I drove into San Francisco with several colleagues for dinner tonight. I had fresh Dungeness crab, and after dinner we ordered a round of legendary Irish Coffees at The Buena Vista.
Deeee-licious!
The restaurant’s website has instructions on how to make one, if you want to try to make one yourself:
Buena Vista Irish Coffee
Fill glass with very hot water to pre-heat, then empty.
Pour hot coffee into hot glass until it is about three-quarters full. Drop in two cocktail sugar cubes.
Stir until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved.
Add full jigger of Irish Whiskey for proper taste and body.
Top with a collar of lightly whipped whipping cream by pouring gently over a spoon.
I’m on my way to San Fran for a week of meetings. Before I left the house today Monte sang a verse or two of “Are You Going to San Francisco?” (youtube link here). You know it, i’m sure…
If you’re going to San Francisco… Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair….
If you’re going to San Francisco… You’re going to meet some gentle people there…
For those who come to San Francisco… Summertime will be a love-in there…
Checking my email during the flight I got a note from Monte telling me that the guy that sang that song, Scott McKenzie had died. R.I.P. Scott.
Kind of a coincidence, i suppose. Anyway, that song is in my head now for a while. So, i thought I’d spread it around.
I’m pretty sure I will not run across the summertime love-in on this trip. Maybe next time. But I definitely will try to find some flowers to put in my hair. 🙂
This morning as I was walking by the kitchen window I notice a leaf that appeared to have blown up and gotten stuck to the hummingbird feeder. I figured it was a remnant from some of the wind gusts during the weekend rain. When I took a closer look, i saw that it was not a leaf, but a moth or butterfly of some sort.
We headed to the lake yesterday around noon. We have a long list of chores and minor repairs to take care of on the boat, and we schlepped a bunch of tools and supplies out to take care of some of them. Rain was in the forecast, so not a lot of people were out and about.
About 5 o’clock we called it a day and headed out of the slip to anchor out overnight in Arkansas Bend cove. Lori, Dave and Jake joined us on Camelot. We had a very pleasant night but boy did we get rained on. We hunkered down below on one of the boats and played cards until it let up. After the rains blew through it was quite nice. Good breezes through the boat kept us cool.
This morning when I went up into the cockpit this was the view that greeted me. A beautiful Lake Travis sunrise. A good morning, indeed.
Today is the 35th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. I was a (relatively) wee lass when he died. Now I’m older than he was when he died. Sad to realize he only lived to the age of 42. You are missed, big guy.
Here’s one to give a listen to on this day…not one of his own songs, but I like his version: My Way – Elvis style. He certainly did live life his own way….
When we adopted Keeto last year, he was approximately 6 weeks old. Based on that we guesstimated his birthday to be August 15. Today marks the completion of his first lap around the sun. Happy Birthday birdie!
A caption for this shot escapes me — you’ll have to supply your own
On one of my trips out to the shop in the wayback part of the yard today to see what Monte was up to, I encountered this little art exhibit.
He’s been talking about wanting to make a sundial. But I don’t think this is it.
The story behind the shot: Monte is very fond of colored bandanas / hankies, and won’t get dressed without having one or two of these in his pocket. He uses them for pretty much everything. Well, last weekend he declared that he was running low and came back from a shopping run with a couple dozen bright, crisp, new colored bandanas. They bleed profusely, though for the first 5 – 10 washes. So he’s taken to washing them in a bucket of saltwater to set the colors. This is apparently the drying cycle for the latest batch. 🙂
It’s Sunday night, and the end of another great weekend. Yesterday my cousin Devitt and Aunt Joanne came over for a breakfast visit with Monte, Julie and I. Monte made french omelettes, Julia Child style. And we tried our hand at a potato recipe that we got from Devitt:
Browned Breakfast Potatoes
Large cast iron skillet 8 oz bacon, cut into 1-2″ pieces 3 large potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2″ cubes 1 onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped Salt & pepper
Cook bacon, onions and garlic in large cast iron skillet until browned. Discard bacon fat from pan. Add potatoes, salt & pepper. Cook another 10 minutes or so over medium heat on the stovetop. Then place skillet, uncovered, in 425 degree oven for 20 minutes. Lower temperature to 350 and cook for another 10 minutes. Serve and savor!
Afterwards, Julie headed home to study up for the last final exam of Summer session (good luck!), and we packed for the lake.
We planned to raft-up with friends overnight to watch the Perseids meteor shower. We made it to the cove by about 5pm and set our first anchor on the new boat. It was a good set. We were soon joined by Joe on Prelude, Rory & Greg on Sapphire, Nick, Laurene & Morgan on Kalliopi, and Kurt & Kevin on Dancer. Everyone was tied up by the time the golden hour was upon us. The shot above is of the 5 boats, stern to the sunset. Nirvana is in the middle.
After dinner and stories from the day, everyone grabbed a cushion and laid on the bow of their boats to watch for meteors. It wasn’t a knock-out show, but we did get to see some good ones. The night was peppered with random shouts of “There’s one!” every 10 or 15 minutes.
This morning everyone floated for a while and then people started peeling off at about noon. I’m pleased to report that we got the anchor up with little problem. I am loving the electric windlass to bring up the chain and anchor!
Monte and I sailed ALL afternoon. The breezes started out sluggish but filled in to some great wind that we haven’t seen in a long time on the lake. At about 3:30 we dropped sail and picked up Devitt at Arky cove to take him out for a sail. He did great, taking the helm as Monte and I worked the lines. We dropped him off back at the park around 5:30 and headed back to the marina.
By the time we got home several hours later we were pleasantly exhausted.
I can’t wait to get out there again. Friday soon come!
Yay Friday! Made it through another week. Got a very early start.
Monte worked in the shop all day. After work we picked up Julie and went out for Indian.
I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend. I hope yours is, as well.
My cousin and Aunt will be visiting tomorrow morning. After that we’ll be headed to the lake.
Late tomorrow night, Saturday, August 11, and early morning Sunday, August 12, the Perseids Meteor shower hits its peak. In Austin the moon won’t rise until about 3AM, so I’m hoping we’ll have a great view and get to see some good burners. There’s supposed to be 30-50 meteors an hour. We’ll be watching from our boat, anchored up in a dark cove on the lake. 🙂 If you want to take a peek as well, here’s a link with more info on where and when to look.
The shot above is of yet another zinnia in the garden. Have a great weekend!
Austin recently relaxed the restrictions on watering that we have been under for over a year — moving from drought stage 2 to 1. That means that we can now water 2 days a week, as opposed to 1. Our days are Thursday and Sunday. We can only water before 5 AM or after 7PM on those days. We are trying to take advantage of both our scheduled days to give our trees and flowers water to thrive in this heat. It’s been a bit of a challenge since our automatic sprinkler system has been kaput for the last 2 years. So it means schlepping hoses.
This is a shot of one of the liriope plants on the front porch. I replanted these this spring because the ones that used to flank our front door were wiped out from either the drought or the freezes during the winter.
I’m trying to remember to water them. So far, so good. They’re rewarding me with lots of flower spikes. Very dainty.
Have you ever known of a parakeet that comes when you call it? Monte and I think it’s a pretty cool trick. Working from home today, I left Keeto in the kitchen on his perch in the window. My office is all the way on the other side of the house down a hall with several doors off of it. After a while I called Keeto… and aimed the camera at the door. It wasn’t too long that I heard him flapping down the hall and caught a few pics of him coming into my office… landing on my hand a couple seconds later.
The pictures aren’t too good. He repeated the trick a few times and I used a couple of different shutter speeds. This was the best sequence I captured.
It’s a bird… no, it’s a plane… no, it IS a bird. Pretty bird!
When we came back from the lake Sunday night, I was still wearing my prescription sunglasses. It wasn’t until after we got home that I realized that I left my eyeglasses on the boat — both my distance and my reading glasses. *sigh* I managed to use an old pair w/ prescription lenses from a couple years ago + a pair of drug store readers (at the same time!) to be able to see my computer screen for the last 2 days.
Tonight we planned a quick dash out to the boat to pick them up and do a couple other things. On the way back we stopped at one of the Pho restaurants in our rotation. Monte always gets the noodles. I always get #53, pictured above.
For those of you that are keeping track, we’re 2/5ths of the way through the week. Hang in there!
Sheila365 