Month: October 2021

“Cowboys Win – twice in one week”

After many meetings in Mexico on Monday, we retired to an excellent Argentinian steakhouse for dinner, and to watch the Cowboys destroying the Eagles.  Damon was the only Eagles fan in the group and it was hard not to feel badly for him.  This picture shows the fancy disinfecting unit in front of the restaurant – only Eagles fans had to walk through it 🙂

I thoroughly enjoyed the overall meal and experience.  The shrimp empanada appetizer (served in a burlap sack) was a great start.  My dry aged chorizo steak was a wonderful way to continue.  I’ve never had such a large table side menu before.  That’s Norma (my LATAM CIO) and Francisco (LATAM COO) in the picture.

They had the most creative dessert menu presentation that I’ve seen:

The flight back on Tuesday evening was very smooth.  Except for Blair.  He was catching a flight from Dallas to Austin, circled for an hour in thunder storms, and ultimately returned to Dallas.

I forgot to mention that I woke up on Tuesday to the news that Alicia had totaled her Jetta – not her fault.  A girl ran a red light and ploughed into the front left side of the engine.  Damon spent the night with us after the flight from Queretaro and agreed with D’s suggestion that we ship our Passat out to Alicia and look for a new car.

I took Finn for sushi after I picked him up from work on Thursday.  He loved the place I chose.  The salsa dancer (pictured here) was a great dish, and we picked out a couple of others that were equally delicious.  McD was surprised that I wouldn’t go for sushi with her but took Finn.  Can’t win!

The Passat was due for a service on Friday.  I took D over to drop it off and then we enjoyed a Taco Deli lunch.  Always so good.  I arranged for us to test drive the VW Atlas Cross Sport when we picked up the car on Saturday.  The first test with a V6 engine didn’t work out – under powered for the car.  The second drive with the turbo engine was better, but we’re not convinced yet.  The price point is quite attractive, so we’ll see what we end up doing for a second car.  Penelope is quite concerned.

Ollie made a trip down to San Jose on Saturday and accompanied Will on the patio of Rosie’s Irish Pub while he enjoyed a shepherd’s pie.  I’ve had that there before and it’s delicious.

I was texting my friend Tom in New York on Sunday to see what was new.  Was not expecting him to reply that he had triplet grand-children.  The guy in the middle, Michael, was only 1 lb. at birth and spent 4 months in the NICU- I’m sure he’ll catch up quickly.

Cowboys watching on Sunday was very pleasant.  A great win over the 3-0 undefeated Carolina Panthers to advance to 3-1 and top the NFC East division.  Finn watched with me and enjoyed D’s pigs in the blanket football snack.  There was a gecko on the patio trying to get into the action.

It’s always fun to text with Campbell and Tim during the games.  Especially when the Cowboys are doing well.

I really enjoyed S. A. Cosby’s “Razorblade Tears.”  Even better than his last, “Blacktop Wasteland”, with more complex and relatable characters and more vivid action.  Not for the feint of heart, but really well done.  Here’s the Amazon review:

“We couldn’t have loved Cosby’s last book, Blacktop Wasteland, more, so it’s gratifying to report that Razorblade Tears is just as good, if not better. Cosby has an uncanny knack for weaving righteous anger, heartfelt reflection, and even the inarticulate space between those two, into compulsively readable prose. Ike Randolph, a Black man fifteen years out of jail, meets his son’s father-in-law under the worst circumstances. Buddy Lee is also an ex-con, and his anguish at hearing that his son and his son-in-law—Ike’s son—have been gunned down in cold blood, is outpaced only by his guilt at how unaccepting he was of his son’s sexuality. But if these men missed the mark with their boys during their lifetimes, they will not let them down in death. The two horsemen of the apocalypse—driven by vengeance, race, and grief—make for a killer thriller. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Book Review”

I’m about 2/3rds of the way through “Away with the Penguins” by Hazel Prior.  This was a book that Heather gave Dad for his birthday, and I thought it looked really interesting.  It was described as being similar to “Eleanor Oliphant is Just Fine”, a book that Diana and I loved last year.

I’m really enjoying the book and the comparison is very accurate, with Veronica and Eleanor sharing many characteristics.  I like the first person narrative from Veronica’s point of view very much.

More to come next week when I finish up.

A new song from Nathaniel Rateliff is always a highlight.  Not my favourite but still a good song:

Here’s a great new song from Hayes Carll.  Not with his wife, but equally great:

And finally, I was looking for an album to play this week and came across an unopened copy of this gem.  I remember not loving the record when first released (hence the unopened album), but now I can’t imagine what I was thinking.  So many great songs.

Stay safe, kind, and patient!

“Happy Birthday Marco!”

Denny and Anne celebrated their 27th wedding anniversary last Thursday, and Anne chose this picture to commemorate the occasion.  It was taken on a trip we took with them to Nashville in December 2017.  Classic Denny and Anne.

Finn has been treating us to several new and experimental dishes that he’s been adding to his repertoire.  First a novel breakfast toast where he cuts out the inside of the bread, replaces it with an egg, spinach, mushroom mixture, and then reattaches the bread with some melted cheese.  Hard to describe but delicious.  On Wednesday, he surprised us with a wonderful chicken curry – just a delicious mixture of flavours in the sauce and perfectly cooked chicken.  We were both very impressed.

Last Friday we flew to San Francisco to celebrate Marco’s 50th birthday.  Alicia drove us from the San Francisco airport to the San Jose airport since there were not any rental cars available at SFO – such a pain, but many thanks to Alicia.  It was dinner time when we arrived back in Pacifica to collect Clorinda to drive to Sonoma.  Amy had pizza ready to enable to a quick turnaround.    We arrived at the lovely farmhouse in Sonoma around 10pm.  Marco and his friend Jeff were enjoying the hot tub when we pulled up.  He was quite surprised to see us and particularly his Mom.  Julie had rented the house and hadn’t told him who was coming to spend the weekend.

We hung out for a while on the lovely porch and then called it a night.  Coffee the next morning was challenging – the high-tech, automated house and equipment were almost too much for us.  Diana finally rebooted the fancy coffee maker and we were in business.

The rest of the day was very relaxing, just hanging out by the pool, reading, chatting, and playing ping pong.  At one point, Clorinda headed for the ping pong table at high speed and really enjoyed a game.

The third picture above is Marco modeling our gift.  Will suggested hybrid shorts (both swim and regular wear) that change pattern when wet.  Here Marco has dipped the bottoms in the water to get a “marlin cuff” pattern.

Adamo and the boys showed up in the afternoon and enjoyed all the facilities.  The tree swing out back was a big hit.

Giancarlo arrived in time for dinner, only living 20 minutes or so away from the Sonoma farmhouse.

Dinner was again technically challenging – we couldn’t get the fancy pellet smoker to work well.  McD and I muscled through and were able to do a decent job of barbequing/broiling dinner for the crew.  Birthday cake was served after dinner – I climbed up on the step ladder to get the group shot.

This was one of the after dinner games we enjoyed.  I laughed because Finn is someone that absolutely knows the answer to that question.  Another game was a combination of Pictionary and the Telephone Game called Telestrations – highly recommended.   That was a big hit with the group.

Gianluca was the only one awake when we ventured into the main house on Sunday morning.  He walked down to the French patisserie with us, we enjoyed breakfast (Croque Madame for me), and brought back a selection of pastries and quiches for the gang.  I couldn’t resist taking a picture of this T-Rex enjoying a Trump snack in a yard we passed.

Then it was time to drive back down to Pacifica and relax for the evening before flying back to Dallas on Monday afternoon.

Diana treated me to dinner the next Saturday night since I was headed to Mexico for a few days on Sunday afternoon.  We decided to Uber to C.T. Provisions in downtown McKinney.  The driver told us the streets were closed off for Oktoberfest.  This was not something we hadn’t realized, although I was wearing an Oktoberfest t-shirt that Finn had brought me from Market Street, with the dates on front.  Street blockage didn’t cause us too much trouble and provided some fun entertainment.

I had mentioned to Mum and Dad that I was hoping they would have a stuffed quail on the new Autumn menu – and wouldn’t you know it, they had a delicious dish on there.  The overall new menu was filled with things that are right up our alleys.  Mussels, octopus, pork belly – all great.  Uber back home was a bit more work, but not to huge a hassle.

I caught my flight to Queretaro, Mexico on Sunday afternoon.  It’s only 2 hours from DFW and was a very smooth journey.  Turns out only a 30 minute drive from San Miguel de Allende, our destination for Denny’s 50th birthday.  I’m going to take Diana on my next trip and we’ll spend the weekend there before I start the week in Queretaro.  Our driver gave us a brief tour of downtown before delivering us to our hotel.

There are some very interesting stories about the origin of the aqueduct on the left.  Aqueduct Construction of the Queretaro aqueduct began in 1726 by Juan Antonio de Urrutia y Arana and was completed on October 19, 1738. The 1,280-meter (4,200-foot) aqueduct transported water gathered from various springs to fountains within the city’s convents and plazas.  Several different tales are told about why Juan Antonio was compelled to build this – and they all include a lady that he was interested in and wanted to provide safe water to, the difference being which lady.

We hung out at the hotel for dinner and Sunday night football watching.  These are my traveling companions Blair and Damon exchanging views on the game.

I read “Lake Success” by Gary Shteyngart in a couple of days early this week.  It’s a quick and easy read with a constant oscillation from quirky humour to truly sad situations.  The challenge is that the main characters really do come across too much like caricatures, and the main plot of Barry Cohen, uber rich hedge fund dude, abandoning everything to cross the country on a Greyhound bus, just a bit too far fetched.  The book made all the big top 10 lists when published in 2018, and I think part of that was driven by the back drop of the Trump election and how that features prominently in this tale.  I did learn a lot about very expensive watches – Barry’s passion.  Here’s the Amazon review:

“An Amazon Best Book of September 2018:: By most measures, Barry Cohen has achieved the American Dream. He manages a hedge fund with $2.4 billion in assets. He lives in Tribeca and has a beautiful wife. He even has a case full of extremely expensive watches. He appears, at least on the surface, to be a highly unlikely candidate for a cross-country journey to find himself. But when we first meet Barry, he is stressed out and unhappy, and he is bleeding because his wife recently attacked him. Soon we learn that there is more imperfection in his life: his son is autistic and an SEC investigation is hanging over his head. So when Barry gets on a Greyhound and tries to leave it all behind (naively seeking out a long lost college girlfriend), we understand the allure he finds in busing himself into the unknown. There is humor in this novel, much of it recognizably Shteyngartian; there is also a dark line running across this story like a line drawn across a map. Shteyngart traces that line, setting his story in the summer of 2016. As Barry meets “real” Americans—i.e. the other 99.9%– they help to fill in the parts of Barry that are missing. Some readers will feel for Barry’s plight, some won’t. It was Shteyngart’s incisive observations about how we view ourselves and our country that drew me in. There are many different American Dreams out there. But are dreams real?”

My second book was “What’s Mine and Ours” by Naima Coster.  It’s been a week or so since I read this book, and I couldn’t remember the plot or characters without some internet research – probably tells you this was not very exciting or memorable to me.  I did enjoy the read but it certainly didn’t have too much to embed itself in my memory.  Here’s the summary review:

“From the author of Halsey Street, a sweeping novel of legacy, identity, the American family, and the ways that race affects even our most intimate relationships. 

A community in the Piedmont of North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the largely Black east side of town into predominantly White high schools on the west. For two students, Gee and Noelle, the integration sets off a chain of events that will tie their two families together in unexpected ways over the span of the next 20 years. On one side of the integration debate is Jade, Gee’s steely, ambitious mother. In the aftermath of a harrowing loss, she is determined to give her son the tools he’ll need to survive in America as a sensitive, anxious, young Black man. On the other side is Noelle’s headstrong mother, Lacey May, a White woman who refuses to see her half-Latina daughters as anything but White. She strives to protect them as she couldn’t protect herself from the influence of their charming but unreliable father, Robbie. 

When Gee and Noelle join the school play meant to bridge the divide between new and old students, their paths collide, and their two seemingly disconnected families begin to form deeply knotted, messy ties that will shape the trajectory of their adult lives. And their mothers – each determined to see her child inherit a better life – will make choices that will haunt them for decades to come. 

As love is built and lost, and the past never too far behind, What’s Mine and Yours is an expansive, vibrant tapestry that moves between the years, from the foothills of North Carolina, to Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Paris. It explores the unique organism that is every family: what breaks them apart and how they come back together.”

I popped the CD of Jason Yates eponymous 2009 release into Penelope this week and remembered how much I had enjoyed this when it first came out.  Such understated but very catchy songs.  This one has been stuck in my ear for days:

I heard about Sandy Nelson on a drumming documentary that I enjoyed last week.  What a great sound:

Stay safe, patient and kind!