Your Mama

Another lovely weekend in the books, too bad it had to come to an end. The parental units were in town this weekend for a visit and so we could celebrate Mother's Day. Deb kept the parents busy/entertained in her yard, taking care of some landscaping, an activity for which my dad has shown a high level of aptitude. It has gotten to the point where I could show him the pictures I have taken wandering around the neighborhood and he could identify most of the plants.

I want to plant some of this with the flowers and the leaves and stuff.


. . . and some of the stuff that looks like grass, but more . . .


Yeah, and some of the green stuff with the little purple flowers.


He did tell me what just about all of it was, but I forgot already . . . . any help? I'd like to continue wandering around the neighborhood with the camera, taking pictures of the things that I like and that might work well in the backyard come planting time. I did make some progress and some use of the truck on Friday, loading up and disposing of all of the things that are just in the way.


With a little assistance, I got much of the backyard cleared up. Now I just have to mow down all the weeds before they go to seed and move a bunch of dirt and figure out what I am doing. If anybody wants to make a detailed landscape plan that say "just plant this here" . . . the yard is yours!

Friday night, we headed out for some grub with the intention of trying a new place, but ended up at a different new place than intended. After finding Lala's Wine Bar and Pizzeria all sorts of packed and loud, we wandered down the street to Bones which was packed in its own right, but we were willing to grab a drink at Luca D'Italia and wait. It was well worth the wait. Everything we had was excellent from the shoshito peppers to the various noodle bowls. I'm a sucker for a simple dish executed well with flavors married and mixed to the point that you find yourself trying to get the last drops out of the bottom of the bowl.

Saturday was race day and the racing went very well for the team. Brian, Chuck, Zac and I covered or instigated many of the early moves and even found ourselves in some that had some potential, but with the wind not being much of a factor, it would have taken the perfect move to stick. Brian and I covered a late move that could have been dangerous and Chuck and Zac worked well to get Chuck across the line first. Always nice when you put in efforts and your teammates make it all worthwhile. Next weekend's races will be a bit more of a test with a nasty hill climb on Saturday and one of the toughest crits on Sunday.

We finished the weekend off in style, taking my mom out for a delightful Mother's Day brunch at Olivea before shuttling them back to the airport. It had been a while since I had seen the parents and they hadn't seen any of the goofy projects and silliness that constitutes my life so it was nice to show off the progress. My mom will be back in town again in the fall before I scoot off to Austria for Masters' Worlds . . . I'll have to see if I can get anything done between now and then.