fourth weekend in August

Most of the week gone, almost the next weekend, the last weekend in August.  What better time to check in on the previous weekend, right?  And I know, I know.  Maestro and Amara again, right, Peter?  Well, yes.  Unapologetically.

So let's kick it off with the usual:  seats at an end of the bar late Friday afternoon/early Friday evening at Maestro. 

I did NOT, however, go with the usual drink.  A Guayabita for me this time to start with,

followed by a glass of rose. 

Sometimes it's good to switch things up!  We ate relatively light, given the heat.  Oysters to start,

some chicken mole to share. 

Did we have queso as well?  No photo, but I dimly recall we may have, which totally makes a lie of the eating light.  We came home and watched some television, winding down, having a mellow time of it.

Saturday morning there was a mild walk, but yep, Amara.  Lattes and a shared burrito (they're pretty filling for one). 

Back at home, there was the usual assortment of things to get done, and I added the baking of two banana bread loaves to that list. 

Check!  They'll make for nice slices some mornings with coffee.  By early evening, we were swinging by Bristol Farms and picking up fixings for dinner.  Van wanted shrimp cocktails, and we obliged. 

I also bought a nice piece of coho salmon and served it atop a warm okra salad and Israeli couscous.

After dinner the guys showed me the photos of their recent road trip, telling me more of the stories.  Nice to see.  No television after they were done - it was too late for that.  We headed to bed.

Sunday morning I didn't get up early for a solo walk despite best intentions.  I slept really well, but when I finally got up, I soon heard Conrad.  And if Conrad gets up, that means Olive is awake with him.  She really loves him.  A short walk for the three of us, then a further short walk for me to get some more steps. 

Conrad and I had coffee while Van slept in, then the four of us headed off to Starbucks because we weren't quite up for a big breakfast at home.  Conrad and I got home around noon, and then it was an afternoon devoted to online happy hour.  Sushi and television to finish the day.

That, friends, was a very regular, normal, no-frills weekend for us.  Nice one, I have to say.

second weekend in August

You know, it was a nice weekend.  And an easy one.  Isn't that lovely when those two things coincide?

As I did the Friday before, I started out my day with a good and lengthy walk from Van's place. 

No, not nearly so long as the week before, but a respectable distance just the same.  It was a work from home day, and that allowed me to shift hours around and go pick up Conrad from LAX in the middle of the day before getting back to the laptop.  Come 5:00, or a few minutes thereafter, he and I were seated at the bar at Maestro for a regular Friday night.  A cherry-tomato cocktail for me,

some oysters to start,

followed by the roasted beet salad we've been enjoying a lot lately,

and then the shortrib burritas. 

We were home fairly early and settled down to a bit of television and then music and reading before bed.

Saturday was lazier.  A shorter walk that culminated in a satisfying breakfast at Amara. 

A bunch of laundry, some reading, and I'm pretty sure I recall there being a nap in there somewhere.  Van picked us up that evening,

and we headed to Little Beast

over in Eagle Rock for dinner with Mitch and Ted.  Nice evening, too.  The biscuits with ham were a good starter to share,

and I also enjoyed the salad that Van, Conrad, and I split. 

My salmon dish was good although I thought the salmon was a little overcooked. 

Still, the curry sauce and the chickpea cake were terrific accompaniments.  Oh, and the cocktail, the Dark Til Dawn, was a success. 

None of us were wowed by the dessert menu, alas, so we headed home, and I had a little Amaro Breva as we wound down.

If Saturday was lazy, well, Sunday outdid it.  An even shorter walk, no laundry, more reading, and again some napping.  The highlight was a nice FaceTime chat with Courtney and Robert.  We had plans for leftovers for dinner, so there really wasn't any cooking save for a bit of rice.  Conrad started making a little pre-dinner set-up for us, and he did get the food plated, but I shook up the cocktails, and that was a great little pre-dinner treat, sitting at the counter and chatting. 

We watched some television, then I hopped online to buy things I think will make nice little party favours/guest goody bag fillers for Conrad's big birthday party later this year.  That brought Sunday and the weekend to an end.

The days ahead may be a little mild for me in terms of posting.  Conrad and Van are heading on a road trip, and I will be taking care of Olive.  I have few plans during my week with her.  Still, if I throw together something halfway edible, it may just get posted here. 

Tuesday evening at Van's

The cocktail party is a thing of the past, and it's now the middle of a mild and ordinary week.  In short, not a lot to report about.  Sorry!  And no big plans for the weekend ahead.  Sorry!  Again!

Last night was weekly television date night at Van's.  Happily for him (and for an easy and peaceful rest of the night), his three top picks made it through to the finale of American Idol.  That will be our activity on television date night next week.  So yes, some television for us.  I also made a carrot and saffron risotto and seared some steelhead trout for our dinner. 

Boulevardiers for each of us to drink.

No photos of Olive, alas, but assuredly she was there and enjoyed getting what attention she wanted.

And that, readers, was a Tuesday night. 

A wedding! A wedding!

Hooray for a wedding!

I'm at that time of life when I don't get invited to weddings much anymore.  The people my age tend to be married already or unlikely to get married by now, and if they do get married, the weddings are low-key, small affairs.  We don't have children, so no weddings that way, including weddings of their friends.  I am trying to recall the last time I attended a wedding, and I am struggling.  Maybe Justin and Troy in about 2021?  And before that?  I'm blanking.

Two friends did get married last week, however.  Chris and Allister, a lovely couple for several years, are now husbands.  Congratulations to them!  I'm so delighted.

Chris,

you may recall, is one of our online happy hour members.  I've known him since we met on the gay swim team in Montreal in 1998.  Half a lifetime ago.  Chris invited the whole happy hour gang, and all of us showed up (except for Conrad who couldn't come at the last minute under doctor's orders).  There were other folks I knew there as well:  Bruno (who was the wedding planner) and Doug,

Giuseppe and Brian.

As you can tell from our outfits, we were asked to be the flowers at their celebration. 

I think we did a great job, as did the other guests.  A lot of bold colours and prints and fantastic outfits on them.  Outdo us - that was another directive Chris gave us, and we tried.  But come on:  look at that straight-from-the-runway ensemble Chris was wearing at the reception that followed. 

No outdoing that!  Allister is not similarly inclined to fashion, happily letting Chris shine while looking handsome in an open-weave shirt.

The wedding took place on a late summer Friday afternoon on the lawn at Hart House at Deer Lake in Burnaby.  Cocktails followed, and then we made our way to our tables, named for movies that had significance to the couple.  Van, Marie, and I were at Damaged Lives, which made us chuckle. 

Chris and Allister had left a handwritten card for each of us at our setting, which was touching. 

The drinks flowed, my steelhead was tasty,

and we finished the meal, contented, and ready for the dancing.  I didn't dance much - we were enjoying conversations - but I did get out on the floor for a little bit.  By 10:30, though, Van and I were ready to head back into the city to our hotel.

Congratulations again to the happy couple!  When we're through Vancouver later this fall with Conrad, the three of us will take them out so that Conrad can celebrate their marriage as well. 

Ireland trip day one: Dublin

We have a lot of ground to cover for this trip, and rather than pluck out different meals or activities as I did with the Italy trip, I plan to blog this day by day.  The hardcore library stuff will be mixed in with the more social and touristy stuff.  Ready?  Let’s do this!

I’m starting this draft on a Monday morning at Shannon Airport.  Eight days ago, almost exactly to this time of morning, I was exiting customs and the baggage claim at Dublin Airport and meeting my group.  I knew our leader, Camila, a past ALA president, and as it turns out, I knew of two of the others from their leadership work in ALA.  The other seven were new to me.  Most of us converged on a meeting point where our tour guide was stationed, and from there we set out on a drive around parts of Dublin in the rain.  

Don’t ask me to identify all of the buildings (but the first is the convention center and the last is part of the Guinness brewing complex - no, I did not drink a Guinness in Ireland, I don't care for stouts)!  Des, our guide, explained things throughout the tour and answered our questions no matter how basic or inane with good grace.

It wasn’t raining too hard that day - I brought an umbrella to Ireland and never once used it - so we were barely dampened when we got out of the bus at Phoenix Park to stretch our legs, use the restroom, and take a few photos in the kitchen garden.  

From there it was back on the bus and a bit more sightseeing - yes those are bullet holes in that statue - 

before the driver took us to go park near the National Gallery

where some of us grabbed a quick and light lunch.  

Our little group then skipped seeing the artwork  and instead used the rest of our free lunch to walk around the corner to the National Library.

I wish we had had a formal tour of the National Library and an opportunity to meet colleagues there.  It wasn’t to be.  We had to settle for seeing what we could, and that was the free exhibit on Nobel laureate W.B. Yeats.

Friends, I am not a poetry person.  Those words will come back on me later in the trip, I know.  But no, I know no Yeats works.  Others in the group were enthralled, and - lighting aside - it was a terrific exhibit.  Yeats did have a predilection for the occult, and he seems to have dabbled in eugenics and fascism.  Shall we call him a complex figure based on only a superficial view of him from the exhibit?  Sure, lovely.  I've posted from the National Library earlier in the trip, so you can see some photos in that blog entry instead.

Our first real stop/visit of the tour came in the afternoon, at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI),

just next door to the handsome Newman University Church.  

Simon, the museum director, spoke to us all about the mission of the museum, its relationship to other libraries and cultural institutions, and its accomplishments and challenges.  

And then he took us on a tour through the facilities and garden,

highlighting things such as the very first copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses.  

Hey look!  Historic intellectual freedom challenges. 

Censorship happens the world over, doesn't it?

One thing that happened at pretty much every library we visited was that staff would bring out the old and rare stuff for us to marvel over.  And marvel we did.  Simon didn’t do too much of that, but it was the start of something of a trend.  Not a complaint!  Simon was terrifically engaging, and we appreciated the tour.

Late afternoon, and it was finally time for us to check into our hotel.  We stayed three nights at the Iveagh Garden, and it was comfortable.  

I didn’t explore the area much, but the hotel seemed pretty convenient to a lot.  Dinner was in the hotel restaurant as a group,

and you know, it was fine.  

I hate when people dump on the foods of the British Isles, but I admit that I didn’t eat or drink exceptionally well whilst on the tour.  Plenty, and there were some decent dishes and meals, but much of it was just fine and a little uninteresting.  Sorry, but true.  To be fair, many of our meals were from limited menus provided to tour groups.  But still....

I think I was in bed and asleep by 9:00 that night.  I had had not even two hours of sleep in the flight from Newark to Dublin, and I needed rest.  The next day, the Monday, was the first non-travel day for us, and we had things lined up to do!