We spent the night in Arky South cove. We enjoyed more laughs, music and good company last night. Mike and Kathy joined us on Soul Healer yesterday for a few hours, and Lori, Dave and Jake joined us this afternoon on Camelot.
Shortly after we woke up this morning, we were treated to a beautiful sunrise, coming up right behind the Commander’s Point lighthouse (well, water tower really). A lovely sight.
Then, later in the morning a funky fog bank sunk over the lake for a while, but shortly lifted for a beautiful, sunny day.
Where did that lovely sun go?
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention… we have christened this and any future such auspicious gathering a Riff-Rafft-up. For obvious reasons 🙂 In attendance this weekend were Wally & Kurt on Dancer, Joe on Prelude, Monte & Sheila on Cupholder, and Marty & Sue (and Koko) on Caribbean Hug.
We have another full-moon raftup this weekend, the Full-Hunter’s Moon. It’s been several months since we rafted up on the lake, the last few have been marina-based “slip-ups.”
I have been wanting to make Jello Shots for some reason. Kind of a fun treat for the lake, if I can just figure out how to get them there in tact. I have been looking around for little 2 ounce plastic cups with lids, and couldn’t find them in grocery stores. A few weeks ago we stopped by a restaurant supply company and found them – in bulk 🙂
So, this morning I googled conventional web-wisdom on jello shots and came up with the following:
Jello Shots
1 3-oz package of Jello 8 oz boiling water 2 oz cold water 6 oz rum or vodka or whatever
Pour the Jello powder in the boiling water, stir for a minute or two. Then pour in the cold water & booze and stir. Fill cups and refrigerate til set. 1 package ended up making about 12 of these 2 oz sized cups for me. Note that if you put in more or higher octane alcohol, then you run the risk of them not setting properly. With the mixture I used, the cups set fine in about 4 hours in the fridge.
I popped on the lids, and put in the ice chest for the lake, and they made it just fine.
I have this thing about certain words… some of them I can’t seem to remember time and time again. But I remember what letter they begin with. Weird. Makes me think that the brain, or at least my brain, indexes information alphabetically.
Anyway. The name of this flower is one that always escapes me. But I know it begins with a “G.” Google is a nice companion tool for my funky memory, i just searched on “flowers that begin with G.” And there it was in the list with all the other G-flowers… Geranium.
This is one that has weathered the summer, and is putting out some more buds – they’ll be fire-red when they bloom. These are likely the last of the season.
Its amazing to see how quickly Mother Nature responds to a little rain in the midst of this terrible drought. We got an inch or two of rain on Sunday, and today the creeping lantana out back is popping with blooms. I’ve been watering this guy by hand all summer, but it wasn’t as satisfying as a drenching rain, I suppose.
The crepe myrtles are popping into bloom as well. It’s nice to see a little color out there!
FINALLY the rain gods have smiled on us. We got a few minutes of showers yesterday afternoon, but this morning a front came through and dumped about 2 inches at our house, and hopefully a lot more in the Hill Country, bound for Lake Travis.
The shot above captured a splash from a raindrop in the birdbath out back.
The shot below captured a rain drop in free-fall 🙂
Nearly 11 years ago a little blue parakeet adopted us. Petey lived with us 9 long years. We have waited some time before getting another bird but have started looking over the summer.
Over the weekend we found a gentle little boy (we hope) who has some of Petey’s coloring, but is different enough to be his own little bird.
We brought Keeto home tonight. Here’s to the newest member of our flock!
We’re back home. We had a nice time in the Pacific NW, but it’s nice to be home again. We flew in over Lake Travis and got these pics. The lake is at 629.07′ today, according to LCRA. We are lower now than we were in 2009, and only about 15′ more to go to hit the all time low. The shot above is of Hurst Cove and our marina. You can see the docks all stacked up. The marina sent a notice saying they’ll be moving some of the docks out to the middle of the cove. Not much water left in there.
This is a shot of Arkansas Bend. Arky North and South are slowly disappearing.
Arkansas Bend.
Below is a shot of Cow Creek. It’s hard to believe we were up in there for the March birthday raftup.
As you may have figured out, we extended our stay in Seattle a few more days. We are working from here during the day and playing at night. Today is our anniversary, as well. It just so happens that we got engaged while on a trip to Seattle to attend Patrick and Nga’s wedding. Monte popped the question and gave me a ring in a waterfront restaurant here – Elliott’s Oyster House on Pier 56. Nice memories. So…. since we were in town, we just had to go there for dinner tonight to celebrate.
After work we popped over to Seattle on the ferry. The mountain was out, though a bit hazy.
Whenever riding the ferry, I buy a bag of cheetos to feed to the seagulls. Monte had them eating out of his hand.
In Seattle, we walked down the waterfront for a while. At Elliott’s, we had a great table by the window overlooking the Sound and watched the sailboats and ferries go by as the sun set. We sampled as much of the seafood as possible – oysters, crab cakes, scallops, salmon…..the food and wine was delicious.
Afterwards we walked up and down the waterfront on the way back to the ferry. The weather was great. The first shot in this post is of one of the horses on an antique carousel inside of Miner’s Landing on Pier 57.
Picked a bunch of blackberries today. The plants grow like weeds here. They are big and sweet and ready to eat.
When I was a kid my brother and I would often be sent down the street to pick gallons of blackberries at a time – to make pies, jelly and jam. We would come home with full buckets, covered in scratches, with red stained fingers that you couldn’t get clean even with bleach. And that is where I learned to dislike spiders. The bushes are full of incredibly large spiders that love to hide behind the big green leaves, and who also have a tendency of spinning their virtually invisible webs at eye-level across walking paths among the brambles.
This time I wore gloves, and I managed to avoid any close encounters with those gnarly spiders. 🙂
We celebrated mom’s birthday at a luncheon with family and friends. It was lovely.
Ten years ago, i was unable to attend her 70th birthday surprise party due to the US airspace remaining closed after the 9/11 attack. How quickly a decade has slipped away. But, I’m glad we were able to make it here this time to celebrate with everyone.
We are both up in Seattle this weekend to celebrate my mom’s 80th birthday. I flew in last night and we stayed with Patrick and Nga. This morning we went to breakfast in Ballard at the Fisherman’s Terminal. It’s a marina strictly for commercial fishing boats. This is the home of many of the crab boats on the show Deadliest Catch. Below is a shot of the memorial to fisherman lost at sea..
Rest in peace.
After breakfast we drove around to the peninsula to meet up with my family for the rest of the weekend.
Headed back to Austin for a laundry run. It drizzled in Dallas this afternoon. On the approach to AUS I was hoping that was a thundercloud, but it was not.
Today is the last day of Summer 2011. Sad, but hoping cooler and, more importantly, wetter weather lies ahead.
We had another full day today at the THINK Forum. Today’s speakers included the President of the Philippines, President of Costa Rica, CEOs or Chief Scientists from Dupont, Royal Dutch Shell, Dow Chemical, Bharti, ICICI Bank, Mars (chocolate company, not the planet), the head of the World Trade Organization, Charlie Rose the TV guy, Tom Friedman the Foreign Affairs columnist for the New York Times… to name a few.
After the last session I decided to walk, and I took a detour through Central Park. By the time I got close to my hotel they had several blocks completely closed to car and pedestrian traffic. They had 2 large garbage trucks pulled across each of the the intersections to prevent someone from driving a car through the barricades. Apparently, Obama was leaving his hotel, which is right across the street from my hotel. I couldn’t get anywhere near my hotel for another 30 minutes or so. I also learned from our doorman that the President of Iran – Ahmadinejad – is in the hotel cate-corner to mine. Tough neighborhood.
Anyway, I eventually got back to my hotel in time to shower, shampoo and shine and get ready to head to the Rose Hall, the Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center for a special, one time performance in honor of the IBM Centennial. Kind of funny to see all my fellow IBMers dressed in black tie and formal gowns. The performance was commissioned by IBM especially to celebrate this occasion. It was AWESOME. Morgan Freeman was the emcee, and performers included the Julliard Orchestra, singer Jessye Norman, modern dance performers, violinist Joshua Bell, Steve Martin, and Patty LaBelle. Here’s a shot of the troupe on stage after the finale.
IBM Centennial Performance.
The current and last 2 CEOs (and i’m pretty sure the next one) were in the audience, as were the grandkids of TJ Watson. Afterwards, we had dinner at the Opera House. I’m back in the hotel now, and am very tired, but inspired, and a little spoiled. 🙂
Sheila365 