There should be a 3 day weekend every month. This lazy Sunday afternoon Sandy surprised me with a linguine & clam dish for lunch.
Lazy Sunday
Nierva’s 2011
We rescheduled numerous times but finally got together with the Nierva’s at Angel Fish here in Alameda. The girls were adorable.
Cookie
Sandy bought a chocolate chip cookie mix a while back and it’s been taunting me… so I made it.
Passing Duck
Our own Aflac duck, Ben, has been looking pretty dirty lately and yesterday, he had some nasty green crap. Tired of cleaning up after him, I chased him out of the backyard. I noticed he stumbled quite a bit. He just sat outside our fence all day and I mentioned to Sandy this didn’t look good. I came out this morning and he was lying on some Pampas Grass, he passed away during the night. Yes he was ugly, needy & messy but I was saddened to see him lifeless. I used to feed him everyday right outta the bottle. I always got a kick out of that.
iPad Cam
Okay I’ve been trying to use my iPad camera and while I understand why they are so popular I absolutely cannot stand the image quality. It may not be apparent from these thumbnails but it is horrible in low light and the dynamic range even in good light is substandard. Of course what should I expect from a <1MP camera. Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoying having iphone pix sent to me. I just want a better camera in my iPad.
Portrait Night
We finally got to visit Tami & Chris. I really wanted to shoot Noah, but for whatever reason my shutter speed kept reverting and thus I got a lot of motion blur. Unfortunately my eyes are so bad now I couldn’t see the extent of til I got home. I’ll have plenty of other opportunities with Noah in the years to come.
Los Angeles weekend
We had a busy weekend down in LA. Along with visiting with my Ma, we managed to get together with Barry who was in town for a convention. I haven’t seen him in 16 years.
The Original Pancake House on Pacific Coast Highway was a great find. I love the Apple Pancake. We also revisited my new favorite Ramen place.
On the way back we stopped in on our newly transplanted niece, Tawny. We checked out the Brazilian fare in her neighborhood.
To further gorge ourselves, we stopped by Harris Ranch for a steak dinner. The iPad pix were horrible (more on that later). So you’ll have to use your imagination.
Burd Activity
Just as we were about to leave for LA there was a flurry of burd activity. We spent so much time observing them it delayed our departure. We were happy to see a brood of new ducklings, 10 of them to be exact.
Ugly Duck
Ben will never win any beauty contests.
Mutha’s Day 2011
This year to celebrate Mutha’s Day, we procured a whole roasted piggy. To serve alongside that, we had grilled golden pompano, steamed mussels, green mango salad with shrimp, Hawaiian mac salad, garlic bokchoy. For apps, Jen brought SPAM musubi & tuna poke. Cait made a lovely plate of homemade hummus & pita breads. For desert, we served grilled pineapple, croissant bread pudding with a Jack Daniels sauce & macapuno ice cream.
Today’s lunch coincided with a Jon concert in Santa Rosa. So Aunty Karen & Aunty Sachi were in Santa Rosa. As if that would be better than lunch over here. Meanwhile Tami gave birth while in LA and could not travel. Then Rick got sick because Jen made him do yardwork all day yesterday. So we were a small crowd. All the more attention we can give to Aunty Janet & Aunty Amy.
We’re both so tired but it was all worth it.
We’ll be eating pork soup, pork salad, pork sandwiches & pork pudding for the next 2 weeks.
