Ruminating Slav

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

So BK's been out of town a lot this month. Baxter was very excited to have him back this weekend.



What has the Slav been up to, you ask? Well! I hope you're sitting down. After I read Harry Potter #7 I was so sad and woeful about the series being over that I went back and read all seven books in a row. After that I was all excited about reading so I read all 13 Stephanie Plum mysteries. I figured this Janet Evanovich couldn't be all bad if she was publicly admitting to reading Buffy Season 8. Now I'm itching to sink my teeth into another thoughtless yet not completely crap mystery series. Suggestions?

Last night BK tried to take me out to eat for my birthday, but seeing as he hadn't actually made any reservations the waiter at Bijoux laughed at us when we strolled in and asked for a table. We ended up at Rouge, which served surprisingly good tapas. I also limited myself to two sangrias, which, as anyone who's ever been around me when I've consumed too much sangria can vouch for, is a very good thing. Then we saw Superbad, which was good fun. I enjoyed all 186 uses of the word "fuck."

This week marks my last week of employment before my shit-canning goes into effect. I guess that's a little bit of boo and yay combined. I've had a laid-off version of senioritis since I heard the news, so it'll be nice to not have to do work seasoned with resentment any more. But then, no more paycheck, however meager. This week we're also tagging along with BK on a business trip to NYC, which should be nice for a change of pace. It might even be cool enough to go outside, something we haven't experienced in the post-8 am hours for months here in Texas. Central Park, here we come!

Now I wish we'd eaten there and had some oysters

Last night BK and I had a Hott Date -- first we ate some sushi in the presence of Dallas' beautiful people (none of whom have anything as pedestrian as a baby, I'm sure) and concluded that the beautiful people like it way too loud in their restaurants. On the way to the movie theatre we realized neither of us was particularly excited to see Clerks II (although Kevin Smith ripping Joel Siegal a new one on his MySpace page is pretty funny) so we ended up at The Oceanaire for drinks and dessert. The dessert was monstrous -- a couple of those bad boys would fix Lebanon's current humanitarian crisis right up. Well, just the food shortage aspect. It was big, but not big enough to provide shelter from Iraqi bombs.

Right!

Anyway. When we first got to the restaurant we ran into some coworkers of BK's, one of whom was all palsy with the bartender and gave him strict instructions to treat us right. Next thing we know we've got two glasses of champagne sitting in front of us, and when that's all gone we order more cause, you know, champagne. It's good like that. Thank god treating us right consisted of comping those first two glasses, though, cause we done drank $80 worth of champagne, people. Sweet fancy moses! It wasn't even the good stuff.

Anyone who has three grand burning a hole in their pocket, feel free to buy me this.

All bow before BK, god of cookery

Just in case you weren't 100% sure that I married the most amazing man, like, ever, here are the eggrolls he whipped up today for lunch. From scratch. Really! God almighty, were they ever good. Pork-filled delights!

eggrolls on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Blogged with Flock

Poop of the non-baby variety

So! Here's some things. Last night BK and I went on our first date since Baxter was born. I know, right? Shameful. Everything was hunky-dork* until we set off for the restaurant and realized that all of the exits off the highway were closed because the service road was a lake for miles on accounta the 40 days and 40 nights-style rain Dallas experienced this weekend. Because having a baby has mellowed me out considerably, according to BK anyway, I responded to this change in plans with a "meh," as opposed to my usual barrage of cursing, huffing, and moaning. I remembered reading something good many, many moons ago about a Cuban restaurant in Dallas, so I called my friend C. to telegoogle (thanks, C!) and we soon found ourselves at the Samba Room which surprised the hell outta me by being really frickin' good despite both barbacoa and sushi being on the menu (WTF?). Mojitos? Good! Ceviche? Good! Sea bass? Good! Blue crab California roll? Good! Really! Oh, and wee little key lime pie in a shot glass? Also good. We then went to see V for Vendetta which I was resigned to simply providing company for, but turned out to be also good! We rolled on in after midnight, so I guess that should do me another 6 months until the next time the in-laws come visitin'.

Speaking of the in-laws, I have never met people who poop more often in my life. My mother-in-law, in particular, poops three to five times a day. This results in many poop-themed anecdotes from the weekend, like that time I was in our bedroom and my mother-in-law didn't know it so she closed the bathroom door that leads to the hall but not the one that opens to the bedroom and proceeded to have violent diarrhea 10 feet away from me OR the time BK and I were in the nursery changing Baxter's diaper and were conversing very loudly about why does it smell like shit in here when his diaper wasn't poopy and is it coming from over here, no, is it coming from over there, no, oh it's coming from the bathroom and then cue long, uncomfortable silence. But seriously, people. Constant pooping.

My smiley little baby has been a McCrankster Supreme the past couple of weeks, which has the effect of slowly beating me down over the course of the day so that when precious, precious free time rolls around the last thing I want to do is try to assemble a coherent blog post and instead slump in the armchair watching multiple Buffy episodes back-to-back with a thin rivulet of drool trickling from the corner of my mouth. C. and K., Baxter thanks you for his Longhorn gear which he looks quite smashing in.

* This was some sort of freudian typo that made me softly cackle when I previewed so I left it.

Warm, because Karo does not enjoy the chilled soups

I hope all Slav readers had a good weekend, be it of the two- or three-day variety. Mine was gloriously lazy -- Saturday night we had a coworker of BK's over for dinner along with his girlfriend, and I will say without a bit of shame that I did not lift a pinkie to help with dinner preparations. Before you delete your Slav RSS feed in disgust, let me defend myself: I did clean the house before the dinner and clean up after the dinner. I just did not cook the dinner, which, by the way, was fabulous 'cause my man, he can COOK. There was vichyssoise, and monkfish (which BK tells me is sometimes referred to as "poor man's lobster," but apparently only if you catch it yourself and not buy 2 lbs. of it for $24 at Central Market), and TARTLETS (also CM). Lord do I ever love me a key lime tartlet. We're having one of my co-workers and her husband over in a couple of weekends (can you tell we're trying to be all non-baby and shit in these last few non-baby weeks?), and now I feel like the gauntlet has been thrown. Plus, my coworker is a vegetarian, so my menu choices are more limited. Goddamn vegetarians.

I'm not going to address the tragedy our country has found itself in the midst of in the past week here. What can I say that others haven't said better? Suffice it to say that I hope everyone who, like me, has been lucky enough to not have lost anyone, has taken a moment in recent days to hold tight their loved ones, both two- and four-legged.

Good eats at the Anatole

Mad props to Nana, which last night served us some of the best food I've had in a while. BK started out with the Peeky Toe Crab Salad with Couscous, Apricot-Vanilla Coulis and Basil, while I went with the Imported Buffalo Milk Mozzarella, Currant Tomatoes, Micro-Basil & Balsamic "Mosto" (and can I just say those were some tiny fucking tomatoes?). For entrees we both went with the Grilled Prime Filet of Beef, "Robuchon's" Potato Puree, Glazed Carrots and a Foamy Truffle Oil Aioli. Sweet fancy moses, it was good. The beef was like buttah -- the steak knife came in more useful in cutting the carrots than the beef. Finally, we both topped the night off with the Chocolate, Coffee, and Hazelnuts dessert, which was moussey and ice-creamy and overall so very yum.

The waiter kept referring to me as "my lady," which kept me constantly on the verge of the giggles and made is very difficult to order. Oh, and when the check came, someone had already filled out the gratuity line with a 20% tip. I find this highly suspect and in very poor taste. Two minor quibbles in an otherwise exceptional meal, so thumbs up for Nana.

I'm two-toed, how about you?

Such a weekend of sloth you never did see as what went on in the Slav household for the past couple of days. We made it out of the house Friday night and saw In Good Company at the Studio Movie Grill. Nothing says good times like a middlin' movie accompanied by cheese fries and Shiner. Mmmm-mmm!

Saturday night we went to the Improv and saw a very spastic gentleman named Pablo Francisco. Please enjoy the following quote from the Improv web site:

Pablo brings forth strikingly authentic off-the-wall sound effects and brilliant impressions. He takes the stage with the confidence to improvise and has a talent that is undeniable.

Fuck yeah!

I also managed to churn through about 6 Alias episodes (almost done with season one!), and we watched The Forgotten (which gets an official Slav rating of "meh").

Sunday started off on a high note, featuring some dee-lighful waffles made by yours truly. We decided to go with the Joy of Cooking recipe this time around, as opposed to the Fannie Farmer version BK has been sticking with since we got the waffle iron (we rock the Hamilton Beach Flip 'n Fluff). Eggs were separated! Whites were beaten into stiff peaks!

The day pretty much went downhill from there. I plopped my ass down and watched the extended version of Return of the King, while BK escaped from the booming surround-sound Nazgul screeches and read comic books in the study. Soon the weekend was over, and all that was left was peering at Buster's last-walk-of-the-day poo to make sure that his intestines weren't being shredded to bits by the sharp, hard pieces of plastic that he gnawed off a contraband spatula Friday afternoon.

Wheeee!