These Relaxing Weekends are Going to Kill Me Yet

You may have noticed that today's post is going up much later than usual. This is because I have been enjoying a particularly relaxing weekend.

Yesterday morning, Agnes and I went down to visit our daughter and her family. Our granddaughter Leya is in a princess-and-fairies phase, and likes to dress up in the fancy costumes and dance at Grand Balls held in the downstairs rec room. Princess Leya's usual escort at such events is Prince Opa ...


She has a toy microphone which plays "London Bridge Is Falling Down," "Old MacDonald's Farm," "Frere Jacques," and a bunch of other tunes ... the usual sequence of events is for Agnes to do the announcement ("Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Princess Leya and Prince Opa!"), followed by the appropriate music and energetic "dancing." Leya is very particular about how we execute the dances, particularly how high we skip when dancing to tunes like "Skip to My Lou, My Darling." My legs hurt.

We also helped with the logistics of getting Leya and Elise to a birthday party yesterday morning. The party was held at a park in Vienna (Virginia, not Austria), and was noteworthy for the ability of the children to play happily in temperatures that caused the surrounding chain link fence to melt. There were several bottles of water available to spray on the children to help keep them cool...Leya decided these were at least as much fun as anything else, and spent much time spraying us from a distance of about an inch and a half.

You may recall that yesterday afternoon was the grilling class that Agnes had given me as a Fathers' Day present. Despite having been run ragged by Leya all morning, I managed to pull myself together for the class, which was interesting and fun. We grilled pork chops and made cherry chutney to go with them; Jamaican jerk chicken with pineapple and mango salsa; sliders with bacon and Roquefort cheese; lamb chops. All were excellent, and we are going to do the pork chops and cherry chutney for dinner this evening. At the end of the class, each student received a package of two boneless pork chops and a coupon for a 10% discount at the Sur la Table store good for the following week. Of course, we bought stuff.

After the class, Agnes and I enjoyed dinner at the Lebanese Taverna at Pentagon Row. We started with a cucumber, yogurt and mint salad served with fresh, hot bread, then Agnes had Grilled Salmon with couscous and grilled vegetables, while I ordered the Lamb and Beef Shawarma with rice and spicy vegetables. It was wonderful. You should try it. We'll be back.

Today, we went back down to visit the local grandchildren again. We attended the Grand Ball again, and had a pleasant, if exhausting morning at play. I even had a chance to take a break from the Grand Ball to visit with Elise, who still thinks her Opa is a pretty cool guy ...


This afternoon, it was shopping for dinner ingredients, doing laundry, and doing some major rearranging of my desk so that I can actually have some space to work. We'll see how long it lasts. Maybe I'll post a picture if it works out.

And now, it's time to fix that cherry chutney and grill those pork chops. After, of course, fixing that nice gin and tonic to lubricate the chef with.

These things have to be done right, don't you know?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo