Sunday, December 1, 2002

one idea of outside decoration...you can't see the rustic star of David on the house

"Time is very dangerous without a rigid routine. If you do the same thing every day at the same time for the same length of time, you'll save yourself from many a sink. Routine is a condition of survival."

Flannery O'Connor

I am fuzzy when I should be getting up for an 8AM call from SuRu about walkies.

I am up when she does call, but foggy. We wait a bit but are off around 8:30 to Bryker Woods. We see an enemy in a BMW and a friend, walking. I will later find out the friend is split with his partner, another friend, when she stops by the house to return something. Life and its relationships. I'll never get it.

Home from walkies I dig in to tasks. Figure the November budget, print a Christmas card list. Print the card. My up to now trusty Epson Stylus Photo EX is looking a little shaky on parts of the printout. I get the idea to move a printer (mostly unused) from the Mac to a Windows machine. Doing this, installing software and running nozzle cleaning to unplug the ink cartridges consumes a bunch of time. I print a number of the cards and set up the dining table with labels, return address stamp, red pens for writing personal notes and stacks of the cards (well, letters really). Add stamps and a bit of work and we will have our Christmas (more properly holiday) communication done.

Then it's time to get ready for a Knights of the Vine wine dinner. We agree to go an hour into the event, past the cocktail hour, and miss the hour of standing around with champagne.

The food at the dinner is delicious and the wines are great. The glassware used for the wine could be better. I feel like I've had a little too much rich food and wine when I get home. Even though...I only sipped each wine and left a phalanx of wine glasses with generous portions at my place. The food was too good to leave much on the plate. We started with grilled sea scallops, truffled whipped potatoes and leek purée. The portion was small at least, but rich. Next we had that classic, I call it Insalta Caprese, but they described it as 'hot house vine tomatoes and Dallas mozzarella with Smoked Portobello Relish.' The relish was different and also the presentation with the cheese and tomato cut out cookie cutter precise.

The entreé was wonderful and very, very rich. Pan seared veal medallion with bordelaise sauce accompanied by red beet and celeriac risotto and a sweetbread with mushroom ragout in pastry crust and petit peas.

Dessert was a crème brûlée accompanied by some 1994 Fall Creek late harvest riesling that was delicious. By then I was falling over, however.

Home, sleep!

JUST TYPING
In one day.
See a couple.
Apart.
And discover.
They are.