Birthday week
Life Is Good, partly because it's my birthday week, partly because I have two new books. I turn 84 next Saturday (don't look for it on Facebook, I kept changing my birthdate until they said I couldn't change it again so I'm stuck with New Years Day or something), but in this family it's not a birthday it's a birthday week, and I can designate the week as I wish, and I started it yesterday, Saturday. A number of things happened, got kicked off actually, that are part of my celebration. I mean, not to be morbid, but at this age you don't wait till the year that ends in a five or a zero, because who knows?
We went to Sam's and I bought the boneless prime rib roast that grandson Ray the Chef is going to cook tomorrow afternoon on his grill. Ray cooked one at Christmas and it was as good a piece of meat as I've ever tasted, so this is my birthday gift to myself, me buying it and me asking Ray to cook it.
Also at Sam's Club I bought red wine, an American cabernet sauvignon, an Australian shiraz, an Argentine malbec, and a Spanish tempranillo, and I'll contemplate which one to take out to Breakfast Point tomorrow to open with the roast beef.
It was a good day so far, then we went to Tyndall for my semiannual haircut. The road out to the base was lonely, no traffic, and the base itself seemed deserted, depressing and I hope not a sign of to-come. At the gate, the sentry gave me a smile and a courteous salute, which I appreciated and returned, thanking her. When Tass was a teenager, the young male sentries at Tyndall gate used to salute me and wink at her.
Because of HMichael, the base population is gone, operations and personnel transferred, the base barbershop is no longer crowded on Saturday morning, there were two barbers there and nobody waiting; and as I was leaving the barber told me that from now on they will be closed on Saturday and Sunday, but open weekdays and with four barbers. There was hardly anyone in the BX, or the Commissary, where I bought my occasional can of crabmeat, which I like to sprinkle on salad of a quarter head of iceberg lettuce, and I'm trying to shift my tastes to oil and vinegar instead of a mayo and blue cheese sauce, for my salad for supper last evening.
On the way home from TAFB, we stopped at Gary's Oyster Shack right at the sharp curve on Tyndall Parkway, for my birthday week lunch of oysters on the half shell but, like Tarpon Dock Seafood in a move to be responsible, they are not getting any oysters until October, so I had fried oysters and, for sides, two kinds of slaw, one peppery hot and excellent, reminded me of the pepper slaw at J Michael's, which was the best though the last time I was a J Michael's was told they'd discontinued it. My birthday week raw oyster treat will have to be resolved even to buying Washington State oysters from Sam's or WalMart.
But the day, Saturday day one of birthday week, kept getting better. Nearing home, we stopped by the downtown post office, and there was my new book, Trevor Noah's "Born A Crime", autobiographical about born and raised a mixed raced child under apartheid in South Africa. A gifted writer already, Noah apparently is a stand up comedian, and he makes his story fascinating, light, filled with humor. It's my active book at the moment, and on starting it I read three chapters without putting it down. When done, I may give it to Kristen, who professes an interest in South Africa.
One thing with books these days, people are raw, and language is raw as I found almost to the extreme last week in JKR's "The Casual Vacancy" and you might just as damn well go with it, life as it is. Movies too, as e.g. in "The Battle of Hürtgen Forest" that I just watched online. Exploring after the film, I came across Rick Atkinson's WW2 trilogy, which, judging by the foreword and excerpt I read online, seems not to be missed; don't know though, that would be a ton of concentrated subject reading.
Two books, I love having two books going, now and then three. My other read of the moment also arrived this week, a book of essays, a favorite genre with each essay its own individual memory, "Flotsam and Jetsam" by Rob White. It's on the table by my Bay window to read slowly lest it be all too quickly read up.
Sunday School this morning, I think we may give a little attention to Jesus saying you must hate your family and give away everything you own or you can't be his disciple, then focus mainly on Paul's entreaty to Philemon on behalf of the runaway slave Onesimus.
T for Tom
We went to Sam's and I bought the boneless prime rib roast that grandson Ray the Chef is going to cook tomorrow afternoon on his grill. Ray cooked one at Christmas and it was as good a piece of meat as I've ever tasted, so this is my birthday gift to myself, me buying it and me asking Ray to cook it.
Also at Sam's Club I bought red wine, an American cabernet sauvignon, an Australian shiraz, an Argentine malbec, and a Spanish tempranillo, and I'll contemplate which one to take out to Breakfast Point tomorrow to open with the roast beef.
It was a good day so far, then we went to Tyndall for my semiannual haircut. The road out to the base was lonely, no traffic, and the base itself seemed deserted, depressing and I hope not a sign of to-come. At the gate, the sentry gave me a smile and a courteous salute, which I appreciated and returned, thanking her. When Tass was a teenager, the young male sentries at Tyndall gate used to salute me and wink at her.
Because of HMichael, the base population is gone, operations and personnel transferred, the base barbershop is no longer crowded on Saturday morning, there were two barbers there and nobody waiting; and as I was leaving the barber told me that from now on they will be closed on Saturday and Sunday, but open weekdays and with four barbers. There was hardly anyone in the BX, or the Commissary, where I bought my occasional can of crabmeat, which I like to sprinkle on salad of a quarter head of iceberg lettuce, and I'm trying to shift my tastes to oil and vinegar instead of a mayo and blue cheese sauce, for my salad for supper last evening.
On the way home from TAFB, we stopped at Gary's Oyster Shack right at the sharp curve on Tyndall Parkway, for my birthday week lunch of oysters on the half shell but, like Tarpon Dock Seafood in a move to be responsible, they are not getting any oysters until October, so I had fried oysters and, for sides, two kinds of slaw, one peppery hot and excellent, reminded me of the pepper slaw at J Michael's, which was the best though the last time I was a J Michael's was told they'd discontinued it. My birthday week raw oyster treat will have to be resolved even to buying Washington State oysters from Sam's or WalMart.
But the day, Saturday day one of birthday week, kept getting better. Nearing home, we stopped by the downtown post office, and there was my new book, Trevor Noah's "Born A Crime", autobiographical about born and raised a mixed raced child under apartheid in South Africa. A gifted writer already, Noah apparently is a stand up comedian, and he makes his story fascinating, light, filled with humor. It's my active book at the moment, and on starting it I read three chapters without putting it down. When done, I may give it to Kristen, who professes an interest in South Africa.
One thing with books these days, people are raw, and language is raw as I found almost to the extreme last week in JKR's "The Casual Vacancy" and you might just as damn well go with it, life as it is. Movies too, as e.g. in "The Battle of Hürtgen Forest" that I just watched online. Exploring after the film, I came across Rick Atkinson's WW2 trilogy, which, judging by the foreword and excerpt I read online, seems not to be missed; don't know though, that would be a ton of concentrated subject reading.
Two books, I love having two books going, now and then three. My other read of the moment also arrived this week, a book of essays, a favorite genre with each essay its own individual memory, "Flotsam and Jetsam" by Rob White. It's on the table by my Bay window to read slowly lest it be all too quickly read up.
Sunday School this morning, I think we may give a little attention to Jesus saying you must hate your family and give away everything you own or you can't be his disciple, then focus mainly on Paul's entreaty to Philemon on behalf of the runaway slave Onesimus.
T for Tom