before and after

Last post of the month, and it's another bloody swimming one.  Sigh.

Before the swim, and despite the smile/smirk (you decide), I really wasn't in the mood.  You know, some days you want to make your decaf and relax into the work day.  But I knew it would be good for me.  So I went.

2000 yards.  Better than zero, better than recently, so far below what I should be capable of.  Ah well.

Happy October that was, everyone.  May November bring new adventures and better swims!

a little longer

30 minutes today.  Wow.  He says, rolling his eyes.

But that's 30 minutes more than not swimming, so, lemonade or something, right?

October happy hour

Halloween was the theme for our online gang this month, and if you know me, you know I’m not a Halloween person.  I’m already looking to Christmas, after all.  But others love it, and it was the theme chosen, and so I duly searched for drinks that might be spooky or scary or something.

Let me say this:  a lot of the recipes I most readily came upon were appallingly sweet.  Blech.  It took some doing to find things I likely had ingredients for and that didn’t sound like sugar bombs.

Round one was just me and Van - Conrad had a work function to be at.  

The green cocktail was his, the Mystery Machine.  Muddled dill gave it that colour.  I tasted it, and it was a little off to me.  Van enjoyed it, however.  The tall cocktail was mine, the Skeleton Key.  A variation on a mule using bourbon but also St Germain.  Tasty enough!

Conrad made it home for round two, and I made us all the same thing, the El Diablo,

which was a cross between a margarita and a mule.  I think I liked this one most.  It was a pretty drink, too.  Olive said hello to the folks on the call.

Next month will be birthdays, so a wide open theme that celebrates the three among our number who will be marking new ages!

you know, that was a good weekend

A breakdown of a good weekend:

• Saturday morning walk followed by breakfast at Amara.
  
  
  
• A Saturday afternoon of getting things done at the condo - I made a lasagna for dinner, I tidied up a bit, I worked on Christmas cards (yes, Christmas cards), I ironed some napkins.
• Cocktails
  
  
  and dinner and then the recent Celine Dion documentary together with Van.
• Sunday morning walk for the four of us (Olive included!) to Starbucks.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Sunday afternoon of getting things done at the condo - finishing work on getting Christmas cards ready for writing, more ironing.
• Sunday evening at Vibrato,
  
  
  
  
  
  Herb Alpert's jazz dinner club
  
  
  in Bel Air.  Spencer Day was performing
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  with a quartet of musicians
  
  
  and even pulling a friend, Ariana Savalas,
  
  
  up on stage for a song.  Good meal (I only photographed the carrot cake we shared, sorry),
  
  
  good martinis, great setting, terrific show.

How awesome to have a weekend where there is a good, healthy balance of fun and accomplishing things.  A rare commodity these days, I fear.  The next few weekends will be a little different - Conrad will be doing some travel, we'll have some entertaining.  Still, I am glad that we got to have the weekend that we did!

welcome back to Maestro

It actually hasn't been that long since last we were over at Maestro for dinner - a week ago this past Wednesday when Peter was in town.  But it's been ages, it feels since last we parked at the bar early on a Friday night.  We occupied a corner,

Rigo

(and Marco - no photos of him, sorry) took care of us.  Some food,

some drinks,

a belated birthday treat for Conrad. 

What more could we ask for?  Our favourite restaurant to spend time at, and we'll be happy to return next week!

A series of short posts.  I need a breather after all the lengthy Irish trip posts.  Rest assured, more adventures to come!

gay it up, Peter!

And so I did.

I don't wear these shoes nearly enough.  I love that being a flaming homosexual means I get to wear things like this.

two swims

Meh and slightly less meh with added Conrad.

Look, you've heard me whine enough about how I hate how little and how inconsistently I am swimming.  This is more of the same.  Or not.  I made it to the pool this week twice, the first times since early September.  Over six weeks out of the water.  And it sucks.

But hey, I swam.  So let me document that tiny triumph here.  Happy weekend, everyone!

13

No, not the Blur album.  Good album!  One of my faves by them, and I do like a lot of their stuff.  I'm getting off track....

Yesterday marked 13 years of marriage for us.  23 years since our first date as well - that anniversary was this past Saturday.  Hooray for us!

No going out to celebrate this year.  We'll save that for a milestone ahead, perhaps.  Or just a regular date night.  No, I wanted to cook us a nice dinner.  And I somewhat succeeded - that halibut was a little over, sorry to say.  But anyway....

Shopping at Eataly this past weekend helped.  We started with a Vesper each

and some tarallini to snack on while I put together a simple burrata platter. 

Once that was on the table (and oh, what lovely flowers from Van to celebrate our anniversary - that was so sweet of him),

I poured us each some chenin blanc.  Music in the background, no other distraction.  Sitting and enjoying food and wine and talking.  I told Conrad it would be a slow meal - finish making one course and then it was on to the next.  Our second course was a simple pasta with some truffles. 

Reminiscent of what we had in Italy, but the truffles were preserved from a jar.  Not the same as the fresh item, of course, but it was pretty decent anyway.  And a splurge.  Speaking of splurge, a 2012 Amarone della Valpolicella - an Eataly purchase.  We enjoyed that one,

but when I went to the wine fridge to retrieve it, I found that we also had a 2006 of the same style of wine but a different vintner.  That one will be saved for Christmas, and may it have survived what likely have been years of moves and doubtless variation in storage condition.  We shall.  Anyway, I cooked us a bit of halibut with some lightly roasted carrots, drizzled with some olive oil we brought back from our Italian vacation and dotted lightly with some very good aged balsamic vinegar.

That was a lot, and we decided to forego the cookies and ice cream I had for us for dessert.  Otherwise just a nice and - yes, truly - simple dinner at home with some good wine to toast each other and 13 years of marriage!

Wednesday morning shot

A small break in the blogging for me post-Ireland, but let’s kick it back up and finish October off right.  I have an anniversary post to write, but for now, a photo from this morning in Pasadena.  City Hall is always a beautiful sight.

someone had a birthday!

Huzzah for the birthday boy!  Ah, yes, Conrad completed another trip around the sun.  And yesterday, Van and I took him to Terra at Eataly.  Oh, be assured that we did some shopping at Eataly first!  Tarallini!  Yes!

It's not a milestone for him.  Just a nice, every day kind of birthday.  A walk this morning, breakfast, a nap for him, then the Eataly expedition.  We ended up at a table on the patio. 

Cocktails for the three of us,

then a few shared appetizers:  grilled sourdough, gem lettuce salad, squash with whipped ricotta. 

Conrad opted for pasta for his dinner. 

I had roasted chicken and a generous amount at that! 

The restaurant brought out a nice little cream puff with a candle for Conrad,

and we quietly sang to him.

All in all, a lovely evening together.  Conrad is now on to his next birthday, and we will celebrate Van in November.

Ireland: final thoughts

A list of final thoughts for you all to finish off the Ireland blogging:

• The trip was excellent.  Very much worthwhile.  Loved it.  So glad I went.  A lot of what I encountered will stay with me.  I've captured that in previous blog entries.  But...

• Although we were able to engage with colleagues at multiple libraries, I still wanted more.  Greedy of me, I know, but I think it would have been especially good to sit down with colleagues at Trinity, for one.

• And maybe a little less time admiring old books and buildings as cool as they are to see.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVED seeing those things, but I found the tour of the library and conversation with colleagues at University College Dublin, where we didn't focus on the older things, to be so pertinent to my daily work.

• I would also rather have visited the National Library and maybe another academic library rather than see EPIC (sorry, EPIC).  Yes, I went to the National Library with others, but we saw a small part of the building and an exhibit free to the public.  I would have loved hearing from the librarians there about how they fulfill their mandate.
  

• And I would have liked to have met with Library Association of Ireland and CILIP leaders.

• I've commented on the tourism of conflict and strife.  Not my thing.  I understand why it was folded in, and I knew it would come up.  It didn't sit entirely comfortably with me for all that it was probably important to know and see.  Again, sorry.  But...

• There were so many awesome things!  The soda bread making was a real highlight of the non-library activities.  I also loved the Seamus Heaney HomePlace and Giant's Causeway.  I genuinely liked all of our non-library activities that followed our time visiting libraries.
  

• Dublin was by far the nicest city.  Really impressive.  I couldn't put my finger on it what it reminded me of, perhaps a sign that it really has its own identity.
  

• So awesome that I got to see Leigh again!  I posted to my doctoral cohort's dormant Facebook page, and folks were delighted and a little envious.

• The people I traveled with were wonderful.  I knew (and liked and respected) Camila beforehand (and, assuredly, it was a delight to get time with her in the group and one-on-one over breakfast a couple of mornings),
  
  
  but it was a real pleasure to travel with the others.  I so appreciated their different perspectives on the things we saw - the conversations in the bus and at the meals was very welcome.  I loved finding where our networks and experiences overlapped.  I hope I see them all again in various conferences or other opportunities.  So then, thank you to Anne, who was the one who ventured to dine and enjoy beverage with me a couple of times (Jean also came to the one cocktail bar!) and who kindly provided a lot of her own insights into Ireland from her background and travels. 
  
  
  Thank you to Kathleen, a fellow Canadian, who understood my own cultural viewpoint and who also shared my love for Starbucks. 
  
  
  Thank you Jean, not just for sliding your glass of wine at dinner to me so that I didn't need to buy my second glass, but also because you were so often delightful conversation quietly to the side of things. 
  
  
  Thank you to Mary Ann, the other Canadian with us, who also had such very good insights from a terrific career in academia to share on our various visits. 
  
  
  Thank you to Rachelle, one of the other two currently practicing academic librarians on the trip and someone I came to turn to more and more to hear her thoughts because I thought she was so very on point and so very witty. 
  
  
  Thank you to Denelle, our other academic colleague, who was so very thoughtful both in the sense of her contributions to the group being well-considered and in the sense that she was very aware of others and considerate of how they were doing. 
  
  
  Thank you to Dana, who was always so enthusiastic about the things that we were seeing and doing, lending such great energy to our group, especially welcome at the end of longer days when I know I was flagging. 
  
  
  Thank you to Prudence, a calm and warm presence, so easy to talk with, a happy and appreciative person who had to listen to my comments from the seat on the bus behind her and took the time to listen. 
  
  
  Thank you to Peter, my twin of sorts, a man who reminded me of my stepfather in good ways (no, I know, Peter - if you ever read this - you are not that much older than I!), and the one who constantly found the humour at the heart of things. 
  
  
  I cannot forget our guide, Des, who probably still doesn't quite know what to make of our almost-dozen and may never look at libraries and librarians again the same way. 
  
  
  He did well by us.  I did not get a shot of Bernard, our first driver, who was a very nice man, but I did get a shot of John, our second driver.  Picture an Irishman of a certain age (not too old, I'm NOT saying that), and you probably would think of John, a delight of a man, and quickly a welcome part of our troupe.
  
  
  

That was Ireland.  I would do another professional exchange trip with Camila or with Nanda, who worked with Camila to organize the travel around a suitable itinerary, again some time, depending on the location.  I'd want Conrad and Van to come along if they could.

Final verdict:  so glad I went.

Now then, on with the post-Ireland blogging.  No out-of-country trips planned until summer of next year, sorry!