the crowd goes wild

I would say that Cash definitely has selective hearing (and sniffing). When he's tired from playing or in general doesn't want to be bothered he will barely lift his head when a neighbor walks by the house. Other times he's all out crazed. DID YOU JUST DARE TO WALK BY MY HOUSE! So when I awoke to his serious barking in the middle of the night this week, I thought perhaps one of the cats had annoyed him or maybe a cat outside. After more barking and some hard elbows by me, Dave finally got up and went back to his room and told him to quiet down, in not so many words. Dave went back to sleep but Cash kept growling and I couldn't shake a feeling that something must be outside. So I got up and opened our bedroom door and looked down the hallway to the front yard. Standing there not a foot from the house was a coyote. A big coyote! I headed to the door (not to go outside!) to rattle it and hopefully scare him away. At least keep him from eating my blueberries....but he just stared at me. Then slowly he turned to start walking up the street to a roaring applause of dogs barking.

inverted and backwards

Now that my hair is a little longer, I regularly keep it out of my face by whatever means possible. I have a lot of hair plain and simple and so this usually means in a messy bun or ponytail, but sometimes I try to be fancy, emphasis on try. I have been known to attempt a braid or two and this is done with about a 20% success rate so when it does go well, I usually post a photo as record of such attempts. As it turns out people do look at photos on flickr and by people I mean more than just my family. In fact, a photo of my braided head resulted in a rather long discussion on a braid forum (yes! there is a forum for braiding! who knew! Maybe I should visit it more often!?). Apparently the people there believed I had stumbled upon a new type of braid. WHAT! (I may get my name in a crossword after all!) One person has affectionately dubbed it 'the mohawk effect' and even made a tutorial on youtube! So now when you bump into someone on the street with a crazy braided head like me, you'll now why.

2 cats, 1 dog and...

3 lizards!
(if you are keeping track, yes we did at one time have a turtle but released him to a local pond where there was more room to swim and less cats to terrorize)

So. Today I'm in the back yard tending to the garden and I move a pot that's full of water. Under it I see two little worms squirm. Only these worms appear to have a blunt edge on one side. Hmm. I think that perhaps I've just chopped a mighty worm in half with the pot movement. Oh well, onto garden stuff. At which time I notice out of the corner of my eye one of the worms CRAWLING. When I look back down at them, one is looking back at me! EYES! I scream. LITTLE MOUTH MOVING! DAVID!! Yes of course this worm is the size of my pinky but it does have eyes and a mouth and upon closer inspection (by David) legs! It appears the lizard living in our rosemary (whom I will now call Rose) decided to grow her family, by two.

a decade of good eats

From the very start of our relationship Dave and I have enjoyed sharing a table of good food. I do mean the start, our first date was in the Plaza Oak Room (thanks Uncle Allan!) where we both tried our first foie gras. You might say we were hooked, and not just on each other. With that said, here's a list of our more memorable tables from the decade.

Oznots Dish - this jewel was a block from our apartment in NYC. We ate countless meals here and were seriously saddened to hear of its closing in 05.

Uknown restaurant in Chicago - Our friend David Burns set us up for dinner on our 3rd? anniversary. David ordered the skate, or as we now call it.. THE SKATE. It was like butter.

Crepevine Bistro - This was our go-to restaurant in Los Angeles until it was forced to close after a series of kitchen fires. A dessert crepe there, the Moulin, composed of bananas and caramel butter yumminess is easily our favorite sweet of the decade.

The Ledbury - Our anniversary dinner from last year in England. The entire meal was noteworthy, c-note worthy to be exact. It's also where we first found celeriac, which is now growing in our garden.

Deetjen's - We traveled to Big Sur for my birthday one year and on a recommendation went here. I had lamb chops which put all our other lamb chop experiences to shame.

The Hungry Cat - For our anniversary dinner this year, we decided to do a progressive and this was our last stop. It was a good choice as the Surf and Turf (lobster! and goat ragout!) was easily one of the best entrees we've ever tasted.

Izote - It was midnight on our first night in Mexico City and I was pretty sure we were going to be relegated to the vending machine in our hotel. Wrong. Izote is open late (like most places in the city) and is crazy delicious. We even had the ant eggs and loved them.

Starlight Theater - We stumbled onto this gem on the Texas - Mexico border when we drove out to California in 02. After stuffing our selves on meat and potatoes Dave convinced me we had room for desert. It was blueberry cobbler with ice cream and the portion was the size of a small baby. We ate it all AND licked the bowl.

us. in a decade

I've seen a few other lists floating around and thought it might be fun to do some here given that Dave and I have been together the majority of the decade. Hopefully you find it interesting... more to follow

A list of places we've been together (chronologically)
NY, NJ
Canada
MA, CT, MO
Costa Rica
NC, SC, TX
England
Netherlands
Belgium
Switzerland
France
Italy
KS, AZ, CA, LA, IL, NM
China
OR, WA, CO, MI, NV
Mexico
PA, DC, VA
Spain
UT
Barbados

barbods!

Finally got around to posting some of our photos to Barbados up to Flickr. First I want to say this.
Go. To. Barbados. Seriously.
It was amazing. The weather was perfect. The beaches were perfect. It was perfect. What else can I say? Check out the photos and then book your plane.

for the love of cheesiness!

Remember when we were in London and I fell in love with scones. Well there is one thing better then a scone, and that is a scone with cheese baked inside. Trust me. Now go make some.