“Flying around – Austin and San Diego”
My travel experience to Austin early on Monday morning was surprisingly quiet and easy. No wait at the security checkpoint and lots of open seats on the flight. The walk to the Uber line in Austin is always annoying in 105 degree heat. It must be at least a half mile hike.
The Carpenter Hotel was accommodating and let me check in at 10:30am. Very helpful. I was able drop my bag, get some medications from the wonderful Thom’s Market (they have some of everything you need) for my sore back, and meet Neffie for lunch downtown.
Neffie chose the Peacock Mediterranean Grill for our lunch meeting – prep for a large group session on Tuesday. The Mezze plate with falafel, hummus, baba, and pita was right up my alley, along with a side of latkes with smoked trout roe and dill labneh. I could eat this stuff several times a week.
Neffie offered to drop me in the office for my afternoon meetings. Seemed like a good plan until I tried to get into her little BMW. I got in and then my sore back would not permit me to lean out and close the door. Good grief.
After a long afternoon of work, I was not in any mood to go out for sushi with the guys. Instead I chose an early dinner by myself at the Carpenter Hall.
I only do Yelp reviews when things are either really good or really bad. You can see from the above review that I had a very nice experience at the Carpenter Hall. And it allowed me to be in bed early.
After a long and frustrating day of meetings, dinner on Tuesday night was hosted by our applications development partners at Perry’s steakhouse. The seafood tower appetizer was full of yummy things, and that was followed with a well-cooked sea bass with creamy corn and a red pepper coulis.
My martini was served with a side of accoutrements – an oyster, a lemon twist and blue cheese stuffed olives. What a choice.
The dinner went on for several hours, I enjoyed the discussion and was back in my hotel room in time to watch some of Michele Obama’s speech. Her husband had a hard time following her.
My flight back to New Orleans was smooth and I was able to plop into my spot for a relaxing evening.
Meanwhile, the Ogans and Kirsches had rendezvoused in New York to watch some of the US Open tennis tournament. Here they are at brunch:
And then taking in a Bansky exhibit:
The last one is a post Katrina mural from New Orleans. I like the Ziggy Stardust Queen one.
There was a special memorial show for Nick Daniels III (Dumpstaphunk bass player) at Tipitina’s on Thursday evening. Trombone Shorty and members of Galactic joined the band. Advertised start time was 7pm. I showed up at 7:30 and planned to stay for an hour or so – yeah right! The music started at 9pm and was very good for the short while I lasted. I did have some interesting conversations while we waited – Logan the molecular biologist was one of the more engaging characters.
They had a special light show that you can see in these videos – first time I’ve seen anything that fancy at this venue.
Friday had me back on a plane – this time to San Diego to meet up with Diana’s “California girlfriends” and spouses. We were celebrating Donna’s 60th birthday. I met up with Diana at the San Diego airport (she arrived a bit before me from San Francisco), we rode the long shuttle to the rental car facility, and then the relatively short drive to Encinitas and the Airbnb. After settling in, the group made a very short drive to Kris and Cat’s home.
We shouldn’t forget Idris, the cat. This is the one that Molly babysat when Kris and Cat came to visit. He loves catching lizards and trying to take them inside the house.
We finished the night back at the Airbnb around the firepit.
Jeff and I enjoyed empanadas for breakfast at Bump Coffee on the main strip, after dropping Diana for a run along the beach road.
Then it was back over to Kris and Cat’s for a birthday pool party and dinner.
Sunday began with a casual breakfast at Nectarine Grove. The food and outside seating were very good. After that, things started to get a bit “over engineered” as they can with a large group – let’s do the art walk, then park at the beach and listen to the concert, and maybe get some lunch in there somewhere, then back to the house to change for dinner at 7pm. I could tell that was too much and was going to get frustrating, so hung out at the house, played the piano, read my book, and watched some TV – a much more relaxing afternoon than Diana reported.
I joined up with the group again for dinner at Le Papagayo. They had pleasant live music, good drinks and yummy food. Very enjoyable.
My book this week was “Go as a River” by Shelley Read. I hadn’t planned on this book and just grabbed it from the kitchen counter as I was leaving for my Austin flight. While this is definitely more of a McD type plot, I really enjoyed the outdoor descriptions and understanding the tragedy of destroying the village.
Victoria had a very challenging life and it is very well described throughout the book. I was happy for the resolution in the last few pages, otherwise things would have been very depressing.
Here’s an online summary:
“Seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash runs the household on her family’s peach farm in the small ranch town of Iola, Colorado—the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land and determined to live as he chooses.
Victoria encounters Wil by chance on a street corner, a meeting that profoundly alters both of their young lives, igniting as much passion as danger. When tragedy strikes, Victoria leaves the only life she has ever known, fleeing into the surrounding mountains, where she struggles to survive in the wilderness with no clear notion of what her future will bring. As the seasons change, she also charts the changes in herself, finding in the beautiful but harsh landscape the meaning and strength to move forward and rebuild all that she has lost, even as the Gunnison River threatens to submerge her homeland—its ranches, farms, and the beloved peach orchard that has been in her family for generations.
Inspired by true events surrounding the destruction of the town of Iola in the 1960s, Go as a River is a story of deeply held love in the face of hardship and loss, but also of finding courage, resilience, friendship, and, finally, home—where least expected. This stunning debut explores what it means to lead your life as if it were a river—gathering and flowing, finding a way forward even when a river is dammed.”
Here’s a lovely mellow tune that was playing in the Carpenter restaurant when I enjoyed dinner. I found out later that this was played through a vintage McIntosh amplifier with four tubes – no wonder it sounded so good.
An interesting song from a collection by Gilles Peterson, “Gilles Peterson Digs America”:
There’s a lot of interesting and deep variety on this collection.
One of my favourite moments from the Democratic convention was Bill Clinton comparing his party’s “We the people” to the opposition’s “Me Myself and I.”
Coexist peacefully, with patience and kindness for all!
I didn’t do much until a special event at the Prytania theater on Sunday afternoon. This is a neighbourhood movie theater with just one screen and a ton of old school character. Bruce Spizer is a local Beatles historian who has published several books about their albums and movies. This talk was about “A Hard Day’s Night.” Spizer delivered a multimedia talk for about an hour and then we watched the movie. What a fund way to pass a few hours on a hot afternoon.
My book this week was “The Uptown Local – Joy, Death and Joan Didion” – by Cory Leadbetter.
Diana and Anne had a pool day planned at Merry Lee’s place on Monday. They invited me to join them for lunch at Tacos del Cartel beforehand. This was a wonderful meal in a very pretty restaurant. We started with a delicious ceviche and then I had the birria tacos on the clothesline, while Anne had soft shell crab tacos and Diana some yummy mushroom tacos. All three were fantastic.
After lunch, I was on my own to get home. I thought I’d try the streetcar but couldn’t figure out where the stop was. I did chuckle as the stop was somewhere near Herbsaint restaurant – apparently quite the power lunch spot as there were dueling Ferraris outside.
McD was talked into a quick jazz outing to Dos Jefes on Thursday night. The Mark Coleman band was playing – Mark is our friend Chris Henry’s (tennis coach) piano teacher. John Fohl sat in on guitar.
A guy came to the door on Friday to tell me that Entergy (local energy company) was going to be trimming trees away from the electric lines and did I know who the parked cars belonged to. I had no idea. Turns out a raft of trucks from all over were involved in this operation, with no clear leader. We saw trucks from Texas and other locations – quite disorganized. Would have been good to have some advance warning before we went out shopping and then couldn’t get back into the street. I watched the tree chipper burn up and then we waited on the replacement to roll in. All was cleared up before Denny picked us up for Anne’s birthday dinner. We had a card and gift for Anne to open before everything got busy:
And what a wonderful birthday dinner Denny had organized. Acamaya (Spanish for crawfish) was excellent. Ana Castro has previously had excellent Mexican restaurants in New Orleans – Lingua Madre was her high end tasting menu at what is now Wild South. 
My book this week was “The Women” by Kristin Hannah. This was a quick and easy read. The reaction to Vietnam heroes returning from war took me by surprise. Can Americans be so callous? Here’s the online synopsis:
Diana had two options for Happy Hour on Friday – The Bower or The Library, both new places for us. She opted for The Bower. Kenny joined us initially with Anne and then Kara joining later. We enjoyed the drinks and Happy Hour snacks very much, and had a great private seating area in the front window.
The Bower was followed with a quick stop into Pete’s bar (just down the street). They always have some fun games to entertain us – this time a basketball thing that took some skill.
On Saturday we made a visit to the Alker distillery on Oak street. It was the grand opening event and the distiller is the son of Peggy’s college roommate. We picked up Anne and met Peg there. The girls reported that their cosmopolitans were the best they have had. It will be interesting to see how this place does.
I finally finished the massive, 950 page book that is “Southern Man” this week.