Steve's Place

Oh, nevermind…

This weekend, the Beloved and I are heading off to Ohio for a wedding in her family.  We arrive in Cleveland late on Friday and drive off to umm – errr – some other place in NE Ohio for the wedding Saturday morning.

I was thinking about it this morning.  I haven’t been to Ohio for at least 10 years.  Should be interesting.  I’ll post this song from Over The Rhine (who are from the Cincinnati area), which is truly one of my favorite songs ever.

It’s pretty much going to be all family time, so I don’t know that there will be much of a sight-seeing report on our return, but we’ll see how it goes.  I promise I’ll play my Scrabulous turns when I get back.

I mean "Me and My Vocabulary Enhancing Pastime"

And if you were wondering, that's me crushing Cori.  Again.

What was your first car?

My first car was a 1980 Datsun-210 (back before we called them Nissans here…)

This picture is a reasonable representation, except mine was a four-door.    Oh, and I didn’t have any hubcaps (back before we called them wheel covers…).  And the paint didn’t look that good – there were some serious rust spots.  The suspension wasn’t nearly as  good as the one in this picture, either.  And don’t forget the rusted out floor panel (back before we called them safety hazards...) beneath the passenger’s feet – yeah, don’t step down too hard.

I bought that car during my junior year of college so that I could drive back and forth to my internship at DuPont.  I kept it all the way through graduate school.  It couldn’t really go over 70 mph (it would literally start to shake), and didn’t have air conditioning.  It would also tend to overheat in the summer – for which the solution was to run with the HEAT on (it would dissipate the heat from the engine).

Despite its “eccentricities”, I loved that car.  I bought it with 56,000 miles on it, and turned it in eight years later with 186,000.

Hapalove's comment about going up to Pasadena this weekend reminded me of something notable that I forgot about last weekend.  On Sunday, we needed to come up with a place to eat that evening. Now usually when we’re going out (especially when we’re out of town), we try to go out for a) things we can’t reasonably cook at home, and b) restaurants we might not be able to find in San Diego.

Following these plans, we chose to go to the Tibet-Nepal House, which claims to be the only restaurant of that cuisine in Southern California. It was really fun. The food was a mash-up of Indian, Chinese and Central Asian styles (as you might expect from geography) – and we really enjoyed everything that we had.

I decided to really go for it and ordered the yak. Yes, that’s right, why-ay-kay, yak. It was really good -- very lean, a little gamey, very tasty with the spices and vegetables that it was cooked in.  In general, I think it tasted more like buffalo (bison) than beef.  Also, many of you will be releived to note that it was free-range yak.

Try it next time you’re at your neighborhood Tibetan place.

This past weekend the Beloved and I took a trip up to Pasadena. The reason for the visit was the last of her Christmas presents, which were tickets to see the Cal Phil perform Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (some of her favorites).

Moreover, we coupled the opportunity to get together with some friends that we too-rarely get to see. We got together with them on Saturday afternoon at their home, went out for a great dinner and went to the concert. The orchestra played all six concertos, which made for a long concert (I don’t think we got out until after 11:00), but they did a really good job. Great day.

On thing that could have spoiled the day was that it’s apparently the start of another wildfire season in Southern California. On Saturday, it was a scorcher – near 100 and a big wildfire started up in the Sierra Madre region just southeast of Pasadena. It was a little disturbing – especially after the horrendous fires in San Diego last fall – that we could see the flames from our hotel window when we returned from the concert. Some folks were evacuated, but no damage was done to any homes or structures.

On Sunday, we spent the day at the Huntington Library and Gardens, which I had never been to before. I thought it was great. Wonderful collection of art, history, antique books, and gardens that kept me more interested together than any one of them would have alone. Also, ducking into one of the tiny museums was a good respite from strolling in ~100 degree gardens.

One thing you realize is that the Huntington is a massive library – and they have a great collection of historical books. We were able to see an original Gutenberg Bible and a first edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost among others. The scientist in me got a charge of seeing an original copy of Robert Hooke’s Micrographia – one of the most important “popular science” books of all time and an illustration of the new science of microscopy.

The other highpoint was walking around the different gardens on the Huntington grounds. The roses were really in bloom and folks were enjoying walking around and sampling their array of colors and fragrances. As gorgeous as they were, I think I liked the cactus and succulent garden – which was also in bloom (though not nearly as crowded) – the best. There’s something about their ability to thrive in the harshest of environments that makes me really enjoy seeing them.

On Monday, we slept in and had a nice easy mid-day drive back to San Diego.  Not a bad weekend at all.

Ok, I have a confession.  I make a crappy margarita.

What’s that you say?  You live in San Diego, 30 miles or so from the border – you of all people – with your love of cocktails and spicy Mexican food this should have been something in your arsenal a long time ago.

I agree.  But mine always tend to come out too tequila-y, too sweet, too lime-y, too something where you can tell it’s just not right.  I won’t use a mix, because a) that’s cheating, and b) they vary from too sweet to just plain nasty.

But no more with the bad margaritas!

My rescue came in the form of the latest Imbibe Magazine (your guide to liquid culture…), which has some new summer drink recipes.  The other night we tried one that we LOVED and instantly declared The. House. Margarita. This. Summer.

Zanahorita

Mix the following in a shaker with ice:
2 oz reposado tequila
¾ oz cointreau or triple-sec
1 oz carrot juice
¾ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz orange juice
½ oz simple syrup

Shake vigorously and strain into a glass with fresh ice (salted or not, depending on taste) and THEN sprinkle the top of the drink with ground cumin. (Yes, that’s right -- cumin -- don’t argue with me)

The carrot-cumin-tequila-salt-citrus blend is both incredibly smooth and gives this drink a rare exotic feel.

Trust me -- it might sound a little strange.  It’s bueno.

Tamzen tagged me the other day to come up with eight random things about myself.  I’ve done a couple of these before, so this weekend I tried to think of some stories/events/traits that I might not have previously discussed.  As I went through them, I realized they clustered into a couple of sub-categories.

Education
1. I am a product of 12 years of Catholic school education (I never went to kindergarten, and no, I don’t know why – my school had it, I just never went.).  During that education, I saw a 3rd grader punch a nun in the stomach, a teacher dangle a 6th grade student by the ankles from a third story boys bathroom window (it was not me), and knew an ~80 year old nun (Sister Narcissus. Really.) that would smite bad children with her rather hefty cane (occasionally, that was me).  I’m sure parents today would sue the pants off the school for the last two – we just thought it was Standard Operating Procedure.

2. In my high school, there was a fairly high preponderance of students drinking (gasp!).  A couple friends and I decided one day that it would be fun to be drunk while at school, so we went over behind a nearby 7-11 and got drunk at ~7:30 a.m.  One poorly-planned aspect of this was that I had a chemistry test 1st period.  In science classes, I was the nerd that always finished first, but not that day – I was the last person to turn my test in and my teacher asked me if I was feeling okay.  I got a 94.

3. When I was in graduate school at North Carolina – I was fairly active in my Church and one year decided that I would teach CCD (religious education).  Because I was a guy, I was given 7th grade students (in the hope that they would “respect” a male teacher more) b/c these classes had been discipline problems in the past.  I never used the textbook (which always peeved my coordinator) but decided to challenge the young adults with discussions about “issues and choices” – drinking, academic cheating, gossiping, violence, consumerism, etc.  I did it for last two years I was there.  I thought it worked.

Entertainment
4. I like gambling.  I always have – cards, casinos, football bets – I’m probably pretty interested.  One of my earliest vacation memories is when I was 6-years old, my family took the Great American Road Trip vacation – New Jersey to California and back by car.  On the return we stopped in Las Vegas and stayed at what was then the brand-new Flamingo.  My mom snuck me in the back of the gambling floor and let me play the slot machines.  I think we got fussed at by security after a while, but it was pretty fun for me!  Maybe that’s where it all started.

5. I like B-movies.  You know, cheesy black-and-white horror movies.  I’m pretty sure that this is derived from often watching them on Saturday afternoons with my mom (this was back in the ~10 channels of broadcast TV days, and there was a horror movie shown on one of the UHF channels every Saturday).  My dad worked six days a week, so my mom would make us a late-lunch and we’d set out trays and eat in the living room and watch them together.  Still a pretty special memory for me.

Poor Dating Behavior
6. One of my less-proud male moments was when I went to our freshman “prom” with a girl that I didn’t really like all that much.  But you see, I had a crush on her friend (who’d suggested to me that I take the girl) and my 15-year-old mind thought that if I took the girl I didn’t like all that much that I might score points with the girl I was interested in.   The dance was fine, but afterwards I must have said something stupid to someone, because word got back to my date about my motivations and I was forced to endure the public in-the-hall crying and recriminations.

7.  One of my less-proud male moments came when I was in college when I made the dubious decision to “go steady” with two different girls concurrently.  One was a girl that lived in PA – we had gotten close when we were sophomores, but she transferred to a small school near where she lived.  So, I’d drive up to see her, while I also pursued a relationship with another girl in my class (think at-school girlfriend and away-from-school girlfriend).  Once, while PA-girl and I were walking in the mall, I casually called her by the other girl’s name.  I was then forced to endure the public in-the-mall crying and recriminations.

8.  In graduate school, I had an ex-girlfriend that waited for me in my parking lot one night, confronted me when I arrived home, and became so demonstrably angry during the ensuing argument that she punched the side of her car and broke her hand.  She was convinced that I had cheated on her when we were dating – I hadn’t, but that jealous-streak was the main reason she was my ex-girlfriend.  She is fondly referred to now as Broken Hand Girl.

Consider yourself betagged if you liked reading these at all!

I did some things on Sunday, too.  But I'll tell you one thing I didn't do -- and that was change out of my pajamas.  Now, THAT'S relaxing.

With a lot of time on my hands this weekend, I decided on Saturday not to drive anywhere, but to explore a little of the canyon that is essentially in our back yard.

The Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve is a 7000 acre city park that runs east-west for about 7 miles between Interstates 5 and 15 in the northern part of San Diego.  The western edge bottoms out near the ridge at Torrey Pines and the eastern entrance is essentially down the hill from The Aerie.  The canyon is home to lots of wildlife – birds, deer, snakes, even mountain lions have been sighted there.  It’s a fairly popular place for trail running, hiking and mountain biking

Saturday was overcast and cool – perfect weather for a pale person like me to spend several hours out in the middle of the day – the downside is that it doesn’t make for very dramatic pictures.

The preserve has a couple of different terrains – there’s a stream that runs through it and so there’s lots of glades.  Away from the stream trees change to brush and grasses.  Mustard plants are in full bloom here right now, which added nice splotches of color to the landscape.

My goal was to make the waterfall which is about 2/3 of the way through the canyon and back.  I meandered on my way out, taking footpaths and horse trails and getting lost (without really getting too lost).  Apparently, my “bush skills” needed a little help, because I did end up doubling back over one area – oops.

It was really pleasant – I came across a number of hikers and riders along the stream, but there were places away from it where I’d go 10-20 minutes with the only sounds being the crunch of my soles on the trail, birdsongs and the wind in the grass.  I was glad I didn’t bring my iPod.  I made it to the waterfall in about 2 and a half hours and decided that I was tired enough not to “meander” back, making it back out of the canyon in a more-or-less direct route in about 90 minutes more.

In this last picture, our home is visible -- if you look at the hill in the distance, there are two horizontal rows of houses -- ours is on the top row, towards the right.  Saving the best (or worst depending on your opinion) I climbed the last half-mile up to our house (about a 13% grade).  Just about 4 hours and a little more 10 miles by my reckoning using this tool.

All in all, a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

So, the Beloved headed off today with a few of her gal pals from grad school for a getaway weekend to Sonoma and Napa for a little wine-food-spa fun.  Think the “Cashmere Mafia” with PhD’s in chemistry.

That has left me with an unusual conundrum… what do I do with 4 days on my own?  I lived for a good chunk of my adult life on my own, so I’m pretty comfortable being by myself, but this is a pretty large chunk of time by recent standards.

I’m thinking that there could be some vox-ing, some scrabulous, piano sessions, finishing that book I just can’t quite get done, perhaps an Arrested Development DVD marathon.  Hmmm…

Oh, and I suppose that I could do something healthy like go for a run or a hike…