Good morning from back home

After a long trip home from Lake Charles, during which my ear felt as if an electrified ice pick was jammed into it, I stepped into my house around 11p last night. It was so nice to be here though I quickly realized just how much of a heathen-living-in-squalor my husband might become if he didn't have me in his life. This suspicion is easily extrapolative to most men as I'm sure many of my gal-pals would attest. Good god, man. All the clean dishes I'd left drying on the rack were starting to collect dust rather than sitting nicely in cabinets; the two enormous bags of toilet paper I'd made the boys clear from Percy's crate (yes, those multiple rolls they'd gleefully unrolled so as to procure the cardboard tubes inside) were just sitting by the garbage; the fridge looked exactly as I'd left it leading me to wonder if T had eaten anything but take-out pizza; the freshly laundered pillow sham cover that I'd left by the sham on which it usually resides (on the bed; on Tom's side of the bed!) as an experiment to see if T would actually take the three seconds needed to reapply it was now on the floor next to the naked pillow. I could go on, but you get my drift.

Nonetheless, the primary pets are alive (I wasn't going to tell you but I will that I found a hermit crab body on the floor of Jack's room this morning leading me to think that T did not properly flush Yoda but instead put him in the trashcan which was then knocked over by a bored cat OR we actually had more hermit crabs than I thought and one jumped the tank; I am DONE with hermit crabs), and I'm secretly glad that it's rainy outside today because I just won't be able to work in the garden (read: one less thing I need to do).

I am going to go to the market and cook a last dinner for the Grands before they move into a nearby assisted living facility. A jam session is in my future too and I need to attend my Italian class tonight. I really need to shave my legs but for now, it's coffee and quiet time!

Heading back to DC. Solo.

I am totally un-thrilled to be back on antibiotics, this time for a Eustachian tube infection. It's fun times in Em's body these days.Not.

Anyway, I've just said goodbye to my parents and sweeties and am soon to board flight one back to DC. It will be so quiet and easy, and I plan to nap and do some Italian homework that is hanging over me like a menacing cloud.

About that adult trike...at the water park the other day, I happened to look at the paved path running round the park's periphery; on it pedaled a woman atop a large, yellow tricycle with no handlebars. Honestly, it was an extremely odd contraption, and unless she was in some powerful core-based training, I am flummoxed as to what this ride was for. It didn't look fun, for example. Kinda hilarious.

Last night I made brandy-flambeed shrimp; zucchini gratin with salsa verde and jarlsberg; and a yellow and red plum tart atop a gluten-free crust I made for mom. The crust was a grand success, and I will definitely share the recipe with you (a combo of oat, hazelnut, potato, tapioca and brown rice flours). If you hadn't been told it was GF, you'd never have guessed; such is not always the case with GF baked goods!

Off to board. Here's another pic of Mr Egret I snapped but didn't see yesterday.

Early morning on the bayou

In our yard, and just across the bayou, there aren't usually more than two egrets out for early morning fishing. Today, though, it was a bonanza; at one time there were six or seven. They are such beautiful birds, as graceful and purposefully, perfectly predatory as a big cat. They never rush, their concentration is intense, and then whoosh- the long s-shaped neck juts straight out to grab a fish and hurriedly swallow it down. Here are just a couple photos I snapped this morning; I'm not terribly familiar with my mom's camera so these aren't my best, but you get a sense of the action in the midst of serenity we were gazing down upon.