We had a very busy weekend. I suppose there are folks who go out three days in a row and just think of it as ‘the weekend’ but Jay and I aren’t like that. He might be, I’m not.
We had a blast; Friday night we went to our favorite place and had dinner with some of our favorite people. J.D. Hoyt’s is the place in Minneapolis. The food is fantastic, the service unbeatable and its so low key and great that on any given night you’ll find local celebrities and sports personalities galore. They like it there because they know no one will bother them.
I like it because the proprietor always refers to me as “The Great Mary Louise”, which is pretty much how I always figured I’d be known.
We met the Lovely Mr. Curry, his equally (actually, even more) lovely bride and another dear old friend for dinner.
I had the crab cakes which are so good that just typing the words ‘crab cakes’ made my mouth water. Jay had the prime rib and we split a wedge salad. The company was even better than the food.
Saturday was a gorgeous spring day; warm but a brutal wind. I tried to walk around the lake with my sister but the wind pinned us down on the west side. Jay and I had a birthday party to attend in the evening.
Jay’s group of friends dates back a half a century. I don’t think there are very many groups of high school friends who stay as close through adult life as his bunch has. Anna, whose 60th birthday party was Saturday night, has been a friend of Jay’s since kindergarten in 1960. That’s a long friendship. The best thing about friends like that is that you can go years without getting together but when you do, it’s like the time in between visits doesn’t exist. Part of that is that its hard to put on airs when you’re with folks who remember when you couldn’t tie your own shoes. They know exactly how deep your idiocy runs and they like you anyway!
Sunday morning, we had the UST basketball banquet to attend over on campus. That was a delightful affair! I got to say ‘hi’ to a fellow I’ve known since we were learning to hold our breath in the MGC baby pool. Mike’s son is a freshman who played for UST’s JV team this year. I haven’t laid eyes on Mike in over a decade but I could have picked him out of any crowd on earth; he hasn’t changed.
So I had to paint at night to keep up. Not late at night, but later than I usually do.
Last night I was still working on a couple of canvases while Jay was busy making dinner. I had suggested burgers but instead he stuffed some green peppers and cooked them on the grill. They smelled so good that Zack decided to join us for dinner instead of ordering pizza. They were done right about the time The Voice began so I came down to eat. They tasted even better than they smelled.
He had mixed baby bella mushrooms with mild Italian sausage, onion and green olives, stuffed the peppers with it and cooked them slowly on the grill. We had a baguette to go with them. Hoo boy they were delicious.
I continued painting through the Voice; I ran upstairs during commercials and back down when the contestants were ready to sing. It’s the closest I get to exercise on days like this.
My favorites on the show this season are India and Sawyer but I didn’t bother to come down for Sawyer’s performance. He was doing the most over rated song of the Rock Era; Imagine. I never liked that song because it’s boring as hell but over the last 20 years or so I’ve really come to loathe it.
Quite frankly, the Utopia described by the lyrics sounds a lot like the world the Soviet Union was pushing for.
“Nothing to kill or die for” Mr. Lennon? As long as there remain three humans on earth, we’ll always find something to kill or die for. That’s why God gave Moses the tenth commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.
“No Hell below us, above us only sky.” In other words; I’ll forego Heaven, just don’t punish me for being lousy. Great philosophy if you’re planning on living like a creep. I think John Lennon and every sap who ever covered that boring dirge would be stunned to discover just how Perdition-like the world those lyrics describes would actually be.
Anyway, I didn’t need to hear it again.
Ever.
So I skipped Sawyer.
While I was upstairs working, Jay was out in the last light of day doing a bit of yard clean up. (Yes, he cooks and he cleans!) He can’t wait to get all the deck furniture out and fill our flower pots with blooms. If it hadn’t been so darned windy yesterday, he might have gotten out our big umbrellas.
When I came finally finished work and came down, he had picked a bunch of daffodils from our back yard and put them in water for me.
Life is grand, love is real and beauty is everywhere. Now, that’s a song lyric I can support.