To Jason on Dreams

I've been dreaming about you lately. Weird dreams, but I can only remember bits of them. Somehow, you end up carrying me. Usually in some strange way, and we end up in an inside situation. One time, I was in this - I think car? -  and you were balancing on a rooftop and preparing to set the car down. And that's about all I remember except that I was totally sure I was safe while you did this impossible thing. 

I miss you so much it hurts.

More wine and chocolate?

I'm sitting here drinking wine on our front porch with the dog you helped us choose. I realize I have to be careful about giving myself permissions - oh, it's ok, have another glass of wine, you're grieving. Have some more chocolate, you're grieving. I could easily end up at 200 pounds again. And I so enjoyed shocking you in Paris when I was down to my ideal weight. 

It's hard to be here, where no one knew you. I imagine it's also hard to be where memories of you are everywhere. Basically, it's just fuckiing hard.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to have years to regret being so far away, and trying to find times to visit you, and hoping you'd have time to visit here, and bring jealous of all the time Gaea's family got to spend with you. Instead I just have regrets. That I didn't call more often, even though I knew you were busy. That I didn't visit more often. That I left Minneapolis just after you got back. Damnit, I miss you.

As I was writing this, Cricket got up and moved to my side. I think he's a very empathetic dog. So I went around back and got the bubble wand and sat here blowing bubbles for him. I wish I had a picture, but I can't blow bubbles and take pictures at the same time. It was supposed to cheer me up a bit, but I can't get there right now. More wine and some chocolate? Possibly a bad idea...

To Jason on Dancing

I wanted to tell you that your dad and I danced on a street corner in New Orleans.

We arrived there on April 29th, and walked down to Jackson Square, pausing on the way for lunch. We walked around the square looking at art and nearly bought a painting of jazz musicians in colorful clothes on a black background. Then I rested in our hotel while Russ went to his meeting.

We had dinner at a cute little almost-empty bar that felt aimed much more at your generation than ours. And then we walked on to experience Bourbon Street on a Saturday night. We donated to street performers, stopped in a couple galleries, decided we were too tired to stay for the Preservation Hall show but might come back another night. And when we heard a combo playing on the corner, we danced.

I'm not sure I had even told you about our dance lessons. We'd only had a couple. Our first lesson was 3 days after I saw you for the last time.

I don't know if you realize this, but your dad likes to make a list of subjects to discuss before we call people. THAT morning, dancing was at the top​ of the list, right behind Happy Birthday.

I got up early and posted on your FB page, and you responded. But I waited to talk to you until your dad was up (and also it WAS still quite early). Our first call to you was, I think, about 15 minutes before the crash. By the time we called again and left a message, you had died.

Yesterday, your dad came downstairs in tears, just thinking that you would want us to dance. I think you would be happy that I'm finally learning to follow. I was so bad at it when we danced at your wedding. I hate that I won't get to dance with you again. But we plan to continue our dance lessons anyway. You would want us to dance.

Bravo tries to make friends

Bravo makes friends with people very easily. He finds it a little harder to make friends with dogs. Often, he just ignores, or at most puts up with, the overtures other dogs make. Occasionally, you can tell he wants to play with another dog, but doesn't know how to get started. If the dog he's chosen is playing with other dogs, he hangs around the fringes and occasionally makes a half-hearted move to join in. Usually it doesn't work very well. He's kind of a dork that way.


Today at the dog park, he found a Catahoula that fascinated him. I forgot I had a camera the first time he played with Gray, which is a shame as it was very cute. A little later on, Bravo approached him again.

Bravo followed him into the fenced portion

Other dogs came over to check them out.
The Rottweiler lives with the Catahoula

Bravo was really having fun. The Catahoula was tolerating him. According to his owner, all the dogs kinda crush on Gray.


Check out what Google + did with my photos - they gave me 3 Bravos!

Anyway, we were very happy to get out to the park today - it rained all day yesterday.

An American Tea Plantation

As many of you know, I am a fan of tea, especially black tea. So when I discovered that the only tea plantation in North America is Charleston Tea Plantation, I was excited to visit.

Tea (Camellia Sinensis) likes hot, rainy weather, so the climate here is pretty perfect. It's also what we had for our visit. There's a tour of the processing plant, and a trolley tour of the tea gardens. It rained off and on during the trolley tour, which was only a problem when it rained hard enough that we wanted to close the windows.

Russ made a new friend - Waddy the frog

Russ had been to a tea plantation in China, where they used hundreds of workers to hand-pick the tea. Here, they developed a harvesting machine, and only have 4 field workers. They rotate the fields so one field is harvested each day for about 20 days, and then they start again at the beginning.

The machine that allows them to use very few workers

Tea plants

Ominous clouds over the tea fields

All tea comes from the same plant, but there are different varieties. The Charleston Tea Plantation blends several varieties together, all from their own fields.

Only the top 3 leaves are used  for tea (the "flush")

Baby tea plants in the greenhouse

Several different types of tea were available to try in the gift shop. They had both cold and hot tea, sweetened and unsweetened. One of the special kinds is "first flush", from the first cutting of the season. It was very flavorful, so I bought some along with some green mint tea.  I also bought a pretty new mug with tea strainer and lid.

Some of my purchases. A cool new mug and 2 kinds of tea.

The tea isn't technically organic, since they do use some nitrogen fertilizer. However, it's close enough to pass Whole Foods stringent requirements, and they will soon be selling American Classic Tea at some locations. In the meantime, you can always order online: Charleston Tea Plantation products 

The sky was quite dramatic

A cool oak tree

Just for fun, a pretty flower. No idea what kind.

A very touristy day

For our first real tourist outing, we chose a carriage ride. Apparently, routes are assigned randomly as you depart, and there are also several different companies, so conceivably you could do this several times and never have quite the same tour. Our horse was Dave. I don't remember the tour guide's name.

On the tour

Me and Dave

Our tour went down Legare St (pronounce Legree, I think) and along the Battery. Our guide was interested in ironwork, so that was a focus. There are certainly plenty of beautiful examples, but they are hard to photograph from a carriage. Maybe I'll get better pictures later on foot.

An interesting door knocker

"Sword Gate"

After the tour, we tried out the "joggling board"  in the office.It's kinda fun to make it bounce up and down. Supposedly courting couples would use the joggling to slide together until they were nearly touching. I didn't find it slid very well, but maybe we didn't joggle hard enough.

Just joggin'

For a perfect end to the tourist experience, we had ice cream at Kilwin's.

Restaurant Week

Charleston is known for great food. We were lucky enough to arrive during Restaurant Week, when various restaurants offer prix fixe dinner menus - 3 courses for $20, $30, or $40. A little googling tells me 140 restaurants are participating this year, and some offer lunch as well. It's actually a bit more than a week, starting 9/3 this year, with today being the last day.

Since Russ was here before I was, he made an executive decision to make reservations for both last night and tonight. This late in the week, there were not many openings, so we ate quite late - after 9 last night and about 8 tonight.

At Blossom on Saturday

We walked to Blossom on Saturday. It's a lovely little restaurant, but rather loud. Didn't help that we were seated next to a large group of guys, with another large group right behind them.

Blossom's Chicken with Waffles

I thought the Chicken with Waffles and blueberry sauce was an interesting appetizer. The chicken was fried, but quite light. Overall, the dish was a little sweet for me, but very good. Russ had the fried calamari with peach sauce, which he quite enjoyed. Our entrees were Pan Roasted Mahi Mahi (me) and Cornmeal Dusted Catfish for Russ. For dessert we both had Banana Cream Pie - cute little individual pies that weren't quite what we expected, but were still quite good.




Tonight we went to Oak Steakhouse. We were running a little late, it looked like rain, and they'd called to tell us they offered valet parking so we drove. I know, we'll try not to make it a habit.

Milk Chocolate Cheesecake at the Oak

The restaurant was quite chilly, so we both ordered the Tomato Bisque soup to start, which was quite good. Then Russ had the Market Catch, Grouper on a bed of quinoa with cherry tomatoes. I had the Filet Mignon over mashed potatoes and spinach. It was the best steak I'd had in some time. Very tender, even though I order it well done. The Oak is justifiably proud of their steaks, and I highly recommend them. Dessert was also delicious - Milk Chocolate Cheesecake with salted caramel sauce, chocolate cookie crumbles and vanilla whipped cream. It was beautiful, too - sorry I didn't manage to take a picture before digging in! It was just too tempting.

It's a good thing the week is over. So many delicious choices, but then you have these 3 courses and so naturally you have to eat all three. I'd be gaining weight again quickly if it went on much longer.