In the Garden
The temperatures have fallen, and even ten degrees make all the difference. You feel like going outside again. The heat doesn’t slap you in the face.
Sure, with temperatures still up in the 80’s most days you still work up a sweat if you are digging, planting and weeding, but being outside on the cooler days – and there have been a couple – is sheer joy.
We’ve done some work in the garden, and had some work done with Garden Gate, who are such a delight to work with. They have a landscaper, Carole Simpson, who when we first moved here advised us to do nothing big for a year, but to live with our gardens and see what was working and what we wanted to change.
As it turned out, we have one garden that is nearly perfect – save for the weeding, but even the weeding in that bed is not that hard. We knew we wanted a native plant and grass area, and we had an area where we were concerned about erosion, so we asked for some help with that. I wanted to try some hydrangeas near our back fence. Carole had a couple other ideas, and we liked them, and added them in.
This is our new herb garden, designed to help the area not to erode – and for the sheer joy of the herbs and flowers. 🙂 Two kinds of rosemary! Sage, thyme and oregano!
These are the new hydrangeas; the center back one is an oakleaf hydrangea and the three surrounding it are more compact. I am hoping they will grow into big sprawling shrubs like I had in Seattle.
This is the grassy area, which will take a while to establish and fill out. Years! But we have the time . . . 🙂
This is a vine in its second year in out backyard; it is so happy. The flowers are white. We like it so much we have planted a second one to keep it company on the fence.
AdventureMan has his own project – a butterfly garden. He found all the right plants at Garden Gate and planted them in an old wheelbarrow we found at a yard sale. The very next day, we watched a butterfly come and lay eggs in the milkweed. Since then, AdventureMan has checked the results daily (sometimes hourly, depending on the stage.) We have watched the eggs develop into hungry, hungry caterpillars, and are now watching the caterpillers attach to the underside of the wheelbarrow to become chrysalis, and we hope to be able to see one (or more) become full Monarch butterflies.
When we planted the pomegranate tree in the Spring, we never dreamed it would put forth a fruit the first year, but we are watching our pomegranates (we have two on our small tree) with the same joy we are watching for the butterflies.
Today we awoke to clouds and drizzle – perfect weather for helping our new additions settle in comfortably, establish their roots, get comfortable. We need a good spell of moderate weather before the colder weather sets in.
Hemingway’s on Pensacola Beach
“How about Peg Leg Pete’s?” I asked, as we were contemplating where to eat lunch.
“We haven’t eaten at Hemingway’s for a while,” he responded, “let’s go back there.”
I had to grin. There is so much that goes into where a person chooses to eat, and I suspect my husband is yearning, on some deep level, for some exotic taste of the life we left behind. Hemingway’s is built like a lodge, could be a hunting lodge in Montana or a hunting lodge in Africa, you know, a lot of wood, open construction, heavy wood beams in a high gently peaked roof, a vast balcony (like where you could have a Samburu Sunset and watch game wandering in to the watering hole)
Hemingway’s it was. As we waited for our meals to arrive, we tried to figure out when the last time we had eaten there had been, and we think it was back . . . more than five years ago, when our son was getting married. We had flown into town a week early to have time to get adjusted to local time and to arrange for a rehearsal dinner. We flew in, had a weekend with our son and his bride-to-be, including a meal at Hemingway’s, and then we headed up the coast to make our arrangements, and to get out of their hair during an exceptionally busy and stressful pre-wedding week.
I love that Hemingway’s has some really good special menus for lunch; AdventureMan had the Hurricane Shrimp and I had the Salmon Caesar. We started with the onion straws, but there was so much, we barely touched them. They were the thin little onions, so each tiny little ring was a lot of crisp batter and fat, and not a lot of onion. A little tasty, but not a lot. Most of the taste was in the Ranch Dressing type dip that accompanied them. I’d skip them next time.
I made a mistake; there was a Caesar salad with something and there was a spinach salad with salmon, so I asked for a Salmon Caesar and he said “Oh! Yes, we can do that, just put it on Caesar instead of the spinach.” I like that flexibility, and I found their Caesar salad very tasty; not bland.
AdventureMan really enjoyed his Hurricane Shrimp and particularly loved the way they were skewered, so that on the grill, you can flip them without shrimp slipping off.
At the end, we succumbed to sharing a rum brownie, very delicious. I wish I could say we didn’t finish it, but we did leave most of the whipped cream behind. 😉
All in all, a nice meal in a great atmosphere. Service was attentive without being too intrusive. We will probably go back soon and take our son and his wife. 🙂
Pumpkin Patch Frenzy
We’ve had the most wonderful Saturday. You’d think we’d be sleeping in, but we surprised ourselves – awake and happy at seven in the morning, out the door by eight. Our second stop was the Pumpkin Patch, an annual arts event featuring glass pumpkins.
“Why pumpkins?” you might ask. It’s pumpkin season. Pumpkins are traditional for Halloween. These are beautiful, made of glass, nice for a Fall seasonal decoration in your house. It’s an arts fest, held in the Belmont Arts and Cultural Center. (If you look closely, you can see 5 Sisters Blues Cafe across the street.)
BIG mistake. No parking spots, so AM let me off to fight the crowds while he looked for a parking spot. There had been a huge line; none left as I get close to the door, but inside, it is a frenzy and it is a turgid stream of people. Many are carrying boxes and people are grabbing at pumpkins, beautiful glass pumpkins of all colors, but I knew I wanted a big orange pumpkin. I only found one orange pumpkin, a small pumpkin, but I never did see a big pumpkin, so this one will have to do.
You cannot imagine; this was not a nice crowd. This was a mob, this was the worst shopping crowd I have ever been in, and I have been in some frenzied shopping crowds in my life. This one was rude and pushy and many of the pushiest were also very vulgar, and used vulgar language as they tried to push others out of their way.
I went straight to the “pay with cash or check” line, which moved fairly quickly. At one point, a guy called for anyone paying by check, and I could do either so I got in that line figuring it to be faster. I was at the end of the line, and the very last guy at the “pay with cash” table said “if you can pay with cash, I can take you here, now.” I said “YES!” and whipped our my cash and was out in a flash.
I’m going to have to find another strategy for finding a large orange pumpkin. I’m not going to that Pumpkin Patch Sale again.
Here is my little orange pumpkin:
And here it is, with the little green pumpkin I bought last year, on my beautiful green Damascus tablecloth in the dining room:
Contagion
As we rushed into the house, we both headed immediately to our bathrooms to wash our hands. Twice. And I also washed my face.
Contagion is a very intelligent movie. It is scary, but not in the Friday the 13th kind of scary, or in the Night of the Living Dead kind of scary, although come to think of it, there were some elements in common with the original Night of the Living Dead. No, what makes Contagion scary is that it could happen so easily.
I had no idea that we touch our faces, on the average, of three to five times a minute, more than 3,000 times a day, and that with every surface we touch, we transfer (germs) (bacteria) (things that could make you sick) close to an entry to your body, like your nostrils and your mouth. Once you start thinking about NOT touching your face, you become aware of how often you touch your own face, unaware. Like flipping hair out of your eyes, or covering your mouth when you laugh, or a million other things like that. You become aware of all the things you touch between the time you wash your hands and touch your food. You think about who may have touched your fork, and how well it was washed.
For me, the scariest part of the movie, beyond how quickly the virus mutated and spread, was how quickly civil society broke down when cities were quarantined, when people were concerned food was growing scarce, when people thought they had to fight for survival. The rules for avoiding spreading the virus were not to meet, not to touch, to stay apart. It’s hard to help one another when those rules are in play, but those rules make it easier for those without rules to attack and take what they can.
I liked the music in the movie, too, very edgy.
Before I ever saw this movie, I heard an interview with the author on NPR. She was saying that when they came to her wanting to make this movie, she said “it cannot start in Africa. . . (there were a whole bunch of rules, which were hilarious because they were like every plot for a movie like this ever made) I knew I needed to see this movie, to see how it could be done and still be dramatic, and follow her rules.
There is one hilarious quote. A blogger in this movie gains enormous following. As he is tracking down one of the scientists for information, the scientist says to him:
Blogging is not writing. It’s just graffiti with punctuation.
Excuse me, gotta go wash my hands again.
Bad Grandparents: Disaster Averted
“No! No!” he shouted, and pushed away the spoon full of rice and beans which he normally loves. No. He wanted BaBa to walk him around the restaurant some more, showing him serapes and sombreros and gaudily crowing roosters.
‘More. More,’ he signed.
“It’s dinner time, time to eat,” GaGa said calmly, signing for ‘eat.’
“No! No! Done!” He may not have a large vocabulary, but Happy Baby knows how to communicate pretty clearly. BaBa goes to pick him up, but I say no, it’s dinner time. Very calmly. The shrieks begin, the arched back, the tears. Baba looks at me accusingly; what to do? I know we need to hold our ground, but it is so hard when the piercing shrieks start.
And then, a miracle. The waiter shows up with a small plate of whipped cream with chocolate sauce over it.
What self-respecting grandparent would allow a child to feast on whipped cream??
Desperate grandparents. Grandparents who can’t bear to hear him shriek. We let him eat the whipped cream, but he had to eat it on his own, with the spoon. He’s not very efficient with the spoon yet, so he couldn’t really get much. And, between tiny spoon tastes of whipped cream, BaBa and I have discovered he will eat beans and rice after all. He ate all the beans and rice, and only got a little of the whipped cream, but he was happy. And so were we.
On some deep level I feel like we have shirked our responsibilities, but oh, those shrieks . . .
When we are at home, we can ignore the shrieks. One time he was shrieking, and when we ignored him, he stopped, came closer and then flopped down and started shrieking again. We couldn’t help it, we just laughed. It was so hilarious. When he saw us laughing, he gave up and got involved with something else. He is so much fun. 🙂
Polonza’s on Palafox
We tried to go to Polonza’s on Sunday morning, after church, but it was closed. (It’s now open for on Sundays, hurran!) We tried to go during the Saturday morning, but it was closed (I think it still is.) Polonza’s is perfectly located in the middle of what we call ‘The Church Souk’, i.e. next to the Methodist Church, catty-corner from Christ Church Episcopal, just down the street from 1st Baptist, the Lutheran Church and the Presbyterian churches, and several others. It only makes sense to open on Sundays for brunch.
Service was attentive without being intrusive. (Very good!) He brought us extra sauce when we asked, and was quick at refilling our glasses and asking if we needed anything.
They do a booming lunch time business during the week. Great lunch specials, sandwiches, main dishes, lots of choices for sides, and BBQ, wooo hoooo.
Whoda thunk? The soup of the day was GAZPACHO, which AdventureMan said is almost exactly as good as mine, and mine is really good.
I couldn’t resist trying the BBQ chicken, which was good. I loved their BBQ Sauce, a little vinegary, not too sweet. You’ll notice I ordered the vegetables (in addition to the sweet potato fries 😦 )
AdventureMan ordered the BBQ Pork Sandwich, which he said was also really good.
Overall, a very positive experience. If you get there between 11:30 and 12:15 you will have to wait for a table on a week-day.
In The Middle of the Storm
When you’re in the middle of the storm, it is hard to imagine just how BIG it is. It isn’t a hurricane, because the winds are not high enough, but oh man, the rain. Poor Pensacola has been about 10 – 15 inches short of its annual average, and I think we are getting all caught up this weekend.
AdventureMan is outside, picking up dead tree branches that came down last night. On our way to church, early this morning, we saw the electrical crews out trying to fix a line that went down. God bless these heroes who get out of bed on a national long weekend, early in the morning, so that people might have lights, and power, and air conditioning. We take them for granted, and yet they are everyday heroes.
Making My Doctor Happy
“You can cheat, you know,” my younger sister told me. “Just don’t eat meat for the week before your blood test.”
No, I didn’t know that! But I forgot, so I put off my appointment and blood test for another week, but I forgot again. Oh well. I took the test, cataloging all my mistakes (too much sugar, too much salt, too much meat, too much processed food) and went to my appointment with a sinking heart.
My doctor looked happy. He was kind of bouncing up and down with a big smile.
“Look at these readings!” he crowed! “We don’t often see turnarounds like this! Have you been exercising?”
“Yep! Three days a week!” I responded.
“Your blood pressure has dropped substantially.”
He is right. I am supposed to take it daily, and I’ve watched it fall back to where it was in my twenties.
“And your cholesterol dropped to 166! That’s 45 below your last reading!”
Holy cow! And I didn’t even cheat!
Even better, my triglycerides level has improved to optimal.
What surprises me is I haven’t had any side-effects, or not much. I had been concerned I would have a reaction, but I don’t feel any different, I don’t feel more health conscious or virtuous or like I’m being careful. It’s kind of amazing to me that small doses of medications can make such a difference.
I am switching my sources, however. The last refill I got (free) from the Navy Pharmacy disintegrated in the bottle. Maybe it’s the humidity in summer in Pensacola, but I ended up sort of estimating how much powder would equal a pill and licking it off my palm rather than go back there – again – and have to negotiate for a replacement. They make me feel like some kind of cheat or druggie when I ask to get a refill early because I am traveling. The last time, I had to show my airplane ticket to prove I was refilling early because I had to travel. (!) Is there a big black market for blood pressure medication???
I’m still dancing on air to have my readings come back so good . . . without cheating, LOL. 🙂
Customer Service at Jasmine Fusion
We have eaten once before at Jasmine Fusion in Pensacola (9 Mile Road,) and while the food was great, the welcome was haphazard and the restrooms were messy. Our impressions were not that good, but when friends we were going out with suggested eating there, we agreed, as it was close to the theatre we were going to afterwards.
What a difference.
The place looked a lot cleaner, and the welcome was warm. We were seated immediately, in a nice location, and our waitress was superb. Here was the deal-sealer – AdventureMan has a sore throat, and ordered hot green tea. When the tea was delivered to the table, the waitress had added a small pitcher of honey on the side, to be added to the tea, to help his sore throat. A small thing, but it blew us away for attention to detail.
The food was delicious – Summer Rolls with two sauces, Chicken Sate’, Larb, Grilled Chicken, Phad Thai and Panang Curry. Everything cooked to perfection, or, in the case of the Summer Rolls, not cooked, but still perfection. 🙂 Great conversation, really good food, and a very thoughtful waitress – we can’t wait to go back. 🙂
Jerry’s Drive-In, Pensacola
We pass it all the time. Jerry’s BBQ Drive-In. People kept telling us we had to go there, everyone goes there. When we were asking about the best hamburger in Pensacola, the word came back: Jerry’s.
When people tell you about Jerry’s it’s like in Qatar when people tell you “it’s near where Parachute Roundabout used to be,” because it isn’t a drive-in anymore, and they also don’t seem to have a lot of BBQ. Jerry’s IS like a time capsule, you walk in, you wait about 15 minutes for a table at lunch, or you try to find a seat at the counter, and it’s like you’ve walked back into the 1950’s. But it isn’t a theme restaurant, it’s just that nothing has changed. When we looked at the menu, we got a big shock – we don’t even remember prices like these. It would be hard to spend $20 on a lunch for two, unless you toss back a beer or two, and we saw a few people doing that.
It seems like a place where people are known – like people eat there all the time. We heard a many greeted by name. AdventureMan said if he were a widower, he would probably eat there all the time. It looked like the kind of place where you could get a good meal and a kind and friendly greeting.
Service was prompt, efficient, courteous and friendly.
AdventureMan said it was one of the best hamburgers he has ever eaten. He compared it to Red Robin and said it isn’t so big, and it doesn’t look so fancy, but it is the perfect size, perfectly cooked and he thinks it is hand packed, it had a great texture. He ordered it with ‘the works’ and was surprised that ‘the works’ doesn’t include a slice of onion, but it did include lettuce, tomato and pickle.
I had the BLT, which came on toast, with lettuce and tomato, nothing fancy, just a BLT, but a good BLT, generous on the bacon:
We ordered sides of hush puppies, baked beans and cole slaw, so we could see how they compare. Hush puppies were like AdventureMan used to eat when he was a kid, the kind people make at home, no surprises, no corn, no jalepenos, no sugar, just plain hush puppies, exactly in character with this slice-out-of-time. The cole slaw was wonderful. I am not a fan of mayonnaise-y cole slaw, and this one was a little vinegary, just what I love. The baked beans were divine. Not a lot of chunks of anything, just plain beans, baked to melting in a sweet tangy sauce. The best of the ’50’s.
They are undergoing renovations to add more seating room and waiting room – business is good, and they need more space to handle their many loyal customers. At the corner of Perry and Cervantes, in East Pensacola Heights, right at the stoplight. AdventureMan says this is the kind of restaurant they feature in Southern Living magazine, or Garden and Guns, one of the hidden gems of Pensacola.
Recent Comments
ExpatAlien on What Country am I Living … intlxpatr on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Michelle on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Cathy on No Grown-Ups in Charge intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 