Bloodhound in the Background

Once again we hosted MLK weekend Beachy Poker, with Kathryn, Salli, Jess & Tom as our gaming guests. From Friday evening, when Tom & Pep arrived to play some Rummy-O, eat dinner and drowse a bit over The Gates, until noon on Monday, when we at last let Salli and Kathryn up from the Mahjongg table, the fun was nonstop. Great food, great games, and great pix--almost all you see here from that weekend were taken by Tom, who has The Gift. In the background, the bloodhound renting Nancy & Sadie's place brayed.

learning the evil Spite & Malice

Tuesday was another Red Letter Day, during which we stayed home from morning bingo to watch the Innauguration live (a Tivoed version just didn't seem as if it would cut it). We loved it all, even the prayers! And while we were watching, Jo's Money, that mythic gift from the beyond, arrived! A little inheritance from S's Aunt Jo, which has been in the offing for nearly two years, and which has been spent six ways to Sunday long since, the cash was good for one more present to ourselves (about which more in a sec). Then we went to bingo, and both of us won a couple of little pots. And THEN we had supper at Fat Clemenza's Italian Ristorante, a definite do again! E's eggplant parmesan was delicious, and S's pasta marinara with sweet sausage put her slurp into overdrive. Then we came home and watched the balls, mainly the Hometown Inaugural Ball, dazzled, swept up. Can we credit Barack Obama for our beautiful day? Yes we can!




Coming down off Tuesday, Wednesday's Tai Chi class was absolutely brutal. On Thursday afternoon, Squeak took one look at the gear slung over our shoulders, and led the way to the beach, trotting down the smooth concrete border of the pavement (The Kitty Sidewalk) to the dune crossover and onto the sand.



Friday, S had a little medical procedure and both S & E met their new GP for the first time. Saturday concluded our week of Spite & Malice, the wonderful card game that Kathryn used to play with her mother and taught lucky us. Let the record show that E beat the crap out of S decisively. And just as we were finishing up, our thank-you-aunt-Jo present arrived, a Wii! When we tire of the Australian Open this coming week, we can play tennis ourselves in the living room!

Glen & Jo, thrifty and childless, thanks a mill!

Motivated!

But perhaps not sufficiently organized: where are those missing pieces?

Progress Report

Food Glorious Food

Our first holiday season as full-time beach bums began with a visit from Von, who rented a condo just up the road. We hung out on her balcony overlooking the Gulf on Christmas Eve while a fire alarm at the condo complex across the parking lot whooped it up. When we'd had enough of that, we tried a new resto, Bombay Masala in Fort Walton Beach. Yummy! A definite Do Again. Not every dish equalled the very best Indian food we've ever had, but there were some lovely flavors and a nice atmosphere. Christmas Day Von came to us for more plebeian fare, ham and yams and curried apples, and, ahem, a glass or two of gin. Sort of remarkable any food got to the table at all . . .

A crew of serious cooks appeared on our doorstep for New Year's. Sure, we did more than just hover over the stove and eat and drink and wash dishes for 10 days, but it's fair to say that a big chunk of every day was devoted to that evening's supper. There was beef stew, scampi, shepherd's pie, pork & pepper goulash, elaborate German dumplings, roasted chestnut soup, Deramus sausages, lasagna, and Moroccan chicken. Not to mention homemade ice-cream, homemade sorbet, homemade cookies. And when we weren't cooking ourselves, some of us attended a class on cooking!

Every angler needs a zinger

It wasn't for lack of trying that we didn't eat fish every day

Scampi--inspired by Ina that morning

It takes a village . . .

Bruno rocks!

Coulis R Us

Tough nuts!

Where did all the cookies GO?

Who's zoomin' who?

Just 30 more passes thru the machine and we can eat!

Hydration is key . . .

Chocolate pasta is not such a hot idea

Supper after everybody left . . .

Splendid weather was on tap during the entire visit, great for beach walks, running, fishing, and hanging around inside with the windows open. We played poker, read books (Frankie was 350 pages into Dombey & Son when we dropped her & Martin off at the airport for their return to London), watched Utah *cream* Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, and viewed a couple of Chris Rock specials, in one of which he was so young and tense that it was painful in a new way to watch him perform. E worked doggedly on the tricky jigsaw puzzle that F&M gave her for Christmas, S&E took Frankie to Bingo in FWB and dropped Martin off at the Okaloosa Island Fishing Pier where he was schooled on the ins & outs of catching the lively bonito, and several groups made runs to the outlet mall at various times with varying degrees of success.

Now we're on entertaining hiatus until Saturday, when some folks are planning to spend the long MLK weekend here playing poker and mahjongg. Yesterday we revved up the GPS system S got E for Christmas and followed it to the site where we hoped to find our very first geocache (tho our hopes were muted, for nobody has seen this particular cache since September of 2007). On the way to Eastern Lake, we finally stopped at FlipFlops and tried their burgers. Which were just fine, very meaty, but not only were the buns not toasted, they weren't even room temperature! We too were cold, standing around in the mist on the Eastern Lake overlook, no cache to be found. We did learn that coastal dune lakes like this one are rare worldwide, and in the US they only occur on the Gulf, so all was not lost.



Today S pitched in on the jigsaw puzzle: we're going to need that table next weekend for jongg!

HELP!!!!

Happy New Year!

Hope all y'all are kicking off your 2009 with all optimism and good cheer. Here's what we're up to:

And what you can't see is Sandy's oven fire. But the braised pork goulash will be worth it.