New Items

Not so much new here: things just chug along. It's cooled down a bit - now the days are only in the 80s and 90s. I understand that it's been 55 and raining in Seattle.

I took my first run outside since I ran the half marathon in June. It was, um, different. I think running outside here will be an acquired skill. I suppose I am theoretically training for this race, but we'll see....

Anyway, two new additions to our house - we finally have some new dining chairs. Our other ones were the $19 ones that SYL and I built ourselves after buying the flat-packs from Ikea. They were incredibly uncomfortable and very wobbly. Our new chairs did not require us to build them, and they actually have a built-in, padded cushion. The wood darker than our table, but the cushion is the same color as our oak table - hopefully, this is sort of shabby chic.Second, I made a German apple pancake for breakfast on Sunday. I adjusted the recipe by using four eggs in place of the egg substitute. I think it was a little egg-y; next time I'd use three eggs. But this recipe is definitely a keeper for yummy brunches. (The picture below is from the magazine, mine didn't look quite so pretty)

Weather Report

The big hurricane seems to have mostly missed Fort Worth. We had a gray, rainy, windy day with some occasional big gusts of wind. But we were spared the damage that hit southeast of here.

Here are some pictures of the damage, courtesy of the NYT.Donations to the Red Cross, if you are so inclined.

Cooking update

This is a post I've been meaning to put up for a while...

Mike and I have been trying out a fair number of new recipes. Here are a few of our favorites (all pictures from the original publications, not our kitchen!):

Southwestern salad (vegan!)
[Sorry, no picture. But this is seriously good - we've added it to our permanent rotation!]

Soba salad with Wasabe vinaigrette (also vegan!)
Blue Elephant Pad ThaiWhite Bean and Tuna PanzenellaCherry Ripple Sour Cream CoffeecakeAs an aside, Mike told me that he read that the chicken-friend bacon had won the state fair recipe contest. I think we'll pass on making that recipe.

Saturday night lights

Last night we went a football game at Mike's school.
To say it wasn't much of a game is an understatement: the score ended up being 67-7, in our favor. But, hey, it's always more fun when the home team wins! (of course, if there's actually a football game, I hear it's more fun, too. But we'll be playing Stanford next week, so that might be a different story)

We also had great company. Here's a shot of the canine half of our friends from last night.

For a vegetarian

I think I still managed to have a true Texas breakfast this morning:

scrambled eggs
two really outstanding biscuits
drip coffee
cheese grits

For the record, I strongly recommend the Paris Coffee Shop. (it is a coffee shop in the Texas sense of the word, rather than the Seattle sense). Although I have never been to Paris, France, I am going to assume that the city is full of outstanding diners with great biscuits and grits.

Labor Day in San Diego

Last weekend I headed to San Diego for a quick visit.

The main goal of my trip was to get my grandmother on the internet. And, as impossible as it seems, I (think) I (may have) succeeded! This was a total team effort. Mike built (or, really, un-built) the computer for her. We gave her an apple laptop with a very small set of functions and targeted bookmark buttons. I wrote the documentation (complete with many, many screen captures) for the computer. And Mitchell and Polly ordered the internet service. Saturday morning, I hooked up the internet service, and voila!

Kind of blows your mind, no?

It's like a total adjustment, having internet in La Jolla. My grandmother wanted to know something about growing okra. So we looked that up. And then she wanted to know about geraniums. So we read about that. And then I showed her how to read foreign newspapers online. And, like, if you want to check if your flight is on time, you can just look it up. Same with the TV listings..... It's like discovering the ease of the internet all over again.

As an aside, I also ordered a new office chair for her to sit in. A chair that doesn't weigh ten tons and isn't hideously uncomfortable to sit in. Shocking, no?

Saturday night our friend Harriet hosted a little garden party. It was great to see old friends again. I also got to meet baby William for the first time. William is Emma's brother; they are the children of my friend Alex and his lovely wife, Kat. Here's William and Harriet:

William and Brooke:And Emma and Kat:And Emma and William:Aren't they adorable!

The rest of the weekend I just kind of hung out. Here's the view from the front deck:Here the chickens my grandmother's neighbor is keeping. Unfortunately, there's also a rooster in the bunch, which made for less than restful mornings.And here are some obligatory plant shots.

Toto, I don't think we're in Seattle anymore. . . .

-- That that place I've been thinking is a drive-thru espresso stand is actually a drive-thru liquor stand.

--This article was in the paper this morning.

-- It is, of course, a bazillion degrees. And what's this I hear about a hurricane?

[All this is also to say that I'll be in San Diego this weekend]

New York Minute

The weekend was a bit of a whirlwind for us, as we flew out (very) early on Friday morning to New York City and then flew back on Sunday morning. It was so weird landing at DFW on Sunday and realizing that this was our "final destination". I wouldn't say Texas feels like home yet.

At any rate, we went to the big city for a very special wedding. The B-hatch was marrying a most wonderful Jenji. The wedding was a private ceremony on Saturday morning, followed by an amazing party in Bryant Park on Saturday evening.

Compared to the last time I was in New York, I definitely felt like I was appreciating the city much more (taxis! tall buildings! ethnic food! ethnic people!).

[As an aside, when we landed on Friday, Mike and I had the most sickening taxi ride of our entire lives. There was no a/c and the driver was inexplicably stopping and starting (seriously, this was not in any way to avoid traffic). By the time the cab reached Riverside Drive, we both wanted to puke. Neither of us did, though. But only barely. Uuummm, okay, so what was I saying about those taxis? Perhaps not so much to miss there.]

Friday night while Mike attended the bachelor party, I joined the left behind crew for a very yummy dinner and very funny show.

Saturday morning we met Mike's relatives for brunch and a stroll in the park. Mike's cousin has some very cute daughters:Then, I met one of my dearest friends, Karen, for lunch and another stroll around the park (can you tell how excited we were to be somewhere where it was actually comfortable to be outside?). We had the requisite New York pizza, followed by a shared cappuccino cupcake from a bakery with stellar selection (although, the word from a fellow cupcake lover is that these aren't as good as they come in Seattle. I guess I am out of cupcake practice, since they tasted pretty good to me!). Here's a picture of Central Park:And here we are (not barefoot) in the park:Then, it was time for the wedding celebration. Here's Mike with the man of the hour:The rooftop cocktail hour was absolutely divine - Bryant Park was so green, the buildings were so tall, and the weather was so pleasant. I could have stayed there forever!

Here are some shots from later in the evening:The wedding was lovely, the bride beautiful, the groom handsome, and everyone so very happy for such a wonderful couple.


p.s. As an aside, I'm noticing a lot of distortion as I link the photos from flickr and put them on blogger. My pictures really are much sharper! People really do have their eyes open! I think this is happening because of some kind of compression, since the photos really are huge - but I'm not sure how to fix this without uploading two copies of each picture (one small, one original size). If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Update: Thanks to Scott's tip, the pictures are looking much better. I can't say what happened to the right-hand side of black box around the pictures or why Karen and I are a little off center, but c'est la vie. Also, I am going to HTML class next week. For the record.

Rainy Day

It was a gray, soggy Monday here. It rained all day. It was glorious.
(okay, so it was also 80 degrees).

Broken elbow blogging

I visited my great surgeon on Friday, and he was happy with what he saw on the X-Rays. If you want to play along with my doctor, here is what he saw (the staples were removed shortly after the X-ray was taken, but the screws are in there for the long haul):



After the doctor's appointment I decided to give Fort Worth's bus system a try. Because the first bus I needed to catch only ran once per hour, I decided to walk a mile to pick up the second bus. However, because Fort Worth's streets were SO pedestrian unfriendly, I ended up walking more than a mile out of my way, though an upscale Fort Worth neighborhood. In political science news, here was the political lawn sign count in that neighborhood:

Obama signs: 2
McCain signs: 1
Nader signs: 1

I found these results surprising.

Our weekend

Although I wanted to make this be a whole post where we didn't really mention Mike's arm, that's not likely. . . .

Mike's surgery was Thursday. Thursday night and Friday night were a bit rough, as Mike was in a lot of pain. Saturday afternoon, though, Mike seems to have turned a corner and he's been steadily improving since then. On Sunday he even made his famous Pad Thai (although this is actually a picture of him making eggs).Also on Sunday morning I made lowfat lemon blueberry buttermilk muffins. This is one my favorite recipes.Last, my dear friend Claire sent me this. I totally adore it, and it helps me to remember that not *everything* in Texas is terrible (although my new default is to root against the Texas Rangers in all situations - and tonight they're playing the Yankees! Also, I use root extremely loosely in this context).

Relief!

Mike's surgery was this morning; everything went well.

As I write this, we're at home, he's asleep, and I'm so, so, so glad that the surgery is over.

Dr.P does Texas

[This post was written by the inimitable Dr.P.]

After a journey of 1400 miles, driven by moi-meme toute seule over three days and two nights, je suis arrive'e a' Fort Worth at about 1500 on Friday afternoon. I was surprised by the green-ness of West Texas and then the Permian Basin. It's much greener than Southern California, and there is a lot of empty space out there. There seems to be water from several rivers, some of which are underground. I came through Midland on the last day but gained no insight into the formation--or lack thereof--of our "dear leader."

I arrived in FW and alighted from my air-conditioned car; my first impression=HOT! Michael's directions led me easily to TCU--a lot more directly than Mapquest was sending me to their apartment. I met Michael in the visitors' parking lot, saw his spacious office complete with sofa and many books, and even met one of his distinguished and very pleasant colleagues. Then Mike and I proceeded to the now traditional first night in FW Mexican restaurant (Uncle Julio's) where we were soon joined by Kate, who had come from her work in Arlington.

Mike seems quite comfortable now and has become a master at doing all sorts of things with one arm--even cooking delicious waffles and pasta with homemade fresh tomato sauce!--although sometimes Kate provides the other arm.

On Saturday, we went to the Farmers' and then the Central Market, where we found white and graffiti eggplants. I was very impressed by a whole wing of the produce department at Central Market devoted to "Fruits from California." We came home to swim; Mike even worked out on the stationary bicycle in their exercise room--such spirit! The exercise room is air conditioned, but I felt warm while swimming my laps in the outdoor pool that was at an ambient temperature of close to 100 degrees. Then we had a yummy dinner of fresh trout, asparagus, and couscous topped off with fresh peach cobbler made by the team.

This AM, Mike made the perfect waffles, and then Kate and I went to a fabulous exhibit of Impressionist Art on loan from the Chicago Museum of Art. I just loved it, and so did a lot of other Fort Worthians; there were a lot of people there. On the way home I sampled some of the famous Texas barbecue recommended by my friend from Texas, Harriet.

So you can see that we did a lot of things in a two-day weekend. I'm happy to report for the benefit of future guests that their aprtment is light, spacious, and modern and that the Aero-Bed is most comfortable.

update

We saw the new doctor this morning. He was really nice and very smart. It looks like Mike will have his outpatient surgery on Thursday.

Being a patient

requires patience.

We're seeing another doctor on Friday, but it looks like some (outpatient) surgery is likely.

Thanks for all your kind thoughts and wishes - we'll keep you appraised of the situation.

Broken elbow has a broken elbow (or, it's Monday, of course)

Never a slow day here - today while I was at work, Mike had a small bike accident. It happened while he was biking to work with his colleague. Luckily, they weren't too far from home and they were able to return home, get his insurance card, and then go to the E.R. Unluckily, Mike broke his elbow.

He's seeing a specialist on Wednesday and then we'll know more. Right now he's not in too much pain and seems to be in good spirits.

Rustin' up and settling in

SYL is gone, and we miss her like crazy.

This week has been a little busy. Mike bought his new bike [and has been biking in every day - despite the fact that it's sometimes 99 degrees outside!] and I started my new job. The job is fine; the drive is a little longer than I'd like [but there is NPR- everything else is county music]. Overall, though, the people seem nice and the work seems interesting.

We spent this weekend running errands, relaxing, and unpacking a little more.

Here are a few pictures from last weekend when we went to the stockyards to see the cattle drive [the herd is owned by the city and they parade them through the stockyards twice a day]. It was actually sort of lame and very hot. But now we've done it, and I don't think we'll need to do it again.Here's a picture of Mike's school and his office [before he moved in and decorated].