Month: May 2022

“Birthday Week Begins”

I made a quick trip to Queretaro, Mexico from Monday through Wednesday.  It’s an easy flight – just two and a half hours from Dallas, and a small airport.  No COVID test needed to enter and they have a doctor who comes to the office to do a test for return to the United States.  Work wasn’t a lot of fun as I dealt with some employee issues, but I did enjoy a couple of nice dinners.  Argentinian steakhouse with Francisco on Monday, and then a great Italian place, Il Duomo, with Manuel and Juan Pablo on Tuesday.  I was surprised to find a solid selection of French wines and steak tartare (prepared tableside) on the menu.

The queen clams were a delicious appetizer, and the service outstanding throughout.  The ash goat cheese on my salad was a real treat.  Highly recommended if you ever find yourself in the area.

When I returned home, Diana had been busy preparing for my “birthday week.”  Tulips, a card,  drinks, and lots of my favourites in the fridge.  Thanks, my D!

She even brought me my favourite crunchwrap combo lunch from Taco Bell on Friday – delivered to my office.  I am seriously being spoiled this week.

Earlier on Wednesday, Diana drove Finn to pick up his car from Tony.  Will had arranged for a ceramic coating on the new paint job.  It does look amazing.

Janelle came over to visit with Diana on Thursday.  They got a kick out of some of the pictures that I was gathering up for a presentation that I’m giving next week – younger and much younger K.

Out for our walk on Saturday morning, we came across the monthly Cars and Coffee gathering.  I had to take pictures of the original Toyota Supra model – the first car that Will learned to drive in – stick shift and all.

The weather wasn’t good on Saturday afternoon, so no pool time for McD.  I suggested she try a jigsaw puzzle.  She can’t stop after she starts – straight back to it when she got up this morning.  It’s a puzzle of “Where the Crawdads Sing” – just the right degree of difficulty so that she wasn’t at it for several days.

I found some new puzzles this week – Phrasle, works like Wheel of Fortune with allowance for up to 4 wrong letter choices, and then Phrazle, which works like Wordle, with up to 6 chances to guess the entire phrase.

At sushi lunch on Saturday, Finn was telling us a story about Clorinda educating him on how to eat arancini (Italian rice balls).  Apparently it’s important to tear them in two before adding sauce.  Neither D or I have received this advice.  And then what shows up in the crossword this morning?

I enjoyed a nice long swim this morning, and now I’m relaxing and watching the PGA golf tournament as I write this.  Diana is out working in the garden where everything is blooming and perking up – even C-boy the cactus.

My book this week was “The Candy House” by Jennifer Egan.  The story includes several of the characters from her Pulitzer Prize winning “A Visit from the Goon Squad”, a book that I really enjoyed.  The first few chapters were engaging and funny and had me looking forward to the rest of the book.  But things went downhill for me – too many characters that it seemed were supposed to be related, but I couldn’t keep up with the connections.  Then changing into different formats – a chapter of email/twitter exchanges that didn’t work for me at all.  The concept of being able to store the history of one’s consciousness is quite interesting though.  Overall an enjoyable read, just didn’t live up to my expectations.

The critics seem to love the book, so maybe you’ll like it more than I did.   Here’s the synopsis:

“It’s 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix  Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He’s forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, Own Your Unconscious—that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

In spellbinding linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of styles—from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter, and a chapter of tweets. In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters” who track and exploit desires and there are “eluders,” those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.

Intellectually dazzling and extraordinarily moving, The Candy House is a bold, brilliant imagining of a world that is moments away. With a focus on social media, gaming, and alternate worlds, you can almost experience moving among dimensions in a role-playing game.​ Egan delivers a fierce and exhilarating testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption.”

The gentleman next to me on my flight to Queretaro was wearing a hat that said “Camel”, with a guitar logo.  I asked him if that was the band Camel that recorded the Snow Goose album.  It was, and a fun conversation ensued about his trip to the Albert Hall to see the band perform that album recently.  He is also a big Wishbone Ash fan, and was excited to meet someone who knew about the music he loves.

This one from Ray LaMontagne really caught my ear – lovely song:

Here’s an INXS cover from fellow Australians, The Teskey Brothers:

And finally, something from Amy Helm, Levon’s daughter:

Stay safe, compassionate and kind to everyone!

“Bastion is still just as good”

We had raved about Bastion, a tiny restaurant in Nashville, to Denny and Anne several times.  They were attending a carwash convention there this week, and suggested we join them for dinner.  I made the reservation exactly one month in advance, as necessary to get in, and we have been looking forward to revisiting for a while now.  More on that experience shortly.

The latest car wash in the Ogan empire opened Monday in Gentilly.  Then Denny and Anne flew to Nashville to celebrate.  They had been concerned that city approvals were going to cause delays and impact our trip.  Here’s a local councilman reading a grand opening proclamation.

 

 

Hotels were exorbitantly expensive this week, and so I booked a “Nashville Riverfront Loft”.  This worked out very well, with lots of extra space and a great location – half a block of Broadway.

Interestingly, there is a unique Taco Bell across the street – apparently has a special food and drink menu.  Didn’t have a chance to check it out.

 

After check-in, we met up with Denny and Anne for a tapas lunch and to sample some music at the honky-tonk bars on Broadway.

The Ogans were busy on Tuesday night with carwash stuff, and so Diana and I had dinner at an old favourite – the Butcher and Bee in East Nashville.  The whipped feta with honey is so delicious.  Not sure if Diana thought her champagne was more delicious?  We couldn’t resist the strawberry pavlova – a pretty faithful rendition with a creative twist.

 

After dinner, the carwash festivities were still underway at the Wild Horse Saloon (conveniently right next to our loft), and so we joined Denny and Anne for some shuffleboard games and were able to meet the carwash partners.

 

 

 

After some work on Wednesday morning, McD and I went for a walk across the bridge over the Cumberland river to check out the football stadium.  It was certainly starting to warm up as we took in the sites and enjoyed the riverside stroll.

It really is impressive to have the football stadium right next to downtown, and easily accessible with the pedestrian bridge.

I even learned a little history of Nashville on the walk.

While we were walking, the Ogans were touring the Glen Campbell museum – Anne really enjoyed it, with Denny commenting on having to read every little sign.  They shared pictures of Campbell’s Scottish outfit.

We enjoyed a casual Taco Deli lunch and discussed what to do next.  Denny found the Nashville Museum of African American Music (NMAAM), right under where we were enjoying lunch.  This was an outstanding museum – one of the best that I can remember visiting.  The use of technology, the variety of exhibits,  and the interactive opportunities were all excellent.  We were issued wrist bands on entry that were used to record many of our activities.  An email later shared all the songs you had listened to, beats you had created and more.

Here are some more of the interesting things in the museum – including a Louis Armstrong trumpet, and pictures of the first brass bands:

And here’s one of the most interesting sights I saw, Diana and Anne following along to dance moves through the years:

After the museum, we visited a rooftop bar and then freshened up and changed for dinner.

Anne had been given the action item to find the secret code to gain entry to the “Red Phone Booth” speakeasy bar.  She completed that with the concierge at the hotel with the rooftop.  So we needed to make that stop before dinner.

I think the code was a complete ruse, as there was no dialtone on the phone – suspect they just look on the camera and decide if they want to let you in.  It is clever how the backside of the phone booth opens for entry.  The place was lovely inside – lots of wood, comfy leather sofas, and a great cigar and drink selection.

Now it was finally time for the main reason for the trip.  Dinner at Bastion.

Here’s the menu for the evening:

Six courses with wine pairings – although several courses had multiple items involved – I think it was really thirteen separate dishes.  The first course was four appetizers – all great, and I think the group consensus was with the oyster.

So many things to love about this restaurant – wonderful food, creative presentation, the pride which accompanies the description of the food as the chefs deliver it, and the detailed explanations of the wonderful wine pairings.

The raw course was a delight – everyone raving about the scallops.

The pasta dish in the veggie course was Denny’s favourite.  It was an explosion of flavours in your mouth.

The salmon was beautifully cooked, with a yummy pumpkin seed sauce.

The duck might have been my favourite – perfectly cooked with another great sauce.

Dessert and the excellent wine pairing were a terrific end to a wonderful meal.

Chef was playing one of our favourite albums as we finished, and so we retired to the little bar to listen some more.

Whew – that was a busy day!

We had a relaxing, long lunch at Etch on Thursday as we killed time before our flight home.  Another very good Nashville restaurant.

Back home the magnolias are blooming nicely.  Can you see my red bird friend in the middle.  I whistle his song to him every morning.

I followed Finn to Tony’s car detail place on Saturday morning.  Tony is going to finish up protective coating that Will wants on the paint – ran out of time to finish before the car was shipped here.  We enjoyed a nice coffee in downtown Plano after drop off.

We had an early walk on Sunday morning – our later start on Saturday was a bit too hot for both of us.  After the walk I enjoyed a swim and picked up some new books from the library for my travels next week.

Some other interesting things from the week – Ollie earned his therapy dog certificate:

And my job made it into the puzzle as “data head”:

I had a good day on the puzzle yesterday, breaking five minutes, but lost to D by 5 seconds today.

My book this week was “Memphis” by Tara M. Stringfellow.  I enjoyed the last part of the jacket biography:

“Poet, former attorney, and Northwestern University MFA graduate Tara M. Stringfellow has written for…  After having lived in Okinawa, Ghana, Chicago, Cuba, Spain, Italy, and Washington, DC, she moved back home to Memphis, where she sits on her porch swing every evening with her hound, Huckleberry, listening to records and chatting with neighbors.”

Here’s a summary of the book – there’s a lot going on in every chapter, bouncing through generations and incorporating reactions to historical events like the MLK assassination and September 11th:

“Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.

As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush.

Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.”

An example of some of the descriptive narrative, capturing Memphis and the South:

“The beginning of fall in the South was something to behold.  The summer heat – a slow moving tornado – had finally left the area.  Nights were a pleasant cool.  We could sit on the front porch unbothered because there were fewer bees, fewer birds, fewer cats even.  Magnolias in Memphis, including the big one in the backyard, had blossomed their last flowers.  The plum tree alongside the house had dropped its last fruit some time ago, but the area around the tree base was still stained indigo.  The dogwoods and maples and cherry trees lining Poplar Avenue had a slight touch of corn husk yellow as if God had placed dabs of butter on each leaf, so that when a breeze caught, the trees ignited in soft flame.  Fall in the South meant Midas came down and touched everything.  The trees seemed to be made of gold itself.  Leaves became copper coins catching in the wind.”

A key theme of the novel, is Joan’s love of art and her desire to do only that as a career.  Here she receives support from her Aunt August:

“”I can sing,” she said, exhaling a plume of cigarette smoke, then taking another puff.  “You’ve heard me before.  Don’t do it that often.  Folk pass out.  Once, years back, at your mama’s wedding, man fainted in a back pew.  Had to be carried out.  Hadn’t even noticed.  Just went on singing Aretha in a way I do doubt Aretha could do it.  But I never did anything with it.  My voice.  Not sure I wanted to, how folk went on and on whenever I let out a note.  Any well, I knew Who gave me this voice.  But I did love piano.  Wanted to play jazz.  Loved Gershwin.”

She sat smoking in silence for a few moments before she continued.

“I will help you, niece.  And I’ll work on your mama.  Win her over.  Guess I must.  Because you have a gift.  I think it’s high time somebody in this damn family with a gift use it.””

A very good read overall.

I read an old article by Chris Rose (ex-husband of Kelly) that I think sums up New Orleans and why it’s so wonderful, in a perfect way:

 

Chris Rose on New Orleans Culture: “Life-Changing, Spirit-Avenging”

I heard this at Bastion and really enjoyed the mix of jazz, rock, and funk:

Here’s a deeper cut from Elvis Costello, showcasing the wonderful piano of Steve Nieve:

Stay safe, compassionate, and kind to everyone!