For your baking pleasure

Hey there all,

Sorry it has been so long since I had an opportunity to post, but we have been BIZZY!!

First, the great news: WE'RE MARRIED!!!!!!! LOOK

We had a wonderful celebration with family and friends. I still can't believe that in my lifetime we were able to actually get married. For me the moment it became a reality was not when we kissed and said "I do", it was when Jack called my mom and dad his in-laws! IN-LAWS!

It was such a great time, our officiant [Unknown LJ tag], the ceremony, the food, the location, the cake (I know, I know, don't break my arm patting myself on the back) were all perfect in every way.

I am so lucky to have found such a wonderful man to marry!

Now for the bad news, while it is in litigation, Prop 8 did pass, narrowly. It saddens me that 50% of our population feels it is OK to write discrimination into our constitution. I know that this will not stand, simply because our constitution cannot contradict itself. You cannot say that people are treated equally under the law with a protection of sexual orientation, then restrict their rights to do something based on sexual orientation. This will go to the feds, I just know it.

The only thing that made this tolerable, was that Obama is now our President Elect! I am so so so so excited!

Well it looks like our plane is about to board (I am in Appleton Wisconsin on business)

Ciao for now

This is one of the best bits I have seen in a long time....

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, who's hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Palin and her bid.

The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Palin is a 'Post Turtle'."

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'Post Turtle' was.

The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'Post Turtle'."

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. "You know she didn't get up there by herself, she don't belong up there, she don't know what to do while she's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dummy put her up there to begin with."

Hello All,

Here we are in lovely Washington DC. I LOVE it here. Jack is laughing about how every time we come back east, I want to move here, until it is revealed... once again.... that they have winter here.

We are here to see one of Jack's late partner's (Phil) students get married. Christine and Sasan had come out to Northern California a few years ago, shortly after they met... and they were one of "those" couples... they had a connection that many couples fail to find after years of being together. I knew instantly that they would be together for life, that they belonged together. Well tonight they took that next step and they had a beautiful wedding held at Woman's National Democratic Club which is a beautiful building full of history.

We were lucky enough to land in time last night to attend their rehearsal dinner and get to meet a number of the people who also share a special place in their hearts and we connected with many of them. We have expanded our family this weekend to include some of the wonderful people that we met here in DC. Some are locals (Francisco - who officiated their wedding, and his partner of 16 years, Dan - Christina's Brides' Man Brian and Sasan's brother Babak). Many made the same trip we had made (G. Paul and his wife Kyla from San Deigo and several members of Sasan's family) There were party goers from Houston, and even Sasan's uncle from Germany was there. It was a beautiful diverse melting pot! After the dinner, we went with Christine and Sasan, Christine's parents, Bea and Steve, Babak and a couple from San Jose who I am embarrassed to admit I don't recall their names. That is Jack's forte. We drank until about one in the morning, then walked back to the hotel with Bea and Steve. They were so warm and welcoming, and very happy to be putting on this grand event for their daughter and their new son-in-law, who they genuinely love.

Today we got up and went out for breakfast, then Jack showed me a couple of the apartments he rented while he was living here. Both buildings were beautiful and full of character. We went back to the hotel to rest up for tonight.

The wedding was amazing. To be seated in a room where heads of state, presidents, and other political leaders had met was amazing. Of course, this is every day for the locals, but looking around the walls and seeing a hand written note from Eleanor Roosevelt really brought home that we were in a place where history happens.

The ceremony was beautiful, including a reading of a Persian poet, both in Farsi and English, a string ensemble and a four tired wedding cake adorned with beautiful white roses. The meal was spectacular, we both had the filet, and I would dare say that it put Morton's to shame. The groom was handsome and the bride was stunning, the toasts were beautiful (something I am still not completely used to being from behind the Zion curtain) and the company at the table It was truly a fairy tale wedding. I hope to have photos to share soon!

After the wedding, we went out for a couple of drinks with a great friend of Jack's, Bill. I had heard much about him, but had never met him. We had a great time out and about, first to a nice quiet cafe style bookstore/cafe/bar, then on to JR's very VERY loud. Bill is a wonderful man and I understand why he holds a special place in Jack's heart.

Tomorrow we are going to the after wedding brunch, and then flying back to Sacramento since I ended up with a surprise meeting with Verizon Wireless. Jack is really being a good sport about giving up the time with his family, I hope that we can get back to see them soon!

Well it is very late, and time for bed.

So over the long holiday weekend, we took in home improvement. We now have a BEAUTIFUL redwood fence lining the south boundary of our property. It was a LOT more work than either of us anticipated, but it was worth it! I hope to have photos soon.

Other than that, we (and by we I do mean Jack) have been busy busy busy planning our wedding. We are getting very excited for our big day! Jack is taking care of every detail and making it wonderful!

More later

You Are Electronic Music

You are energetic and expressive. You love feeling alive. You never get sick of your favorite things - they're what makes life special. You don't take tradition or conventions too seriously. You live for the future. You enjoy remixes and re-interpretations of things. Life is about making improvements.

This is Jack

You Are Punk Music

You've thought long and hard about what mainstream society has to offer... And you've pretty much decided that most normal things aren't for you. You're creative, expressive, and likely to do things yourself. You are a rebel and a fighter. You'll defend your point of view to anyone.

If you know him, you are staring at the screen, with your mouth agape at just how accurate this is!

Ciao for now.

Hey all,

What a beautiful weekend. Saturday morning I got up early and headed out to East Bay Restaurant Supply for their Cullinary Expo, where I got to watch the lovely and talented Dani Luzzatti prepare a goat cheese and roasted tomato tart, then got to dish a bit with her. She is so much fun!

Sunday we went to the Reno Auto Swap Meet, here at Arco Arena in Sacramento... Another gearhead smorgasbord... with cogitoergozoom, whozudaddy (who still is having problems making a journal entry) and his partner Todd. We had a great time looking at all of the RIDICULOUS prices on the cars. Then went back to our groovy pad for a bit of BBQ.

Here is to a GREAT week!

Caio!

Measure the size of the hole on your new tube pan BEFORE you have a falling Angel Food Cake, hot, out of the oven, sinking before my eyes, just like another one of Britney's marriages.

Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani Saudi oil told the OPEC members in the 1970's: ''The Stone Age didn't end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil.''

OK so my pledge to consistently update my blog holds no water.... unlike my ankles...

First off Jack has made a very speedy recovery and is back to his normal impish self! I knew he would!

So what has gone on during the last month? Well, we celebrated Jack's 50th birthday on 7/15 with a plethora of good friends at Michelangelo’s. We had a great time with a bunch of good friends.

The a few weeks before, I had the ABSOLOUTE pleasure of taking a fresh pasta class from Biba Caggiano. (Thanks again Scott, Todd and Kevin!) It was a wonderful time where about 15 lucky people got to the internationally syndicated TV Chef and learn the secrets of her pasta. While the technique was simple, I did learn an amazing amount and have been preparing fresh pasta regularly ever since.

Here we are together, Jack is convinced I am having an affair with her...




We also went to West Coast Meet to see our dear friend and fellow LJer cogitoergozoom and another dear friend Scott in all their glory in an event that they poured their hearts and souls into for the past year! The event was a blast and we got to see another wonderful LJer wrascalbc and met, formally, Frank and John sunbeam_bears. What a great event! The hotel was so creatlively decorated, fun and whimsical. My favorite decoration was Viagra Falls. Marty and Scott were both wonderful as the Mistress and Master of Ceremony - Dinah Might and Hugh Jeuang were a great success! You can read more about the event from the horse's mouth HERE.

While it was fun, there was a certain "thing" missing as we didn't get to hang out with our friends like we normally do during that event. We did get a chance to go to breakfast at the bizarre Madonna Inn with our favorite San Luis Obsipians John and Chris...



We love them!

We also went to see Mama Mia (very good, light and cute boys) and The Dark Knight WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! Go. See. Now!

What can I say, for a boring married couple, we have a LOT of fun!!!!

Ciao for now!

Hi everyone,

Well we are home safe and sound from Mercy San Juan. Here is the Reader's Digest version of the past couple of days....

So Wednesday, Jack woke up with a bit of pain in his upper right abdomen, and thought that he might be having problems with his gallbladder again, it has been troubling him for the past three years. Well truer words were never spoken. We went to dinner that night at Rick and Jerry’s with our good friends Scott and Todd. (We had a fabulous time!) Jack woke up about 4:00 with a stabbing pain in the same spot. He suffered through it for a while, but I inadvertently woke up and went to find him, he was on the computer and still in a LOT of pain. So off to the hospital we went. We breezed right through the process and Jack was being admitted for surgery for an inflamed gallbladder with a side of gall stones. By Noon he was in surgery and 12 hours after he woke up, we were settling into a private room at Mercy San Juan! The first evening was uneventful, however, any hospital stay just wouldn’t be a hospital stay unless they truly screwed things up.
In the morning, they brought in the meds and they had completely botched Jack’s anti viral medication orders. I had brought in his meds the night before because they couldn’t have gotten them together in time. I had a gut feeling that they wouldn’t get it right, so I also brought his day meds along for the ride, however they were in my computer bag, so he didn’t have them on hand until I got there shortly after 8:00. Needless to say, he wanted to go home. The surgeon didn’t have any issues with this, he was dressed and ready to go an hour later. However, they messed up taking his IV out and he was sprinkling blood down the hall as we were leaving, but the very cute RN William came to Jack’s rescue… Jack wanted him as his home health care…

So now he is in a nice deep sleep next to me and hopefully will have an uneventful night, we can both use a good night’s sleep!

Howdy everybody! Jack and I FINALLY have a moment to catch our breath... In fact, it is 11:00 on Saturday and Jack is STILL in bed (12 hours and counting - the man needs to catch up after some major sleep deprivation). While he was resting I finished a batch of truffles for his chocolate habit.

Here is the reader's digest version of the past couple of weeks.

We returned home from Indianapolis, with just 14 days and counting to the big 90th birthday party... lots to do! In addition, Jack went to Tahoe to speak to the middle school youth, as he does every year. While he did that, I did the majority of the shopping for the onslaught of relatives coming to visit. In addition, I baked the sheet cakes for our party, and made a couple of casserole type dishes for Jack to use while family was here, so he could have something to throw in the oven for lunches. I felt like Mildred Pierce for a couple of days, working during the day and baking all night - OK so it wasn't pies, and I will never have Joan's eyebrows, but you get the picture.

That weekend I did the crumb coat of the cake.... and here it is




Then in the freezer it went (by the way, it was all carrot cake, all the time)!

Later that week, we went to see Phantom of the Opera - the best production I had ever seen of it - and Jack dropped me off at home and went to pick up his sister Holly. Then the real fun began - the next night, Jack's dad and step mother came in town, the next day my parents arrived, and that next evening Dawn, antoher of Jack's siblings arrived - very very very late (this was the first time since Dawn was two that she had seen her biological father). And we began puting the party together.

Jack did a fantasitc job of designing the event, Dawn and Holly became the resident arteests and did all of the signage for each of the stations at the event, starting with the Sagamore Way Trailor Park



Continuing with the Road Kill Cafe



Tiny's Liquor Store




The Tyler County Fair





Vacation Bible School




The Galaxy Motel




And finally the Beehive Hair Salon




While Jack, Val, Dawn, Holly, Scott and Todd were putting this together, Maida, John, Madeline and I put together the cakes:





Then the fun began for the party! We have a slew of photographs, and as soon as I figure out how to link to our Snapfish page, I will post those.

Ciao for now, Jack is up and wants some breakfast!

JT

Coming to you live from lovely Indianapolis Indiana…


We have had a great couple of days just chillin with Jack’s sister and family. We have attended swimming practice, soccer practice, a 5K run and mini marathon (at Oh Dark Thirty this AM) congrats Chandler and Spencer on jobs well done! We have also contributed to the local economy mainly in immediate consumables (food). Jack has been quite the shutterbug and has maxed out the memory card on the camera, and we had to go purchase another one. I am going to try to grab a cable and back up the photos so we don’t lose any through the airport x-ray machines. That would seriously bite.

Christopher's graduation is tomorrow, it will be a very emotional day for Jack since he figured that he would never even get to see him graduate from high school, and now he will be teaching in one! I sure am glad that he has such an amazing constitution!

But we are having a great time on vacation and are not anxious to get back home, we have a VERY full schedule when we get home, as we only have two weeks to hoards of relatives in house and hosting 50 people for our homo hoedown.

Well we left the beautiful Ozarks today, heading back to Kansas City International Airport to hop on a plane, heading to Indianapolis. We had a great time with Dawn, Shadow, Lacy, and Tanner (featured below with Jack, we nearly packed him away in our luggage). We arrived and were much later than expected, so we picked up a frozen pizza in West Plains, and headed in (30 miles to her place off the main road) so that Dawn and Jack could catch up. Dawn, the domestic goddess that she is, cooked the pizza to perfection, cardboard and all. We all sat down to watch “Sordid Lives” as Dawn had never seen it, but she fell asleep through the last half of the movie (it could have been the Southern Comfort Mudslide that I made for dessert).

The following day, Jack and Dawn were up early having coffee and continuing to catch up, somehow I slept until 10! I must be doing a lot of catching up on this trip. We had breakfast and ventured out to see the horses, and took a look at Dawn’s property; some of the views are in the photos below. The property is beautiful!


Dawn took us out on an adventure after that, we went to see Tom’s (her late husband) grave, then out to the Stonebrook Inn, a wonderful little bed and breakfast that is owned by Bess, a good friend of Dawn, and we rounded out the day shopping at antique shops in West Plains. Then we went back to Dawn’s place to have dinner, beautiful rib eye steaks that were a gift from Bess, fries, praline yams, and Italian sausage dressing- quite a combination, but it was yummy! We again watched Sordid Lives, making all the way through this time, and Dawn seemed to enjoy the movie as much as we did.

The parts of the Ozarks that we saw were beautiful and, although every once in a while we could hear Banjo music starting to play, we didn’t see the abject poverty that the Ozarks is known for. Everyone was very friendly (thought we still have the impression there might have been a different side shown if some of them had caught on that we were more than friends) and Jack and I agree that while it is a beautiful place to visit, we enjoy living in our neck of the woods. As I write this, we are passing the exit for “Peculiar, Missouri” … really.

Ciao for now

Tags: banjos, travel

So here we are on the road to West Plains Missouri. Through a whole bunch of country roads with a whole bunch of hillbilly drivers. Apparently, the whole “slow car to the right” concept never caught on here. The scenery is lovely, and we even just passed a “Share the road with bicycles” sign. Wow, how is that for going green – Jack said that it was a hell of a commute on a bicycle since we haven’t seen a real town for miles.

We have been having a great time here in the show me state. The wait staff at all of the restaurants are a little too familiar, do I don’t care that you are heading to Michigan next week, what does that have to do with you serving our food? Aren’t we the pair of snobs? LOL. Grandma Gladys looks great for 97, (Grandma looks great for 87, Grandma looks great for 77) and the rest of the family is doing well too.

Within a few hours we should be rolling up to the house of Jack’s sister Dawn (and as a point of clarification on my blog a couple of days ago, Jack’s father and Dawn haven’t seen each other since Dawn was three years old) in her home in the Ozarks of Southern Missouri. I have never been to the part of the country so I am looking forward to the experience. We are going to stop somewhere along the way to grab some food- hey maybe we can stop at the (and no I am not kidding) Grub and Gas. No doubt there is a double meaning there. Jack has been great, as always, in taking all of the driving tasks, and I am the co-pilot. Jack just pointed out that in California, we have CALTRANS, here in Missouri, and we have MODOT. Who lets them get away with these things?

I got away with only working about two hours today, it might have been more, but I am sure we have been going in and out of cell coverage here.
Ciao for now…

Thanks so much for the kind post to my previous blog! We'd love to have you join us... you'd be among friends and admirers (and expected to with the "match the quote to the character" game)! Send us an email @ jtsmith@surewest.net so we can forward the invite to you privately. JT & Jack

Well here we are on the road, and I thought it would be a great time to go ahead and start posting to my journal again. First off what has happened lately? I have taken on a new position at work as project manager for our Verizon wireless account. That means I get to kiss their butts frequently. I lost my hourly designation but I did gain a company car out of the deal, and with gas quickly racing toward $4.00 a gallon, that is a blessing in itself.

I turned 40 recently, we had a lovely dinner with our dearest friends at Lucca’s restaurant. It was wonderful! Jack does such a great job in putting those things together. (He’s the clever one, I am just a home body). And we are prearing for our comined 90th birthdays to be held at Scott and Todd’s, and it will be homage to Del Shores and Sordid Lives (Vacation Bible School and ALL!). I am really looking forward to it, and as an added benefit, we will be hosing s LOT of people. To begin with, the guest list is just shy of 160, we are expecting about 50. My parents, Jack’s dad and step mother, Jack’s sister Dawn (also the daughter of Jack’s dad, but they haven’t seen each other since Dawn was 3 years old), and finally Jack’s Sister Holly. Oh My God will we ever have a full house! I am really excited, and hope that my 3D Trailer Cake turns out. I will include photos in future posts.

As far as today goes, with the exception that we are seated in separate areas of the plane for this leg of the trip (I am writing on the plane trip from Houston to Kansas City) it has been a wonderful trip so far. We were very nervous in Sacramento since we couldn’t arrange for seating when we first checked in, and had to arrange for seating at the gate, and when we checked in at the gate, we got “we will page you when we have a seat available. However, the gate agent was a friend of Dorothy (Jack said he couldn’t have been any more of a girl if he had the proper plumbing), therefore, we flew from Sacramento to Houston, first class….. LOVE IT! I had forgotten what fun flying could be when you can actually fit in the seat and have a meal that required silverware. This leg of the journey is less comfortable, but the flight is nearly complete, so I guess I should sign off shortly.

Tomorrow we are having Mother’s Day Brunch with Jack’s mother and Grandma Gladys! I am so excited to see Grandma again; I didn’t think that was something I would get to do. She has been having a myriad of minor health issues, but at 96 you never know!!!

Hopefully I will get the time to write throughout the trip, and I am going to make more of an effort to participate in my own recovery – no seriously, II enjoy sitting down and tapping out a few lines, and I want to be more faithful to it.
Ciao for now

Well, it seems that this is our season for eating out, it seems we have been out to eat more often in the past two months than we have in years! Jack and I have had some amazing food out there too.

For our anniversary, yes seven wonderful years together, we went to Biba (http://www.biba-restaurant.com). I had been interested in going for a while, but had NO idea just how wonderful it was going to be. We started with Calamari Fritti, which was amazing, then Garganelli con la Zucca (Garganelli, a rolled tubular pasta with a ton of ridges to hold the sauce, with butternut squash, shallots, cream, nutmeg and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese) both of which we split and there was ample amounts for both of us, the pasta was perfect. For our entree Jack chose the 16 ounce rib eye and I had the veal medallions that were rolled with fontina and Prosciutto di Parma, the skewered and grilled. THEN for dessert we both had coffee Jack had Spuma di Cioccolata (a dense, rich chocolate mousse topped with whipped cream) and I had Tirami-Sú. We then proceeded to roll out to our car and made it home, having eaten, without question, the best meal of our lives.

About a week later, Stevan, a vendor I work with, was in town with his partner Roy. We took out the Grand Prix Convertible, picked them up at their hotel and we went to Lucca (http://www.luccarestaurant.com) where we shared appetizers of risotto cakes and capriccio. This is the first time since our trip to Boston I have had capriccio and it was WONDERFUL. In fact, both were great! Stevan and I both had chicken saltimboca, Jack had the rissoto, and Roy had the pene pasta. Everything was wonderful and the company was fantastic. It was one of those rare instances where you meet someone and feel as if you have known them for years. We were instantly comfortable with them and wished that they lived locally (though if we MUST we can go and visit them in Hawaii). After dinner we did a quick tour of the city, it was a beautiful night and having the top down was fantastic, then ended up at Rick's Dessert Diner (http://ricksdessertdiner.com/index.php) where we each had something decadent!

Additionally, we went out to Morton's (http://www.mortons.com/) with some friends, and we had a great time. Most of us had the "special" which consisted of your choice of a number of different items, we both chose the crab cake and steak with a side each and hot chocolate cake. Everything was very good, and we had a wonderful time with our friends! I even found a recipe for the cake and made my own. Can't wait to have someone over to dinner so I can repeat that, it is YUMMMY!

We also had a wonderful movie night where we showed a quirky dark romance comedy action adventure musical - Unconditional love, it was wonderful, and I highly recommend it!

Here we are on the eve of Thanksgiving, which we will be spending over at Scott and Todd's so I am looking forward to a nice day of doing next to nothing! I did go and buy a pound of fresh yeast so I can make croissants this weekend, I made Danish last weekend and for the amount of work that is involved, I would much rather make pain au chocolate!

Until next time, happy holiday!

Well... as if I hadn't been remiss by not posting for so long, now I am going to plagiarize this entry. Here is the e-mail blast that my husband put out earlier this week...(more later on our wonderful anniversary dinner, a must see movie, and dental work)


Hi there!

Surprise!!! We have a new member of the family... Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside or "Beau" for short. Monday night JT & I were watching TV and saw a commercial featuring a Bassett Hound, and I remarked how much I loved them, had had a couple a long time ago (Barnaby & Baron Freiherr von Gustav), and that I hadn't seen many since moving to California.

The next day I was goofing off online and on a whim looked at the "free" section on Craigslist (for the first time in months). A listing for "Bo" had been posted only 40 minutes before, so I answered it and found out he was right here in the neighborhood. It felt like fate was telling me something, so JT & I arranged to meet with Bo & his owner on Wednesday in the dog park to have Buster & Duchess meet Bo. Duchess was very tentative, and Buster was his usual aloof self, but no red flags went off so we made arrangements for me to pick up Bo (now Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside) first thing this morning.

All things considered the three kids are getting along fine. They played in the backyard for about half an hour, then came inside so "Beau" could check out his new digs. Buster has already accepted him as a brother, Duchess continues to look at me as if to say "what is HE doing here?" and three hours after bringing Beau home all three are sleeping. It is after all, a dog's life.

Hope you have a chance to meet Beau in the near future. Until then, here are a few of pictures!

Jack & JT

OK this is really well done!



Enjoy!

A line from Curtains "It's a pad de deux.....for two".