RockTheDesert

NYC Saturday Night Update...

OK, so it's 10:25. I've just returned from an exciting little excursion. I decided to go walk around at the Grand Central Market. But on the way downstairs, I decided to throw caution to the wind and be impulsive and adventurous...I turned left then left again and started power walking down Lexington Avenue. I walked confidently with purpose. I dug deep inside and mustered up the New Yorker in me. It was really cold but not raining. I had my bling hoody on, jeans, purple crocs, I felt pretty in step with the people around me. I had a lot of company. Lots of couples, groups of friends, Asian tourists, 1 yelling crazy man who stopped occasionally to curse and dig thru trash cans. I tried to breathe in the city. I kept looking up. NYC is all about the vertical. Tower after tower. Pretty soon I passed the Waldorf Astoria. Beautiful and majestic. I turned right on a street. Turned left again. I think I was on 3rd Avenue by this time. Maybe. I walked past Bloomingdales. I decided I wanted to find a little Italian place to eat at. I stopped and read the menu at one. Didn't sound too bad, but there were no customers. That could be a problem. So I kept walking. Turned down another street, maybe 59th or 60th. Came upon a neon sign that said "Patsy's Coal-Fired Pizzas." This was definitely the place I was looking for. There's a really great place in Scottsdale called "Patsy Grimaldi's." They have coal-fired pizzas which are fantastic. I was sure this place would be similar in taste. I wasn't disappointed. I ordered a calzone loaded with incredibly creamy ricotta, really fresh mozzarella, and spicy pepperoni. They topped it with fresh basil and gave me a gravy boat filled with delicious marinara for dipping. It was a very vibey little place. Super-loud in a boisterously friendly way. I decided to order a cannoli to save for breakfast. I hope it's still fresh in the morning. I set it by the window which is a pretty cold spot in the room. In fact, Daphne has had a piece of cheesecake cooling on the windowsill since Thursday nite. She and Marianne are convinced that it will be good as new for at least a few more days. I also brought half of my calzone back...if Daphne's window cooling system works out for me, I could have that for breakfast on Monday!

Waldorf

Patsy's Pizzeria

Patsy's Delivers!

Inviting entrance. Once inside, there's a fireplace in the waiting area

My receipt - not exactly a budget-friendly place - actually, the prices were pretty much Scottsdale prices. $16.50 for the calzone. $2.75 for the Coca Cola. $7 for the cannoli.

Happy 2nd Anniversary to AJ

"AJ" is Dan's nickname for Alyssa & Joshua. We celebrated their 2nd Wedding Anniversary tonight with a delectable dinner at Carraba's! Dinner was really delicious - the salads were fresh and crisp and cold with giant homemade croutons and crunchy veggies and wonderful dressing. Dan & Joshua ordered wood-fired pizzas. Both were really good. Alyssa ordered the trout - Joshua couldn't keep his fork away from Alyssa's plate! Steven had chicken parmesan with garlic mashed potatoes. I had chicken with goat cheese, sundried tomatoes and goat cheese along with cavatelli matriciana - super good! We splurged and ordered three desserts - mine was the prettiest!

I kept trying to get a picture of AJ with real smiles, looking at the camera. No such luck.

The Picture Says It All

Michael was the cow at Chick-fil-a last night. He loves being the cow. He gets to hug the kids and when they ask him to dance he does the chicken dance. He usually makes a couple of appearances during the family night time. His last appearance includes wearing a nightshirt and nightcap which means he's going to bed right after he says hi to the kids. You can see the nightcap is still perched on his head.

Big Weekend

We had a big weekend. My parents, along with Sandi & Di came out to visit. They stayed at the Residence Inn not too far from our house. We did a lot of eating. Of course. And a lot of shopping. Of course. But it was a really good visit. Here's a picture of us all at Chino Bandino's in Phoenix. Di is taking the picture. Dan and Steven decided to have lunch on their own at a sports bar so they could watch the football games.

On Friday night, while the family was enjoying pizza at Patsy Grimaldi's in Scottsdale (see pic to the left of Alyssa & Joshua outside the restaurant in front of the fountain) Dan and I were being treated to a sumptuous dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House. Luckily, I had found a sparkly, long-sleeved brown shirt at Nordstrom earlier in the day, along with a pumpkin-colored tank which went perfectly with my favorite jeans and the 2-inch wedge sandals Donni gave me for my birthday. I somehow found time for makeup and my hair was surprisingly under control. We met Sharon & Scott at the restaurant. The meal was spectacular. I had the perfect caesar salad and a ribeye seared at 1800 degrees until perfectly medium well, served sizzling hot on a 500 degree plate, topped with butter. Yumm...we shared garlic mashed potatoes, and asparagus with hollandaise sauce. And then, we had to top it all off with white chocolate banana cream pie, topped with caramelized banana slices. We drank coffee and talked for hours. Fortunately we had a gift card which paid for 1/2 of the meal. Meeting Scott for the first time was a real treat. Dan and I really enjoyed meeting him and it seemed as if we had known each other for a long time. The conversation never had awkward pauses and I don't think we ever talked about the weather or the local sports teams (standard filler topics). We look forward to many more good times together.

Country Line Dancing

Here we are, learning our moves...just kidding, I found this pic on the internet.

The final night of dance lessons at FNC was tonight. Country line dancing. Yeehaw. I went alone, hoping that it would be cancelled for lack of interest. Wrong. It was probably the best attended dance night. Probably 40 people came to learn the finer points of cowboy dancing. My partner was Lyddie - she's usually the one watching the kids in the nursery. Well, there were no babies tonight. So we learned how to do some fancy two-step steps, including a single and a double twirl. First I was the girl and she was the boy. She got to twirl me around 'til I was too dizzy to walk (about 3 times). So then I was the boy and she was the girl. She never got dizzy. I twirled her 2 times in a row, over and over again. Step...Step...quick step - quick step - Step...Step...twirl, twirl, are you getting dizzy yet? Finally someone "cut in" and stole (rescued) Lyddie away from me. It actually was pretty fun and a good workout!

I found this picture on Google - it's called a "country line dancing" quilt. It is a lot more beautiful than our dancing was.

I left early, thinking I would stop and visit with Joshua & Alyssa. But I called to talk to Pam and she invited me to join her and her sister and daughter for dinner at Friday's. So off I went. I had the Jack Daniels Beef Brisket. It was really good. Smokey & spicy. Whipped spicy potatoes. Spicy corn on the cob. Yum. I ate half and half is waiting in the fridge for my lunch tomorrow.

Dan and the boys return home tomorrow evening. They will reek of campfires and stale sweat. But we'll hang out and probably watch a few episodes of Coach together (DVD - Season 2). Our pace is starting to ramp up - 2 more weeks then school starts and football and mission trips and we'll be off and running until Christmas.

10am

I slept 'til 10am today. The house was totally silent. My bedroom was the perfect temperature. Just cool enough to be covered up with a sheet. I had the whole bed to myself. The phone didn't ring. No knocks on the door. Nowhere to be at any certain time and nothing urgent to get done. So now it's 10:45pm and I'm wide awake. Could be the iced tea I had at dinner. Or it could be the luxurious amount of rest I had last night...

I had dinner with Joshua & Alyssa. We went to the Texaz Grill. It's on the corner of 16th Street & Bethany Home Rd. I've driven past it a million times and never had the urge to stop in. Their claim to fame is their chicken fried steak - they keep a running tally on their sign out front. 656,619 and counting. They've been in Phoenix for 20 some years. I'm pretty certain they fry everything in bacon grease. Lots of potential heart attack victims walked thru the doors while we were there. I had the chicken fried chicken. Gravy. Steak fries. Cole slaw. Alyssa and Joshua had steak. We shared peach cobbler. It was good, not great. I must say that the best peach cobbler right now is at Coco's. Actually, my mom makes a fantastic peach dessert called Peach Kuchen. She has been making it for at least 20 years. You can use canned or fresh peaches. It is always delectable.

Friday

We picked Ashley up from the hospital. She has been at Mayo for 10 days for some testing. Nothing was conclusive. She has a new anti-seizure drug to try. She is staying with us until July 4. Then she'll head back to Orange County. We brought Ashley home where she proceeded to take a shower and wash her hair. Sounds easy, right? Well, they glued the electrodes to her head with this impossible to remove glue. She washed her hair repeatedly and added tons of conditioner. The end result was a giant rat's nest on top of her head. The problem is that all the ends of her hair are stuck in the middle of the glob of hair and glue. She couldn't comb it out. I couldn't comb it out. So I stuck a baseball cap on her head and we headed out to dinner.

We met Joshua and Alyssa at Joshua's new favorite restaurant. OK. This is not a joke. There is a restaurant in Phoenix at 19th Avenue & Greenway. It's called "Chino Bandido Takee Outee. This place has REALLY good food. It's a mixture of Chinese and Mexican. We didn't know how to order. But that was no problem because they have a pre-ordering tasting counter. We sampled the Jade Red Chicken (my favorite), the Emerald Chicken (Dan's favorite), the Jerk Fried Rice, the black beans (fantastic), and the pork carnitas. Everything was really fresh and flavorful. Each entree was a little bit spicy - a really good spicy. Even Ashley, one of the pickiest eaters EVER, loved the food. Instead of a fortune cookie for dessert, they gave us fresh, homemade, fantastic snickerdoodles.

We headed to A & J's house to try to work on combing out the rat's nest again. This time we added a large amount of Goo Gone to Ashley's hair to try to dissolve the glue. It did nothing. We stuck the baseball cap back on her head and took her home. Today we are seriously considering taking her to Sharon's studio for a haircut. This means her hair will be SHORT on top. I'm not sure what else we can try.