Monknash

Monknash looks beautiful—I grew up in South Wales but can’t recall ever having been there. Barry Island, on the other hand, I have seen: ‘a miniature Welsh Blackpool’ is a kind way to describe it…

Even in outline summary, & with superfluous exclamation marks, my weekend was dull by comparison. It rained: a lot! I bought a buch of stuff on-line! I did six loads of laundry! I made a batch of chicken stock! And a beef & onion & mushroom pie! I was on call the whole time, but the phone never rang!

Monknash is beautiful! The closest I come to Wales is my surname, Rees, and it's only my married name.

Friday night we drove to the beach for something called Beach Night. Friends barbeque and the kids play in the water and sand. It started pouring when we drove up, so we took the party to a friend's house. We played poker and stayed until midnight. Saturday and Sunday were spent doing literally nothing but six loads of laundry, a bit of cleaning, and internet surfing. I made simple spaghetti dinner one night, and takeout last night. I feel incredibly guilty when I waste my weekends like this, but I didn't feel like doing anything else.

This morning I have jury duty and I'm hoping I'm not picked. I've always wanted to serve on a jury, but this month is crazy busy.

It was most too darn hot to do much but we did make it to the Chihuly glass installation at Phipps Conservatory which was pretty cool.

Chihuly is one of our favourites! I'd love to see his stuff somewhere...

My (extended) weekend, with visual aids!

Wednesday: Daughter and I had a 3am wakeup to make the 5:45am flight to Minnesota to visit my family. Flew into Atlanta, gloriously short layover, and got to Minneapolis around 9:30. We went to lunch at my favorite place to eat when I visit, Davanni's. God, that place is ridiculously good. After, my daughter played with my sister's old Barbies while I took a nap at my parents' house. Then we all piled in the car and drove the hour to my uncle's house in Wisconsin. My mom is one of six kids, and most of them were there, with kids - big party! My uncle lives near a private beach on the St. Croix River; my daughter and my cousin (who is about my daughter's age) played in the water for a while, and the rest of us took pictures and drank and nibbled and chatted. Around dinner-time, we headed back up to his house, where my daughter and my cousin played in the pool. Once it got dark, we were treated to the most all-encompassing fireworks display I've ever seen. This is right about the time my batteries died in my camera, but I did manage to get a shot of sparkler fun before the fireworks began. Apparently, in Wisconsin, you're allowed to buy the big fireworks, and everybody did so. From my uncle's driveway, we could see no fewer than four of the surrounding cities' displays, and at least 5-6 of his neighbors had big displays in their driveways. A guy who lives about half a mile away was a pyrotechnician and had a big, impressive, choreographed display. There was no part of the sky not filled with fireworks, including directly above our heads. We drove home around 11pm central time, meaning my daughter had been up for about 21 hours straight, which is tough on a six year old (and her dad). Tired and cranky. She crashed in the car.

Thursday: Daughter, up at 7am. Crazy kid. This was mostly a (much needed) recovery day. In fact, thinking back, I can't really remember what we did.

Friday: Daughter slept 13 hours. My sister picked her up in the afternoon to go to the zoo and to spend the night. My parents and I went to a St. Paul Saints baseball game. It was a great night to go; they had record attendance (even setting up additional chairs along the warning track and setting up a makeshift fence in front of them), the game was fun and exciting, and afterwards was the most impressive fireworks display I'd seen since... well, Wednesday. Around a half hour long, and directly overhead. Just great. (The girl who looked just like Kari Byron that was checking me out all game was nice too.)

Saturday: My parents and I woke up and turned on the Tour de France. What a prologue stage - I can't believe how dominant Cancellara and Kloden were. We met my sister and daughter at Chuck E Cheese for lunch. (I think my mom likes Chuck E Cheese more than my kid does.) Then we went to see Ratatouille. Lazy afternoon and early bedtime.

Sunday: Woke up at 3:40. Ugh. I left my damn wallet and phone in my dad's car when he dropped us off; imagine my utter panic when I went to check in and realized I didn't have them. OMG. I grabbed my shit and starting running outside, knowing my dad wouldn't still be there, and... there he was, big stupid grin on his face, holding my stuff. God. I'm a moron sometimes. We flew into Atlanta, met BP and Mr. BP during our long layover, and then headed home, exhausted. My daughter fell asleep in the car on the way home from the airport, and I tried to wake her up for a shower before her mom picked her up, but she was so konked out from the trip. Out like a light. Heh. Her mom picked her up, I ate dinner, did laundry, watched Stage 1 of the Tour pretty much on fast-forward, and went to damn bed.

That's my weekend. What? You asked for exhaustive detail.

I saw the Chihuly installation at Kew Gardens a couple of years ago. Stunning. And the ceiling in the Bellagio reception too.

Wednesday: 4th of July fireworks, Drinking Liberally, my brother came in from NY.

Thursday: Took my son up to Celo - about an hour or so drive - since his old hippie school was having a reunion weekend. Met my brother and a friend for drinks afterward.

Friday: Ran the dogs for an hour or so, organized photos for my mom's birthday gift, hung out with a friend, went to dinner at a fancy restaurant with both my brothers, my mother and my daughter, then went bowling with NY brother and my daughter. Big fun. Many drinks.

Saturday: My mom's birthday. Spent the whole day frantically cleaning the house, shopping and cooking. Put a cloth tablecloth and flowers out on the deck, got the grill ready to go - the menu was grilled corn on the cob, chicken and tofu satay, hamburgers, hotdogs, potato salad, cole slaw, fruit salad and salad salad, which nobody ate since they were full of all the other salads. Also, assorted hors d'oeuvres. We had a few people there besides the family and it all went as swimmingly as any cookout can go in a torrential downpour. I mean it hasn't rained here for 2 months, why did it have to do it on my outdoor party? So we all crammed into the house and I grilled under an umbrella and it actually went very well.

Sunday: Cleaning the kitchen and doing the laundry and then a cookout at my friends' house that I wasn't going to go to but I did anyway and it was fun but now it's Monday morning and shit, I'm so tired. Argh. Ah well, party party weekend.

Saturday - took the old gas grill to the dump after was shooting out huge grease flames. This was repairable, but I replaced the gas element and cleaned out the grill last year and none of the replacement parts looked so good. I opted for replacement at this point. Spent the rest of the morning with my daughter "helping" me put the new grill together, then went to a wedding reception that included a roast pig. Alice spent a lot of time running around, which is a new experience for her, and working the room, which is a common experience for her.

Sunday, did some shopping with the whole family. Went to another wedding, stag. Played with my brass quintet to set mood and for the processional and recessional. Had some food/drink, went home and collapsed.

Friday, I left work early and went downtown to look through the 1,400 photos my trip to Cancun netted, selecting the best of them for brochure and website suitability. We trimmed the pile down to about 30. The cat I was working on this with had a dinner date, so I hauled ass to Queens for a delightful chill on the Porch of Earthly Delights with Pips, jonmc, and Joe Famous, who's not even using his crutch most of the time. Ate delicious food: chicken roasted with a beer can jammed up its bum, tasty pasta, and asparagus in garlic butter (mmmmmm!). Pips let me carve the chickens.

Saturday, I woke up early (for a Saturday) and worked on my project of translating boat brochures into Japanese while doing laundry. Made some calls, found a possible Russian translator and a probable Spanish one, and ended up with my laundry clean and smelling like fabric softener. Had half a lunch, then went downtown again to help my friend run lines again (he's the lead, onstage nonstop for 1h 15m, so he's got lots of memory work to do). Then went out to eat half a dinner (my fave Bangladeshi joint, Milon, on First Ave) and chilled out on an East Village rooftop with friends old and new for a few hours.

Sunday, more translation in the morning, an afternoon visit to Duane Reade for shaving cream, soap, and lotion (my skin's drier in the summer and needs more vitamins and emollients), Books Kinokuniya in Rockefeller Center in search of English-Japanese/Japanese-English nautical dictionaries; no dice on the dictionaries, but I found listings of travel agencies that may be a good target for the charter's publicity. Then to Sam Ash for a set of guitar strings (which I usually buy online, but an emergency's an emergency). Then home, a shower, a slathering on of new toiletries, and off I was to dine and watch a movie at a friend's place. Got home way late, so I'm tired this morning.

Through all this activity, I managed to talk on the phone quite a bit: with my brother, who is hard at work on a new album and laying down great track after great track. He's preparing to teach bass in a music camp for kids, and we talked about strategies and curricula, music and Lee Marvin; with my parents, who tell me every move my nephew makes in delightful detail, who recently went to see a production of Hamlet, which my mom said wasn't the best, that she couldn't hear it very well, but that it didn't matter because she still has the whole play memorized from her undergraduate days; with my friend O, who is finally in love with a woman who doesn't pull his strings, and is therefore happy and not terrified for the first time in years; and with my friend C, who's been gallivanting around the Caribbean himself and offered up, out of the blue, "My wife, she's the best thing that ever happened to me. I cherish her."

Hunky dory.

Friday I left work early and went home to try and finish the final push of unpacking. mr. gaspode got home early and we watched some baseball then went over to the west side for some tapas. Had an early-ish night (1am is earlyish for us on a Friday).

Saturday we slept late, getting up around noon. We went to an all you can eat Indian buffet for lunch then went downtown to buy books, under-bed storage containers, and other assorted apartment stuff. Did some more tidying then went out for dinner (Italian) with friends, two couples and two other single guys. The couples are both pregnant, one due in 3 weeks, the other in 6. It was M's birthday (the dad to be in 3 weeks) and we had manhattans and lots of wine to celebrate. We went back to M and S's apartment for birthday cake and V (other dad to be) amused us with his puppet obsession (he has bought 8 puppets for his baby, but they are really for him) and we watched After Hours with Daniel (Boulud), the one where he boils up a cow head with Eric Ripert. M has this saved on tivo and makes us watch it every time we come over. We left their place around 11.30 and went to our local bar for a couple of quiets with our favourite bartender and then home to bed.

Sunday we were up at 9. Joined a gym (Asphalt Green, just down the street from us) because it's getting too hot to run outside. Worked out. It's a great facility. Home for showers and headed out for brunch. Went to the Met to see the final day of the Venice and the Islamic World exhibition. Decided to join the Met. Got home around 3.30, watched some baseball, finally finished unpacking and tidying, made dinner (iconomy's black bean soup!), did a couple of hours work, watched Wedding Crashers for some dumbing down, went to bed.

Good weekend!

You folks have some impressive weekends. I haven't put a bra on in two days. Watched a lot of TV (Wimbledon, you know). Been trying to work my way back into my writing. Feel like shit and don't know why. (Did have fun Friday night, though, and Jon's been jolly.)

We went for a nice walk Saturday morning, on what was ultimately a fruitless mission to try to buy a bed, then stopped at my little cafe (mine, because I discovered it on my own, while mr. taz was away) on the way back, and had a couple of frosty mugs of beer from the best seat in the house, by the open doors, overlooking the little square there. Nice music, nice people, nice place.

Then we did some grocery shopping, bought me some shoes, came home... and, uhoh. Mr. taz's assistant came by to drop off some equipment, so we broke out the libations, and cooked, and ate, and drank, and drank, and, hm... well, by 6 p.m. I was sound asleep with too many itty bitty glasses of raki in me. Then I woke up at 2 a.m. with an interesting hangover.

Sunday: cooking and eating and laying around watching videos, and nothing else, although we were supposed to meet a friend who was in town for the day. We bailed.

Saturday: shopping. We got some new vaccuum bags (& tried to get a bobbin winder for Science Girl's antique sewing machine - I guess she's gonna order that oinline, as the folks at the sewing place didn't really seem to know what she was talking about), I used some gift cards for Best Buy I'd gotten at work (otherwise I'd never set foot in the place), and we got some cat food and socks at Target. (Are you sure you want exhaustive deatil?) Then it was off to the supermarket for the weekly food run. Back home, we made this lovely dinner (including occhiblu's garlic green beans with manchego). Post-dinner, we watched the sun set from our deck.

Sunday: hiking on Cougar Mountain. Nothing amazing, but a lot of fun. Here are my pictures, and here are SG's. Dinner was chicken and pork meatloaf, broccoli with pesto, mashed new potatoes, and an Amador County zinfandel. Plans were made for more hikes.

I love it when people post recipes. Glad I'm not the only one that uses them often.