The Christmas Tamales

 

 

 It is always a good day when a student brings you Christmas Tamales!

She&Him Christmas in Dallas

 

This past Saturday, my wife and I went to the SMU campus to McFarlin Auditorium to see She&Him perform a Christmas concert. Zooey Dechanel (She) has legit vocal range. She is the real deal. Great voice. M Ward (Him) has been one of my favorite guitarists/singer-songwriters for a long time. His album Migration Stories, released near the beginning of the 2020 covid shutdown helped me get through that stressful and weird time. 

 

They performed some of their non-Christmas standards as well. It was quite a concert. They played both with a band and acoustically as a duo. Everything was festive and top-notch.

 

It was a great experience and we got to see the lights on the Hilltop. It had been awhile since I had been on the SMU campus. It was good to be back. The concert was actually in the same auditorium where my masters graduation ceremony happened so that room always has good vibes for me. 

 

But She&Him are the real deal. Being on stage exposes those who are just products of the studio and a good producer and who actually has talent. Zooey and Ward were amazing live. They performed a phenomenal set.

Feast like kings

While the ladies were in Galveston this past summer, me and the boy went to downtown Dallas to the only BBQ joint in DFW that serves KC style barbecue. We ate like kings.

 

The Grading

Once again this past June, the AP World History Grading was virtual due to Covid fears. It has been announced that we are indeed meeting back in person in Kansas City for June 2022. But we thought that about 2021 as well so we will have to wait and see.

I had the house to myself for about a week of the virtual grading. Kim and Ava went to Galveston with some friends. Jackson had summer band camp during the day. Only the cats were around to keep me company. Lola did not like me being on Zoom Meetings. When the family came back for the last few days of the Read I sequestered myself back into our bedroom like I had the year before. The remote reads aren't bad, but I do miss seeing my fellow graders in person.

 

Dad's Day

 

 

Still catching up. I mentioned Mother's Day a couple of posts back. These are pics from Father's Day in June. I was grading AP essays (remotely again due to COVID protocols) but the kids still made time to celebrate. We went to Rodeo Goat for burgers. I'm honored to be their Dad.

 

 

Brownies

In May I made a quick trip to Tulsa to attend a graduation luncheon for my cousin's daughter. My wife and kids had another commitment and couldn't come. It was a quick trip up and back in one day. I did had some time to drive by both sets of my Grandparent's old homes. I only have one grandparent left and she lives in an assisted living center now. Lots of memories in those homes. Makes me nostalgic. I also ate lunch at Brownie's. Brownie's was one of my favorite diners growing up. And it looks almost exactly the same as it always has. It's nice that there are a few things that don't change in this mixed-up world. 

Catching Up

Well, I wasn't planning on hibernating from blogging for eight months. This is the longest I've gone without publishing on here since I started this thing in 2006. The sabbatical was unintentional and I'm not even sure why I paused for so long. 

Guess I should spend the rest of this blog-year catching up. Even though I'm pretty sure no one reads my posts it makes me happy to publish. I find it cathartic. I shouldn't have allowed myself to lapse. May try to catch up a bit. So here's some shots from last Mother's Day as we got breakfast at Snooze A.M. in Oak Lawn...

 

Finishing Swann's Way

159 days and Proust is done. Well, at least this volume. Swann’s Way is only volume one in a seven volume novel called In Search of Lost Time. I’ll get to those other volumes some other time. 444 pages in volume one alone! Anyway, this was my most recent long form read that I started last November and completed yesterday. I read 2-4 pages a day. It’s a system that has worked well for me in conquering challenging works.

 

Swann’s Way wasn’t as challenging as Ulysses or Gravity’s Rainbow. But Proust’s over analysis of every single feeling that passed through his cerebral cortex could grow tedious. So 2-4 pages a day kept a nice limit on his literary neurosis. Sometimes I found the famous Combray section relaxing and almost meditative to read. The section about Charles’s and Odette’s love affair was frustrating and annoying because I found Charles and Odette frustrating and annoying. Maybe that was the point. The conclusion was peaceful and satisfying. 

 

I think Proust used writing for personal therapy which is one of the great benefits of putting pen to paper. This new translation by Lydia Davis was fantastic. Now on to a book I’ve attempted twice and never made past page 80...Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. IJ is over 1,000 pages so I expect to be finished around the end of January 2022.

 

Incidentally my other current reads are Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson and This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein both of which have been fantastic so far.

 

Blue Skies

 

The other day was a good day to take the T-Tops off the Jeep and roll under the blue sky.

They Know...

This guy likes to steal bird seed from the bird feeder on our tree in the backyard. And if we forget to fill the feeder, he knows that the food is on our porch.
 

Where's the Button?

 

When you're trying to find a particular camera setting and your daughter comes over to help (because she doesn't think you know what you're doing) and you accidentally take a photo.

BUMC

 

 

Tough whenever I have to visit Baylor Hospital in Dallas. This was where my Dad passed away. Tough memories when I walk around this place. 

#jeepsparkedbyjeeps and Taekwondo

 

 

My daughter did not want to pose by the jeeps after Taekwondo. We always take a pic when a jeep parks by ours. But she did it because she's a good sport! 

Cat on Chair

 

yeah, sometimes it feels like that kind of day. 

Mr. Roboto

 

Jackson had a virtual robotics tournament Saturday. I thought playing Styx's Mr. Roboto was perfect for the drive to the school. Apparently not. Update: They qualified for the Regional Championship!

Second Shot

 

 

Got my second shot of the Moderna Covid Vaccine yesterday. I am very glad I got this out of the way. 24 hours later and I am fatigued and a bit light-headed but nothing I can't push through. I've taught in my classroom feeling much worse. Let's get this country vaccinated! 

Cedar Ridge Preserve

 

Last Saturday we dropped the kids off at my Mom's and we went hiking. We went to the Cedar Ridge Preserve south of Dallas. The parking lot surprised me upon our arrival by being more crowded than I expected but once on the trails things did space out and you had some nature to yourself. Of course we went on a Saturday afternoon with gorgeous weather. Next time we will go on a weekday morning during the summer, or at least early in the morning if we return on a weekend.

 

 

It was much prettier scenery than I expected to find. It was also much hillier than we anticipated. We got some really good workouts climbing some steep trails. We did pass a humming beehive and quickly tried to move along. However, a lone bee did follow us and actually stung Kim! Fortunately she got the stinger out pretty quickly out of her leg and I had Tylenol on hand.  

We were also warned about venomous snakes, including rattlesnakes, but we didn't see any. If you stay on the trail you're usually okay. Snakes don't like people and will avoid you if they can. Still, the signs are cool.

There were a lot of interlocking trails to choose from. We were only able try a few. They were very well marked. Much better marked than most hiking trails we've been on. I do think they need more signs warning hikers of their difficulty. We were fine trying anything, but we saw some other hikers about to enter a trail that we just left that didn't seem prepared for what they were about to face. There were plenty of trails of various difficulty.

 

 

There were very nice views of expansive vistas. Who would have thought you could find such hilly terrain in DFW?

 

 

I would definitely recommend Cedar Ridge. It's free to enter although they suggest a donation at the entrance. It was very clean and well maintained. And it was one of the prettiest places we've hiked in a long time.