WHATEVER

Yesterday was a great day for contrails.

As we were heading home from running some errands, there were dozens of them in the sky at once.  I joked "Maybe Putin has launched an attack!"

Contrails, incidentally, are water.  You can learn more here.

Back home, some plum blossoms were getting ready to open to the sky.

And, apropos to absolutely nothing, do you know what a musician is? My friend, Meggie, in Australia posted this on Facebook the other day.

Sounds like that could have been written by the wife of a musician, don't you think?

DINNER AT EL GATO AZUL

We DID go to El Gato Azul for our Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday dinner last night.  However.  In spite of proprietor/chef Barry Barbe's offerings of jambalaya and gumbo and shrimp etouffee, we chose otherwise.  

"The Cat" is a small but culinarily adventurous restaurant.  It houses only six or seven tables though it's outdoor patio has room for many more and a stage for music, mostly jazz. It's still a little chilly for patio dining, though it was covered with a tent-like structure along with plastic sides and gas heaters and many others were out there.  But we preferred to be inside and were seated at a nice table.

Now I said culinarily adventurous.  El Gato Azul is primarily a tapas restaurant, tapas being small plates of appetizers.  But tapas in quantity can be a meal and that's what we chose.  Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures but I can describe our meal.

It began with a couple of very nice vodka martinis.  Our first "course" consisted of Mussels Cerveza (steamed with ale and herbs) and Baked Brie "Nachos" (pita triangles, warmed brie, with an apricot and Balsamic vinegar reduction sauce).  I liked both but SWMBO said she should have realized the Brie dish would be sweet and she doesn't like to mix savory and sweet, particularly at the beginning of a meal.

(But a couple of glasses of a very nice Malbec red wine helped comfort the tummies and the soul.)

Our second "course" consisted of Santa Fe Shrimp (chargrilled bacon-wrapped shrimp with a Chipotle sauce) and Jammin' Chicken (island spiced and grilled).

(Hmm, that Malbec was good enough for a second glass each,)

We were very pleased with our "meals", all of which we shared. The restaurant was busy, lively with New Orleans jazz on the speakers, one waitress wearing a bright green, sparkly skirt; chef Barry stopping by our table wearing his "fool's" hat.  I reminded him that I had interviewed him once for the radio station I was working for back when he was juggling four restaurants in town.  (Later, SWMBO and I calculated that was somewhere between 8 and 10 years ago!)  I asked him when he was going to open some more restaurants but he said his wife was limiting him to just one.

The one he runs has been a big success and we will return.  By the way, if you want to see all the tapas you can get at the Blue Cat, here is their menu.  The other side has a great number of entrees if you choose to go that route.  And if you're REALLY hungry you can begin with a couple of tapas, then choose your entree.  Just don't forget the martini and/or the wine.  Or you can order from their beer and ale menu and enjoy something like Moose Drool from Missoula, Montana, or Kiltlifter from Tempe, Arizona.

One added treat: here's a photo of the sunset I took from the car as we set off for the restaurant.  It was much more fantastic than the photo shows but still . . .

FAT TUESDAY!

Happy Mardi Gras, my fellow revelers.  That's French for Fat Tuesday.  It's a day for sin and food and drink because tomorrow begins that l-o-n-g Lenten season of deprivation before we can get back to what we all love - food and drink and sin.

Oh I guess you could eliminate the sin if you're either religious or NOT religious or older than dirt, like I am.  To each his own.

I'm thinking about trying to convince SWMBO to go out for dinner somewhere that may be serving N'awlins food tonight.  I see where Barry Barbe has a Fat Tuesday menu at El Gato Azul in Prescott featuring shrimp etouffee, jambalaya and gumbo with maybe a few surprises.  On the other hand you can find recipes for just about anything courtesy of our friend The Google.  I found famed New Orleans chef Emeril Lagasse's recipe for shrimp etoufee HERE.  So you could make it at home if you have a lot of ambition and a quart of shrimp stock.

But I'm more inclined to let someone else do the cooking and I don't mean SWMBO.  Our friend, Diane, is stopping by for an hour or so tomorrow so SWMBO is cleaning house within an inch of its life today.

Well I've just discussed this with her and made a reservation for tonight at the aforementioned El Gato Azul.  I'll let you know tomorrow how it went.  In the meantime, laissez les bons temps rouler.  (That's French for the traditional New Orleans Fat Tuesday shout "let the good times roll".

(If your Spanish isn't too good - El Gato Azul translates to The Blue Cat.)

PHOTO FUN

So, did you watch the Oscars?  I thought it was a fairly good show. Ellen DeGeneres was herself, funny in the beginning and at various spots through the show but some times a little tedious.  But.  "They" say it's the toughest job in show business so I guess I can cut her a little slack.  Folks on Twitter say the selfie she took with a pileup of the stars was the highlight.  What do you think?

What?  What?  Photoshop?  I have no idea what you're talking about.

Speaking of photos, I love this one of Senator Rand Paul waiting to go on one of those t.v. talk shows.

That takes me back to my days in television many years ago in Phoenix.  That was back in the day when anchormen showed up dressed like Paul is because the television camera never showed them beneath the waist.

(I'm pretty sure this picture is not Photoshopped.)

ISN'T THIS SUN-DAY?

Early this morning, it looked more like the moors of Scotland in my neighborhood.

But our old friend, Mr. Sun, was turning up the wattage to burn through the fog.

Soon enough the skies were clear, revealing a bit of a surprise at the top of the Bradshaw foothills.

Cropping that picture down a bit gave a better view of the dusting of snow atop the highest peak in the distance.

All in all, lots out there for this blogger's camera this morning.

AN UNUSUAL GREY WEEKEND

It rained a bit here yesterday and, while not much is falling, it is a rainy day today.  The photos though are from yesterday, beginning with a beautiful sunrise.

Later in the day some amazing clouds began forming.

As I said, we really haven't received much rain so far out of all this but it's been fun to watch the skies.

Speaking of fun, you have to watch this short video.

Post by Jacob Davis.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

It's been a fun-filled week in my state as it became flooded with news media from around the world once again.  No, it wasn't a retrial of Jody Arias.  But it was almost that big.

By the way, Beau Jack is celebrating his birthday today.  I hope it won't be like this.

We're expecting a rainy weekend in Arizona.  But . . .

I'm up early today because I have to go in for some routine medical tests.  Part of establishing service with a new doctor.

The new doc didn't seem amused when I told him I'd lived my life like a very famous man.

Well, that's it, fo . . .

Oh, yeah, you didn't think I'd forget the cats, did you?

Have a great day and a fun-filled weekend, folks!

MOOOOOOOOO . . . .

There's a market in Prescott selling farm to customer produce.  Sort of a farmer's market under a roof.  But the outdoor decor is what makes this place special.

Up on the edge of the roof are two cows.  One of them is lying down and gazing out over the busy street in front of the store.  The other one is standing and looking down at the ground as if he's thinking about making a leap to freedom.  Or better grazing.

Always the stickler for accuracy, SWMBO said they look like Holsteins except these are grey and white and true Holsteins are usually black and white.

Maybe that hot Arizona sun faded their color.

(Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, they're not real cows.  They're . . . . cow-ikins.)

SPRINGTIME IN FEBRUARY

This scares me a little but take a look at the flowering trees in my neighborhood.  We could still have winter snows but right now it definitely looks like spring.

BJ and the BRD

I was not going to post today because I couldn't think of anything to say.  Then I got a photo from the BRD (Beautiful Rich Daughter) of her and her Beau Jack at a black tie event last month.

I think they make a pretty darned good looking couple.

I kidded the BRD about Beau Jack apparently forgetting his "black tie" but she said "the most interesting man in the world can, or not wear anything he chooses...breaking the rules and setting trends."

Can't argue with that.

SIESTA TIME

Blackwell and Muggles have different places and postures for their daily siestas.

COUCH POTATOES: ARISE!

This is going to take some work.

Post by Nisandeh Neta.

Yup, it's the FRIDAY FUNNIES!!!

First off, let's deal with those folk who are living through their fourth or fifth winter season of the year.  So far.  It's only February, folks.

For you folks who may have been confined to your homes by winter weather and who have had to rely on delivery pizza, here's some good advice.

Lemmee see, Valentine's Day was almost a week ago . . did I forget it?

Oh, I can't forget the cats.

In these days of life being dominated by social media, if YOU feel mocked there is always a solution.

Have a jolly weekend, friends.

IN EUROPE . . . WITH BADGES

In 1985 (Wow!  That's 29 years ago!) SWMBO and I made our first (and only, so far) trip to Europe.  We had a month, light luggage and a Eurail pass.  What I discovered early on was that every place we visited had their own personal "badge" for sale.  I began collecting on our first stop.

Every first time visitor to London must visit the Tower and so we did. The crown jewels were fantastic but I can still hear the guard (Beefeater?) repeating constantly "Move the line along, please.  Move the line along."

After a few days in London we inaugurated our Eurail pass with a train ride to Dover, then across the channel by hydrofoil to Oostende, Belgium.  Another train took us to our stop for the night - Bruges.

We loved the "Venice of the North" with its canals and we spent an extra night there before heading into Germany and a stop at Cologne. We viewed the cathedral with it's outer walls still marked with bullet holes from World War Two.  

We could have taken a Rhine river cruise but were too late for it the day we wanted to leave so another train took us to Mainz & Wiesbaden.

Walking around Wiesbaden on Easter Sunday we began hearing the bells tolling from high up in the church in front of us, then another church perhaps a mile away began.  I referred to it as "Dueling Church Bells."  

We loved Germany and spent a couple of nights at the medieval city of Rothenburg and going through the amazing Christmas shops of Käthe Wohlfahrt.  Then it was on to one of our favorite stops - Munich.

We loved this huge city with it's very clean and modern U-Bahn (subway) and the absolutely amazing Viktualienmarkt . . a huge daily outdoor food market in the center of the city.  We bought meat and cheese and fruit and chocolate there for a "picnic" dinner in our room.

Next it was on to Austria.

The gorgeous city of Salzburg where we visited a Mozart museum (and yes, I did touch his piano in spite of signs warning me not to) and watched with fascination a high-class lady eating a sausage with her fingers.  Again, as all along our voyage, great chocolate everywhere. This was also the city in which one or the other of us dropped our camera and broke it on the cobbled street.  But we found a replacement in a small shop and were soon on our way on a beautiful train ride past the Alps to Innsbruck.

It was there we fell in with a happy group of Austrians in a tavern. The night of "many beers" left both of us with a terrible hangover the next day and we went to a chain hotel for two of the worst cheeseburgers we can remember.

The next train ride took us from snowy country down the mountains to Florence, Italy.

We were there in April and it was freezing cold with a gale force wind blowing.  There was no heat in our room and when we asked about it the landlady told us "It's not the right time of year for heat." We left early and headed for the Riviera, which an International edition of USA Today promised would be warm.  San Remo was and it felt glorious.  I can remember walking through the Old Town area and coming upon a local busker playing guitar and singing an Italian-accented "Hotel California."  I also remember walking on the beach and meeting a young woman who was wearing only the bottom half of her bikini!  She smiled and said "buon giorno" as we passed.

An American expatriate couple at the next table in a restaurant heard us saying we were heading for Monaco next.  The woman told us "Don't take the train, it's all through tunnels and you won't see anything.  Take the bus."  We did and it was a glorious ride along the Mediterranean.  I tried and failed to "break the bank in Monte Carlo" with a few spins in the gorgeous casino.  After walking around the harbor and noting grandstands being set up for a gran prix race we took a train to Nice, where we accidentally stumbled into a gay biker bar but we stayed for a beer.

The next day it was the TGV (high speed train) to Paris, where we spent the final four days of our tour.  The Louvre was amazing.  I had planned on spending my birthday in Paris.  (April in Paris, y'know.)  We had a disappointing experience with a cafe we chose for dinner but the next day we had a great meal on a riverboat on the Seine and decided THAT was my birthday celebration.

So finally our visit to Europe ended and we headed for home, flying from Orly Airport directly to Dallas, Texas and a connecting flight home to Phoenix.

Guess what.  They sell those badges in our country, too.

We have talked many times about our Grand Tour.  We decided that was our exploratory trip and the next time we would go to just one country and take our time.

We've never been back.