Dallas Daze

Morning Sun

It's 7:30 and I am enjoying a coffee with Beth and Rami on a sunny morning here in Highland Park.  It's a pleasant 52º and will get up to the low 60's later in the day, unusual for this time of year. Rami's back from Atlanta and will be in the office today. I just returned from a twenty-minute walk around the neighborhood with Kaia.  I usually take her out three times a day and I enjoy looking at all the interesting homes, each one different from the other.  The neighborhood is always busy with workers, mostly Hispanic, either renovating, building new homes, or gardening.  

How Much Is That Doggie In The Window

Yesterday was a typical first day in Dallas in some ways, in others it was not.  We were not sure what to do but decided to get Evie her Cosco fix and since we were there, I thought I would check out new tires for the Subaru.  So we ended up there at 11:15 and they had a deal (always a deal) on tires so I left my car and Evie had the luxury of shopping in Cosco without me begging her to leave.  Of course, the tires took longer than we thought, so we ended up eating hotdogs and pizza, sitting outside the store, waiting for them to finish up.  At least Evie and Beth got to browse to their heart's content.

We did not get back until after 1:00.  While we were gone,  Marisa was taking classes online and Mitchell had a Zoom call class with his structural engineering class.  I was exhausted from shopping so I went upstairs and took a good hour nap, catching up I suppose on our three days of driving. Evie and Beth spent much of the afternoon Kondoizing Beth's pantry as they like us want to get rid of stuff that they don't need.  Once they were finished, I could hardly lug the trash bag out to the garage. 

Buddies

We were having three two-inch steaks for dinner so Mitchell and I were in charge of grilling them.  It was complicated getting the charcoal going because Rami has an Egg smoker and grill and I had never started charcoal before with an electric wand that starts the charcoal.  Once we figured out how to use it, we opened the vents of the egg and the coals took off.  If you are not careful, the grill can get up to 900º.  We did not want to burn the steaks, so we placed a ceramic disk over half of the grill and cooked the steaks there until almost done, then seared them.  We let them sit, then I sliced all three into half-inch slices and we had a feast, with steak, asparagus,  mushrooms, plantains, and french fries made in Beth's air fryer. We had enough steak leftover for another dinner.  

We weren't done eating until 8:00 and Beth and Evie did up the dishes and then all of us relaxed in the living room and watched the first episode of The Great Pottery Throw Down on Apple TV+.  It's similar to The Great English Baking Show in format.  It was really fun to watch especially since Mitchell used to throw pots back when they lived in Connecticut and was so good at it that he ended up teaching young kids how to throw pots,.  Just before we started, Mitchell's girlfriend, Milena, came over, exhausted from her 12-hour shift as a nurse.  We enjoyed apple pie with ice cream midway through the episode and ended the night when one of the potters was sent home. We all agreed with the decision. Most of us went to bed leaving Mitch and Milena to watch TV.