Happy Birthday Mac!

Happy birthday, mac!

So it is 4:40 in the morning and I've just got to accept that I am awake, but there will be no coffee until closer to 6:30. That's like, almost 5 hours? Maybe? After a long, but productive day of meetings, getting rather lost coming back (I am not a fan of being the navigator when my map is a tom-tom and I do not know the route and I've got a backseat driver with even less instincts than...well, the driver and OMG JUST LET ME DRIVE....wait.) and then a prix-fixe 3 hour, multi-course dinner with a a constant stream of rioja.

Let's see if I can recall it...One of the courses was scallops, and since I have a family history of an escalating allergy to them, last time I ate them I felt a little off, and I don't really like them anyway, they adjusted the menu for a couple of us. It was just easier to go no-seafood for us.

So:

• little chorizo sausages and bread
• white asparagus in olive oil vinagrette and peppers and onion
• fried goat cheese medallion with a spring salad mix (frise, argula and endive, I think) with a sweet onion marmalade and one that I think was cherry/apricot something. (This was a sub for the scallop in cava.)
• seared artichoke hearts with some sort of jamon strips (sub for baby squid stuffed with tentacles and onions)
• Solomillo (bloody, sweet, peppery rare beef tenderloin without any other seasonings)
• torrijas (cinnamon pan perdu) with a custardy ice cream flavored with orange
• a thing sheet of almond-flour 'cookie'

I can't believe how much we ate (and drank.) It was kind of obscene. Thank god our work site had beautiful, glorious mixed baby greens salad for lunch offerings. Don't get me wrong, the food here is awesome! I just need way more salad in my diet.

OK, It's almost 5. I can now reasonably expect to shower, review the route, look for a room for sunday here and likely thursday in Segovia; go out and get coffee in there somewhere. I can figure out how I'm getting there to Segovia later. Hell, at worst, I just ask the front desk.

In closing (at least until I run out of things to do first thing in the actually acceptable to call it morning now) : [link]

sarameg that sounds wonderful!

happy birthday mac!!!!!!1

and Owen writes better than a few free ebooks I've read

Happy birthday, Mac.

Kartheiser looks vaguely Wheatonesque in a beard.

Oh good. Not just me then. They both grew up in a kinda awesome but unexpected way.

wow, sarameg, that sounds like an awesome meal. (Although I would have gone for the scallops myself.)

I love scallops. But the whole meal sounds delish.

I edited to be more readable...

Even before I started feeling weird, I didn't much care for scallops, and I've tried them a few times. Most seafood is just not my thing.

OK, have directions down pat, and actually know the roadways, so I can get us out of anything.

And I've still got 2 hours.

Going to go see if that one place is open yet. Or maybe take in the sunrise... though that might not be soon enough.

Happy birthday mac! Hey, mac goes all the way up to 11!

Hurry hurry, that joke won't last, only 364 more days to use it.

Happy birthday, Mac! May 11 be a calmer year for you, kiddo.

Cash, I want to borrow Owen the next time I have to explains the basics of clear writing to co-workers. Which may be sooner rather than later.

so, Beau and I both lost our birth certificates (and my passport and our car titles) in what must be a major fuck up. I don't know when we lost our documents, but gone they are.

I had to get a passport ASAP so I had to go online and order a birth certificate from LA county. I paid an expediting fee, filled out the details, and then I had to go to my credit union to get a document notarized. I scanned that doc in and faxed it to the service. My birth certificate arrived in about 1 week.

Beau was born in NYC. So he went through (roughly) the same service to apply, but in NYC, they ask for key details like when you get an online credit report (which of these streets have you never lived on; which of these cities have you never lived). After answering these questions successfully, he paid the fee and he'll get the document.

I think these cities have interesting variations in how they will provide birth certificates. One needs a notary and the other, just answer security questions!