“Birthday Month Begins”
This week also started with banging and hammering – two weeks in a row. This time it didn’t start until around 9:30am – right when I was trying to deliver a presentation to our Executive Committee. This is what our kitchen looked like at 9am on Monday:
And here it is on Tuesday morning. Everything gone – including all that acreage of beige tile that Diana loved so much:
The new cabinets that Jose built were partially installed on Tuesday afternoon – very good progress.
Jose is very proud of his craftsmanship – we’ll see if it passes inspection on return.
I’m jumping ahead a bit. It was Jose’s (lead contractor on the kitchen) birthday on Monday and so the designing twins (Marci and Mindy) got him a cake and balloons and we all sang Happy Birthday to him prior to departing for Austin. I think he really liked it.
The drive to Austin – escaping the demolition noise for a few days – was smooth and we stopped by my office for my daily 5pm call before checking into the Hyatt (right across the parking lot from our old apartment). Then it was time for dinner at one of our favourite spots – Suerte. The food was excellent as usual with the aguachile being a real standout:
Aguachile (“chile water” in Spanish) is a Mexican dish made of shrimp, submerged in liquid seasoned with chili peppers, lime juice, salt, cilantro, slices of cucumber and slices of onion. Raw vegetables such as cucumber are usually added. This raw seafood dish comes from the west region of Mexico and is normally prepared in a molcajete.
Spencer, our waiter at Suerte, was one of the best we’ve had in a long time – deeply knowledgeable on the menu and wines, with great attention to detail on the timing of our courses and overall experiences. I sent a note to the restaurant raving about how great he was. If you ever make it to this special gem of a place, you should ask for Spencer.
We both had time on our schedules for a walk along the river trail before work on Tuesday morning. I miss the close proximity and variety of terrain and views on the trail. There is an interestingly shaped new building going up on the north side of the river that really changes up the skyline view.
Apparently this is the new “Google” building that will house 5,000 employees – quite the fancy work location, given the number of folks that will be working from home much more in the long term.
As I was searching to find out more about this building, I found many more new high rises (40 stories and above) planned for imminent construction in downtown Austin – a very booming city these days – and getting more expensive by the day.
We met Nikki and Neffie for dinner 
at La Joie in Cedar Park on Tuesday evening. The creole food was very good and the banter brought lots of laughs. I really enjoyed my duck and andouille gumbo and McD was quite pleased with her mussels and extra bread for the yummy broth. Her only complaint was that a place advertising itself as a “Creole Oyster Bar” ought to serve the big Gulf oysters rather than the much smaller ones from the East coast – can’t argue with her on that.
Diana was able to meet Blair, Tim and me for lunch at the original TacoDeli on Wednesday for lunch. She got to enjoy some of the typical banter that happens in our Executive Committee meetings – Tim is our CFO and Blair COO for the US – and we shared some funny stories on the joys of raising girls. The tacos tasted even better than those from the TacoDeli in Plano – so good.
I was able to host some of my team for happy hour at Opa! on Wednesday evening. It was lovely to see the smiles on faces as folks saw each other live and in person for the first time in over a year. Austin dodged the very bad hail storm that hit parts of Dallas and San Antonio.
Jose was very proud of his Wednesday progress on the kitchen:
We had lunch at El Alma, one of our favourite Austin restaurants, and then drove home to McKinney and the ongoing construction. The elote corn and poblano soup was outstanding. I really miss brunch at El Alma.
I’m quite pleased with the new can lighting that was installed in the piano room – much easier to see my music with the light directly overhead. Apparently the bulbs inside last for 20 years. My excitement is mild compared to how ecstatic McD is about her new spice racks that slide out on either side of the stovetop.
The Friday puzzle gave me a chuckle as I wouldn’t have solved this clue prior to Finn’s visit. Pikachu is one of his favourite Pokémon characters.
Finn’s therapist, Brennon, sent this picture from his adventure on “Misery Ridge” last weekend. Doesn’t he look thrilled with the whole experience?
Saturday was a mostly lazy day, after our morning walk around Wellington Point. The puzzle provided another smile – taking me back to late night scotch eggs with Vince at the Dead Rabbit in New York.
We’re heading out soon to try a new place for brunch. C. T. Provisions in downtown McKinney has been getting rave reviews, and I’m looking forward to trying the voodoo shrimp Benedict with a blue stone grit cake taking the place of the traditional muffin. Doesn’t it look yummy?
I started “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” by Michael Chabon this week, and have only made it through the first 50 pages. It’s been a busy week and Chabon’s writing is so clever and evocative that I like to slow down and really enjoy it.
The story is set in an alternative history version of the present day. The premise is that contrary to real history, the United States voted to implement the 1940 Slattery Report, which recommended the provision of land in Alaska for the temporary refugee settlement of European Jews who were being persecuted by the Nazis during World War II. The novel’s divergence point from real history is revealed to be the death of Anthony Dimond, Alaska Territory delegate to the U.S. Congress, in a car accident; Dimond was the politician most responsible for preventing a vote on the report. It imagines a temporary independent Jewish settlement being created on the Alaskan coast. As a result, only two million Jews are murdered in the Holocaust.
I did spend a bit more time with Obama’s “A Promised Land.” I cringed reading his opinion on the AIG bonus scandal – huge bonuses were paid to the traders who had been instrumental in causing the collapse of the economy – because they were contractually required.
“I looked around the room. ‘This is a joke, right? You guys are just messing with me.’
Nobody laughed. Axe started arguing that we had to try to stop the payment, even if our efforts were unsuccessful.”
Speaking of Ted Sorensen, part of his speech writing team, and co-author of the “Ask not what your country can do for you..” inaugural address:
“they asked him once what had been the secret to writing one of the four or five greatest speeches in American history. Simple, he said: Whenever he and Kennedy sat down to write, they told themselves, ‘Let’s make this good enough to be in a book of the great speeches someday.'”
I enjoyed Obama’s analysis of the things that went wrong with John McCain’s presidential run, and one does wonder how different the Republican party might be today had he not chosen Sarah Palin as a running mate:
“Michelle and I, along with Jill and Joe Biden, were on the campaign plane waiting to take off for a few days of events in Pennsylvania when Axe rushed up to tell us that word had leaked of McCain’s running mate. Joe looked at the name on Axe’s BlackBerry and then turned to me.
‘Who the hell is Sarah Palin?’ he said.”
I was sad to read of the passing of Denny Freeman, beloved Austin guitar player. Here’s a link to a great article in the Austin Chronicle:
“Freeman was part of the self-described “little blues cult” that helped usher the staple genre’s local reemergence in the early seventies, playing alongside Stevie Ray Vaughan in Paul Ray & the Cobras. Four decades later, the gentle-natured guitarist’s graceful melding of blues and jazz would anchor Bob Dylan’s Modern Times album.”
Freeman anchored the band that played the early Friday show at the Saxon Pub for years. Diana and I were fortunate to attend a few times – that’s when she commented on all the folks dancing “like nobody was looking.” A huge loss to the Austin music community.
Here’s one of my favourites from Dylan’s “Modern Times” with Freeman on guitar.
I found a new band this week – Goose is an indie jam band from Connecticut and I really like their sound:
Stay kind and patient!