I always hate the feeling of realizing I am 8 days into a 9-day vacation from
work, even when I didn't go anywhere or do anything special.
Yesterday was nice, though. We spent the morning working on the
boats with She-Hulk. (I did point out that most men do not wake up at 5 AM on the
day of their tenth wedding anniversary to go off and meet another woman. She-Hulk
said, "But it's a rowing thing!") They disassembled the double and put on some new
parts while I washed and waxed my single and Rudder's. We spent the middle of the
day doing nothing much, went to a party in the late afternoon and chatted with a
bunch of other rowers, then went to
href="http://www.royalpalmshotel.com/tcooks.htm">T. Cook's at the Royal Palms
resort for our anniversary dinner. It's been voted the Most Romantic Restaurant in
town, with which I'd have to disagree; it was light and bright, with an open barn-
ish layout. No privacy to speak of. But it was attractive and the food was
inventive and very good. Rudder was happy because it was also filling and the
portions were of reasonable size -- nouvelle cuisine is his idea of a Bad Idea. He
did claim it still didn't measure up to Commander's Palace in New Orleans, but
while that might be true, I question the accuracy of ten-year-old restaurant
memories. At any rate, both T. Cook's and Commander's Palace are among the
country's best, by all the ratings I've seen. If anyone cares, we split a warm
asparagus and a tuna carpaccio appetizer, both with morels. Both tasty. He had an
heritage tomato and mozarella salad, followed by a rib-eye steak, while I had
lobster with lobster-filled tortellini and more asparagus. They also served us
excellent bread and very fresh pesto with it. We had glasses of an Oregonian
Cabernet and a New Zealand Merlot, and finished with decaf, since we had a bottle
of sparkling Shiraz and Godiva truffles waiting at home.
Afterward,
we climbed up on the roof with the Shiraz and the truffles, a blanket and cups to
watch the fireworks. This was a little bit of a challenge: it's a two story house
but the garage roof is one one story and it's possible to get frm there to the top
of the house -- though rendered a little more difficult when carrying a bottle of
wine and squishable chocolates. The Shiraz was a disappointment, but we were able
to see about eight different fireworks shows. All but two were distant and behind
trees, and even the two best were rendered smaller than I'd have liked by
distance, but it was still fun just being up there, even despite the horrible
oldies-and-baddies soundtrack drifting over from a neighbor's
party.
The fireworks shows can best be described as "too long" but
that's a rant for another time -- and one I think I've already ranted.