Girly-Bits

So, our staycation has been fairly uneventful so far, but we do have bigger things to come.  Saturday was a haircut and shopping at North Park. Sunday, Les worked on the sliding barn doors for our living room, which are turning out awesome.  We were going to get Antique Crackle paint to give them them that vintage look, but the cedar looks so awesome that we may just wax them and call it a day.  Today, after more door work, we went to the Verandah Club for some exercise and then some intensive poolside sitting.  I’m reading When You Are Engufed In Flames. 

Then we went to our old favorite Oishii for Tuna Tataki and Oishii and Texas Rolls.  Texas Rolls have lots of jalapeno in them.  Yeehaw!

Tomorrow we’re going to have a repeat of the same.  Wednesday, we’re shopping in Waxahachie.  Thursday, more pool.  And Friday night we’ll be watching the fireworks over the Trinity River from Janet and David’s warehouse roof.  Can’t beat that with a stick, as my father says.

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Okay, the possibilities with this mosaic thing are endless.  Why ever post a single picture again!

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Learning to make mosaics.  Cool. 

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Staycation, had to get away!  I loved the Go-Gos in high school.  Okay, now you know how old I am.  So, next week, we are not taking an exotic trip to London or Paris. The above picture is from our first trip to Europe about 3 years ago.   No, ever trendy, we are jumping on the “staycation” band wagon.  Although we do have nice trips to Buenos Aires and Santa Fe planned this year, next week we are staying around the house but ACTING like we are on vacation.  We’re going to go the Verandah Club every morning for exercise and pool-sitting.  We’re going to go out to fancy restaurants that we’ve always wanted to try like Local and Shinsei.  We’re going to have our First Anniversary dinner at the tiny, and exceptional, York Street, named one of Gourmet’s top fifty restaurants in America.  We’ll take a day trip to Waxahachie for antiquing.  And hopefully, will manage to finish our sliding barn door project.
 

Of course, we did have a pretty exceptional time staying at this exquisite Chateau in the Loire Valley. 

Our friends Liz and Dave rented the whole dang thing out for their wedding.  So… next year, we are going back to France!

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The Izster has a touch of kennel cough. She scared the life out of me this morning. But sweet Kevin the Vet let us come over and bother him on a Sunday evening to give us some medicine. I love having a photographer for a husband, so that I can have dozens of photographs of my dog. Mr. Hall gave me an oil painting of Nick. Maybe we’ll do a sculpture of Iz?

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So, this is a good snapshot of what it’s like to go out to eat with us.  We went to Amuse last night, a quaint little place on the South Side.  As soon as food hits the table, all four of us whip cameras out and start taking pictures.  We had very good food at Amuse.  Les had Fish and Chips, Lisa had the Steak Frites, Howard had Chicken Cordon Bleu. 

I had the Grilled Vegetable Salad with a touch of delicious spicy hummus.

I can’t quite figure out what Amuse is supposed to be.  It has a fairly nice modern interior, but the menu is all over the board.  Is it a diner?  Is it a bistro?  Is it casual?  Is it fine dining?  Don’t know!  The food was good though.

For dessert, we went over to the Knox Henderson neighborhood to try Alo.  It’s a Mexican/Peruvian tapas place.  Very cool space with terrific attention to detail.  Unfortunately, the camera battery ran out, so no pix of the incredible interior.  It’s definitely a “see and be seen” type of place for the youngsters.  The desserts were kind of blah.  I stuck with some Lavazza coffee and Bailey’s.  But Alo has great ambience and good people watching.  We’re going to go back and try the dinner menu.

And then we got to come home to this little bugger.  The cutest kitty/donkey/ferret hybird ever born.  She’s so good in some ways.  She sleeps through the night.  She doesn’t mind being in her crate.   And she has the most adorable, ingratiating little mannerisms.  Unfortunately, her last owner trained her to use puppy pads.  So, she’s pretty convinced that you go to the bathroom INSIDE the house.  Sigh…. this could take a while.

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And this may be the worst picture in the world.  Hey, it was dark this morning!  But I come out of the bedroom to go to work, and there is Iz, all curled up on a pillow that is probably about 1/3 of the size of a normal bed pillow.  That is how small she is. 

But, get a load of those ears!  Could she be part donkey?  Elf?  Rabbit?

I think her original name is going to stick since Les and I are both calling her Izzy. 

Two poorly placed pees and one unauthorized poop so far.  So much for “She is housebroken.”   Good thing she’s so damn cute or Mr. Hall would have returned her to the Pathetic Puppy store.

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Well, the little one is home safe and sound.  It’s funny how she appears in pictures.  Sometimes she looks like a fox, and sometimes she looks like a deer.  She’s actually ten times cuter in person.  I’d guess she weighs about 5 or 6 pounds at six months old.  She wolfed down some dinner and then spent the rest of the evening teasing Finn.  She also looks like a cat sometimes when she’s running in circles around the coffee table, and banking off the walls.  She even jumped on Finn’s back at one point to pogo onto the couch. 

I hope we are ready for this!

We also can’t decide on her name.  We’ve been calling her Izzy, since Isabell was the name that she’s had.  But she doesn’t seem to recognize it, so we thought we might go with something else.  But what….  Hamish doesn’t seem so appropriate now.  We’ve thought of Duff or Duffy… or maybe Lily.  She’s a new breed that we’ve christened the Tijuana Terrier… half Yorkie and Half Chihuahua, but Mexican inspired names don’t seem to work either.  I can’t see myself calling “Taco… here Taco”.

I guess we’ll just sleep on it.  Welcome home…. Polly?  Peggy?  Tibi?  Maggie? 

And yes, her ears are really that big.

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This little gal is pretty cute, huh?  We just filled out an application to adopt her.  She’s a Yorkie/Chihuahua mix.  The only problem I see is that we wanted to name our next dog Hamish. 
I guess we’ll have to look up Scottish girl’s names.

Update: She is coming over Tuesday night. And if we pass muster with her owner, she’ll be staying. It seems like she is very loved, but they really can’t take care of her like they want to. That must be so sad. Her owner said that she likes to sleep curled up on the pillow next to your head! Oh, lord… I am a goner.

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I just took my second vacation day of the year and it’s June.  Yikes.  Oh well, it’s going to get better.  I’m taking a week in July for a staycation and some home improvement projects.  September will have a week in Buenos Aires, and Christmas will see us back in Santa Fe.  But today was pretty good as Fridays go.  Lunch with my sweet husband at Kavala:

He had a lamb burger and I had a smoked turkey pita. 

Then a trip to Hawaiian Tropical Plants on Beckley.  We got some hibiscus and a lotus plant for our “water feature”.  But the best finds were these foxtail ferns.

They have these incredible fronds. Very architectural.  And red berries in the fall.  They are actually asparagus, not ferns.  Anyway, if you’re anywhere near Dallas, visit Hawaiian Tropical Plants!

After the plant adventure, we had dinner with Howard and Lisa at East Wind.  Mmmmmm….. I had Grilled Chicken Lemongrass Summer Rolls and Green Papaya Salad.  I also had the Kim Crawford Unoaked Chardonnay.  I haven’t tried a Kim Crawford wine that wasn’t great yet.   I’ve been reading about unoaked chardonnay, but hadn’t tried one.  It’s definitely to my taste  We eat a lot of spicy food, and a lighter, sweeter white wine works for me.

We walked around the Quadrangle to Theater Three after dinner, and I took the photo at the top of the post there.  I messed around with some sepia tones because I’m just artsy like that.  Then we went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream.  Did you know that a kid’s scoop of York Peppermint Patty has 223 calories?  See, that’s what the internet will do for you.  Ruin a perfectly good thing with too much information.

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