around.  The traffic with all the new building North of us was brutal.
We persevered and finally arrived at a new restaurant, “Barley & Board.”  The blue cheese chips with bacon were ridiculously good.  We followed that with a shared burger and fries.  Equally yummy.  We’ll have to try the closer version of this place again sometime.
Dan’s Silverleaf was packed when we arrived – very unusual for a weekend matinee show.  We stayed for a little while and enjoyed the band and the eclectic crowd of patrons.
Sunday began with a workout at Apex and then Diana treated me to breakfast at “House of Bread.”  She used a gift card from Finn – thanks Finn!  That store smells so good, with the aroma of freshly baked bread wafting about.
This video of the waves crashing into the parking lot in Pacifica is pretty scary.  We hope all the storms are over for a while.

 

Speaking of Pacifica, we chuckled on receiving a note that Eric Lindell is playing at the Longboard margarita bar when Diana is next visiting.  That’s the dive bar where I went to watch football over the holidays.  Apparently Lindell’s Mum lives in Pacifica.

Sunday ended poorly.  The Cowboys lost to the San Francisco 49ers.  Most everyone played well except the quarterback, with two costly interceptions.  Campbell says he might not be able to support the Cowboys next year if they have the same quarterback.

I hope Will didn’t waste his money on these Cowboys items for Ollie – no more opportunities to wear them in support of the team this year.

I started “The Hero of this Book” by Elizabeth McCracken this week, and am really enjoying it so far.  Here’s the online summary:

“Ten months after her mother’s death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book takes a trip to London. The city was a favorite of her mother’s, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she finds herself reflecting on her mother’s life and their relationship. Thoughts of the past meld with questions of the future: Back in New England, the family home is now up for sale, its considerable contents already winnowed.

The woman, a writer, recalls all that made her complicated mother extraordinary—her brilliant wit, her generosity, her unbelievable obstinacy, her sheer will in seizing life despite physical difficulties—and finds herself wondering how her mother had endured. Even though she wants to respect her mother’s nearly pathological sense of privacy, the woman must come to terms with whether making a chronicle of this remarkable life constitutes an act of love or betrayal.

The Hero of This Book  is a searing examination of grief and renewal, and of a deeply felt relationship between a child and her parents. What begins as a question of filial devotion ultimately becomes a lesson in what it means to write. At once comic and heartbreaking, with prose that delights at every turn, this is a novel of such piercing love and tenderness that we are reminded that art is what remains when all else falls away.”

Here’s a passage on what it feels like to walk around Texas in areas that are only really intended for driving:

“The sidewalk of my suburban youth was like God, omnipresent and irregular. In Texas, where I’d lived for a decade, walking was seen as a form of peculiarity, perhaps a sign of northern-ness, even among my largely unarmed Texan friends. Sometimes in Texas as I walked, I would suddenly feel the presence of all the hidden guns around me, as though I were an x-ray machine.

Here in London, I knew that not a single civilian or police officer, for that matter- was armed.

Already I was lost. But there was a sign at the edge of the ungreen green that showed the neighborhood: what was within a five-minute walk of You are here, what within a fifteen-minute. Some things only the city itself can tell you, and other things you must learn from a map.

In Austin there are enormous streets called Lanes, as well as Drives and Streets and Circles and Boulevards; in my mother’s suburban Boston neighborhood, dead ends called Terraces. Trevor’s place was on a Close, and I was headed for Jerusalem Passage. Surely I would be changed upon it. I passed the Belgian bar Trevor had mentioned, now closed. A shared workspace, closed. Early Sunday morning in the business district: Everything was closed.”

Here’s a song that popped up to remind me of my time in Basingstoke – this album got a lot of play:

I get email invites to a house concert series in Austin, but have never gone.  This one sounded interesting.  Werner has entertaining lyrics about New Orleans.

And finally, something from Funky Friday on our local radio station, 91.7 KXT:

Coexist peacefully, with kindness and compassion for all.

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