And Tyler, Too, For The Weekend

Tyler, Our Twenty Three Year Old Grandson

A Fine Looking Group

Hello, darkness my good friend popped into my head as I sat here in Dallas on a dark morning at 7:10, not even a glimpse of light yet.  It's 43º and clear, with a high in the '60s, perfect weather for St. Patrick's Day although most of the parades were yesterday in various parts of the city. And the house keeps filling up as Tyler flew in yesterday from Boston, joining his brother Mitchell who drove home Friday night.

Saturday was a sunny but cool day here in Dallas.  I was up early, of course, waiting for everyone else to get up.  Beth and Evie were up by 8:00, and we had our coffee together before I took Cody for a walk and Beth and I got ready for yoga.  We left at 9:00 and passed lots of St. Patrick's Day revelers, walking in their green tee shirts and silly hats or gathering for a march later in the morning.  It was another gentle yoga class with a new teacher, a professional dancer, who was quite good, meaning he was thorough and thoughtful in the way he organized our asanas.  Both of us liked the class, felt energized after it. We stopped for coffee before heading home. When we returned home Mitchell was up and Tyler was being picked up at the airport by his father.

Mitch and I had lunch, the leftover pad thai, just as good as the night before and we then waited for Tyler to get home.  As usual, he came in giving everyone hugs, with a bag full of dirty clothes to wash at home saving quarters at the laundry.  We got him settled and he was already wanting to do something instead of just sitting around the house watching basketball.  We waited for Beth to get home from shopping and finally decided on driving into Dallas's thriving bar/restaurant/music area called Deep Ellum, only six miles away but it took us a good half hour to get there because of traffic.

Sunshine In Deep Ellum

The main streets were packed with people and cars so that we had difficulty finding a parking space.  The six of us then spent the next hour walking along the busy streets, filled with a diverse crowd of revelers, many in green shirts, wearing beads.  We stopped in a couple of shops, then walked through the outdoor flea market which was packed with mostly locals. Unlike University Park, Deep Ellum was diverse, many cultures, many social classes, all having a fun time.

Outside The Brain Dead Brewery

We finally found an outdoor table at the aptly named Braindead Brewery, a Tyler favorite.  It was actually hot in the sun not that we were complaining as we drank our microbrews and people watched. Lots of guys and gals were on rented electric scooters and cool bicycle taxis drove by, with six peddlers on each side of the taxi.

A Bike Taxi

We headed home around 5:00 because we had yet to start prepping for dinner. Beth was making a family favorite, vodka pasta along with a nice filet of salmon with butter sauce.

Cook And Helper

The pasta takes a good hour to cook down, the sauce I mean, so we sat around the kitchen island, sipping wine, helping prep and eating shrimp with cocktail sauce from Costco.  We finally sat down to eat around 7:00 and dinner was just what we wanted, perfectly cooked salmon and a luscious vodka sauce with pasta.  Both Tyler and I went back for seconds even though we were full.

1,2,3 Testing

Around 8:30, after we cleaned up the kitchen, all of us sat down to watch FREE SOLO, the film about the climbing of El Capitan in Yosemite which Evie and I had watched the previous week with Tom's family.  It was just as riveting and amazing the second time around and everyone one was glued to the TV, only occasionally checking their phones, a minor miracle and a tribute to how interesting the film was.  We ended the night watching some Saturday Night Live before going to bed, at least Beth, Evie and me, at 10:45, leaving the others to watch what they wanted.

Beto O' Rourke Country