Today is the_sheryl's birthday. We celebrated, as we often seem to, at nearby Cava, with the usual array of dolmades, lamb kapama, fried Cthulhu calamari and other delicacies. Plus wine, and baklava and dark chocolate truffles for dessert. OM NOM NOM.

Happy Birthday, my dear! ::smooch::

[Edited 9:56pm to fix Cava link. A reminder to my friends not to drink and post.]

the_sheryl and I celebrated Valentine's Day (or Lupercalia, if you prefer) with a fine dinner at Ceiba. Sheryl ordered the Grilled Lobster Enchiladas (with spinach, sofrito, jack cheese, and Chili de Arbol sauce, I ordered Arroz Con Pato (duck breast, confit, Peruvian fried rice, and sauce huancaina), plus we both ordered Mixed Fresh Green Salads (with jicama, orange, toasted pumpkin seeds, and an aged sherry vinaigrette). Then churros for dessert. The vinaigrette for the salads was perhaps a bit too strong; other than that everything else was quite nomulent.

Those folks not entirely consumed by Boskone, Katsucon or Farpoint may want to check out their Carnaval promotion.

Since we've had more than enough chocolate through the house recently, and the furballs would demolish any flowers, Sheryl gave me the print collection of Lackadaisy and I gave her the "Going Postal" DVD. Which reminds me there are a few other Sir Terry DVD's we haven't gotten around to watching yet. Hmmm...perhaps we need to throw a Pratchett Party?

So this past weekend was my birthday. We hosted my traditional birthday party/housefilk on Saturday, which for once fell on my actual birthday. As is also traditional, the party was more talk than music; my playing "Key West Kitty" and "The Soundman" was pretty much the extent of the singing. But, much fun was had and more books and CDs were added to my respective reading and listening piles. We had a nice surprise in the form of folkmew, who was down visiting Marty Gear for a "sewing retreat". Also good to see "Uncle Vlad" back in action.

On Sunday we zipped up to Baltimore for suecochran's party. We hung out for a couple of hours, then came back to Rockville where the_sheryl took me out for a birthday dinner at the nearby branch of Cava.

Last night we continued the celebrations at Seasons 52, this time with my mom treating us to dinner. Amusingly, Sheryl and I both ordered the same dish, a Maple Leaf Farms Sesame Duck Chop Salad which included apples, mint, cranberries, butternut squash and toasted pecans. Very good. Finished off dinner with one of their "Mini-Indulgences" desserts, opting for a seasonal pumpkin pie topped with a ginger cookie.

Back from a pleasant weekend in NYC. We stayed at the Hotel Indigo in Chelsea and the Flower District. I booked the hotel for $60 a night plus Priority Club points. The room was small, with just barely enough room to navigate around the king bed, desk, armoire, and easy chair with side table. But it was decently comfortable and one block from the 28th Street 1 Line station.

Saturday we got together with nsingman and jungle_goddess. They took us to Pars, a Persian restaurant on 25th Street, for an enjoyable lunch. I had an eggplant stew with saffron rice, and we shared a bunch of appetizers including dolmeh. I topped off the meal with a berry tartlet.

After lunch we walked over to the 6 Line and rode uptown to the Museum of the City of New York. We saw an exhibit of transportation toys, a series of displays showing various styles of furnishing from the 1800’s, and an exhibit on the American Colonial Revival in architecture and furnishings in the early 1900. We also saw a 20-minute multimedia presentation summarizing the history and growth of New York City.

In the evening we headed to the Upper West Side to have dinner with Sheryl’s brother and sister-in-law and see our two nephews and our niece. We had not seen any of them since May 2010, which was the last time we both were in New York. Sheryl’s parents also came down from Norwich to spend the night. We didn’t get too much time with our niece because she got tired and melted down shortly after we got there and was put to bed. But we got to hang out with the rest of the gang and watch some baseball and part of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. A large dinner was ordered from a place called Big Nick’s that offered just about every sort of food you could want (burgers, pasta, burritos, pizza, and so on). It took over an hour to be delivered and they left out Sheryl’s turkey burger. But the food itself was decent, once it all arrived.

On Sunday we met batyatoon and sdelmonte for lunch at My Most Favorite Food, a kosher restaurant also on the Upper West Side. We stopped on the way at 67 Wine, which is actually on the corner of Columbus and 68th Street, to pick up a kosher wine for Rosh Hashanah dinner. It turned out MMFF had a 30-minute wait, but we weren’t starving yet so we put our name in and retired down the street to Riverside Park and a convenient bench. We started back to the restaurant just as they called sdelmonte’s cell phone to let us know our table was ready.

The food lived up to its billing. I had a spinach quiche and salad, and the four of us split desserts of lemon meringue pie and marjolaine. It was a very pleasant lunch and good conversation was had.

After we split off from batyatoon and sdelmonte we headed down to Greenwich Village to check out Partners & Crime mystery bookstore. I was hoping to find the most current of Donna Leon’s Brunetti series but they didn’t have it in. I did pick up Suspension by Richard E. Crabbe, a historical novel about Confederate saboteurs trying to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Then we returned to the hotel, picked up our suitcases which we’d stashed with the bellman earlier in the day, and headed for Penn Station and our train home.

Got back late last night from our annual holiday weekend jaunt down to the_sheryl's parents' condo in Boynton Beach. As usual, the weekend was mostly spent eating and watching TV. I must report that we did not engage in the sacred Jewish tradition of Christmas Eve dinner in a Chinese restaurant. It turned out the Chinese buffet down the street from the condo had as many people waiting outside as were dining inside. So we settled for a new Thai restaurant across the street. It was very good though.

It's been a running joke that our TV watching in Florida consists of marathons of James Bond movies and America's Funniest Animals episodes. We managed to branch out quite a bit this year. Our viewing pleasures included several episodes of Mythbusters, parts of two Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce-era Sherlock Holmes movies ("Sherlock Holmes Faces Death" and "Pursuit to Algiers"), all but the first 10 minutes of "The Great Escape", two episodes of "Extreme Thrill Rides" (paging starmalachite and blueeowyn), and two episodes of "Man vs. Food". The latter clued me into noted Las Vegas (and, apparently, San Diego) institution Hash House a go go. Among numerous other delicacies, they appear to serve flapjacks the size of automobile hubcaps. I'm going to be in Vegas shortly for the International Builders Show; I do believe Hash House will be on the menu!

We did sneak out to the movies on Christmas Day. Since there wasn't anything playing that all four of us could agree on, we picked movies that started and ended close to the same time. This notched us a showing of "The Princess and the Frog". I enjoyed it. I definitely want the soundtrack. Of the previews, only "Toy Story 3" had any sort of appeal. The other two were "The Last Song" (NO) and "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" (HECK NO!)

Got down to Boca Raton to have lunch with my just-turned-97-years-old grandfather. He took us to a deli across the street from his complex. Those of you who were at our wedding may recall him and his brothers tearing up the dance floor. He's still doing it. He was planning to go out dancing later on the day we visited. This after a couple of cortisone shots to his knee.

Flights (on JetBlue) weren't too bad, and security coming home was surprisingly light, given the events in Detroit. Our rental car ended up being a bright blue PT Cruiser. I can't say I was particularly impressed. I think there was something about the height (and position) of the seat relative to the pedals that caused me to use thigh muscles I don't usually use while driving. Said muscles were not happy about this. (The general lack of physical activity during the weekend didn't help either.)

Anyway, we're back home; the cats seem to have mostly forgiven us, other than Nova starting her morning routine at the bedroom door a bit earlier than usual. I have the rest of the week off, though I have a long to-do list so I can't be a complete slacker.

Today was FSGW's Midwinter Festival (formerly the FSGW Mini-Fest) over at Takoma Park Middle School. An interesting mix of stuff this year. We started the day at the Pub Sing, where we stumbled our way through "Old Black Rum" and "Old Dun Cow", respectively. (Neither of us had actually planned to sing anything, but it was a fairly small circle.) After lunch (Subway, serving out of the school's cafeteria line) and some CD- and merchant-browsing (but no buying), we wound up in a doumbek workshop. Thanks to House of Musical Traditions for their shrewd marketing ploy of letting the workshop borrow their stash of doumbeks.

Next up were The Chromatics, who we had not seen in a long time. They have a new album, "Committed", which we acquired. I was amused that their youngest member, whose day job is architecture (rather than astrophysics), wrote a song called "Suburban Dream", a wry look at the ups and downs of suburban living, long commutes, McMansions, and other modern diversions. An excellent set, as always, with favorites like "Doppler Shift", "Buns and Muffins" and "Dance of the Planets" among the songs. Their mid-song antics are getting increasingly creative and amusing. Especially their set-closing cover of "Safety Dance", in which they throw in little tidbits of many other dances including the Hokey-Pokey, Macarena, and Chicken Dance. For those locals not Boskone-bound, they are performing at Farpoint.

After the Chromies set, we hung around the same room where Flawn Williams led an hour of doo-wop songs. This is a workshop that's been smashingly popular at the last couple of FSGW Getaways. Lots of predictable offerings including "Blue Moon", "Under the Boardwalk", and "Poison Ivy". Lots of lively audience participation.

For dinner we went to Sushi Damo, a recent addition to the dining options in Rockville Town Center. It being a cool night, we started with tea and miso soup. Us being hungry, we then proceeded to demolish three rolls: a standard Rainbow roll, a Sakura roll (shrimp tempura and cucumber in the roll; spicy tuna, tobiko and sauce on top), and a Haru roll (Plum, cucumber, and squid in the roll; ooba leaves on top--eat Cthulu before he eats you!).

While dining, we could (partially) see the TV in the bar area showing ESPN SportsCenter, with captions. The anchors, of course, are in Phoenix for the Super Bowl. One of them was expounding on the beauty of the area, particularly a certain well-known topographic feature in the city. The closed-captioner identified this feature as "Campbellback Mountain". *facepalm* *headdesk*

So, a QUESTION for my readers: How many songs can you think of that would qualify as Filk Doo-Wop?