Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Vacation Recap

That was a great vacation!  My weekend with A was wonderful and in our usual fashion, we did not take any pictures.  But anyway, we checked into our hotel on Friday evening and rushed on over to happy hour at Ten 01.  We felt like we were back in LA again.  Sleek, modern interior, fancy dinnerware, and really great food.  We started off with some oysters in a cucumber-yuzu mignonette.  My first oyster ever and it did not disappoint.  Then we had some clams and mussels in an herbed butter sauce.  Very good!  I also got a small hamburger that was excellent.  A surprise hit for both of us was the chicken liver mousse with fig jam.  Wow, it was creamy and delicious, full of flavor.  We also enjoyed some fries doused in truffle oil and served with aioli.  The last piece was the charcuterie plate.  Excellent as well.  A finished her meal with some Fernet Branca.  We followed dinner with some window shopping and retired for the evening.  We spent the next day strolling through the farmer's market in the park blocks downtown while drinking coffee and eating biscuit sandwiches from Pine State Biscuits.  We also went to The Living Room Theaters to take in a terrific movie, The Secret of the Grain. It was a great film about a Tunisian immigrant family living in France.  There was quite a bit of focus on food and people dining together.  It was really wonderful, all 2 1/2 hours of it.  We had a simple dinner at the Everett Street Bistro and later had drinks together at our hotel.  We slept in late on Sunday, went for a late pastry and coffee at Ken's Artisan Bakery and then went to pick up little A.  We felt like we were dating again.  

Once we got home, I began my work on the chicken coop in earnest.  I have to say that this has been one of the most enjoyable projects I've ever worked on.  I've never built anything before, so this was quite a task.  Frankly, I was quite intimidated, but I managed to put out a pretty decent structure.  It's still a work in progress, but is getting there.  I've got a few more boards to nail for siding, put a roof on it, and then cover the whole thing in chicken wire.  I'd like to stain it, too.  Pretty soon we'll have chickens and fresh eggs.  I'll post pictures once it's done.  

I've since returned to work to discover that the already grim budget for the upcoming years is even more so.  They're talking 5%-30% reductions in our budget.  This translates into very possible layoffs.  I'm also one of the more recently hired, so I'm feeling rather nervous.  I just keep praying and hoping as I could not imagine leaving such an amazing job.  

That's all.

2 comments:

  1. Your mini vacation sounds like it was great fun.

    Sorry to hear about the stinky job worries. I will do my best to remember to pray for you guys.

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