It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood
May 18, 2008
It was 80-something on Thursday, 90-something on Friday, and somewhere in between yesterday. The calendar may not reflect it yet, but summer has officially arrived here at casa de Andrew. The windows are open, Hanne and I are sitting outside (thanks, wireless and laptop), and I’m listening to alternating sounds of a woodpecker and news helicopters buzzing the waterfront for Barrack Obama’s speech going on right now. Hanne was hoping that since Oregon’s primary matters for the first time since…well, potentially ever, we should ry to hear either candidate speak if we had an opportunity. We had a lot of cleaning to do today, though, and it was pretty warm and we didn’t want to spend the late morning and afternoon standing in line, even if it was for a potentially historic opportunity.
Heh. I can actually hear him, from 17 blocks and a river’s width away. I can’t make out words, but I can hear his voice. How cool is that?
Last night Hanne and I did our first entertaining here at the new place with a bunch of people over for BBQ and homebrew. We asked people to bring their own meat or whatever they wanted to toss on the grill, but we had pasta salad, beef and veggie kabobs, grilled corn, grilled pineapple, and a few other things to go around. It went so well with the grill I acquired from my Mother that Hanne and I sat out back all morning looking for delicious grill recipes from my back issues of Bon Appetit magazine. We got a bunch of great ideas. Our plan is to fire it up a few times a week and cook more than enough food so that we’ll have leftovers. I made a steak for myself last night, but I didn’t finish the whole thing, so today I sliced what was left, tossed it on a bun with some grilled onions and peppers along with some cheese, and I had myself a cold Philly cheesesteak sandwich. It wasn’t quite as good as I hoped it would be. You know what would have made it better? Grilling it. Hanne would let me, though: we’re saving the grill for tomorrow night or so.
We’re having my family over next weekend, so we’ll probably have a repeat if the kabobs and I hope the pineapple, but we’ll do a few other things, too. I’m thinking I’d like to try a marinade I read about that uses beer and stone ground mustard, good for brats and sausages. I thought I’d throw some thin slices of garlic into them before I toss them in the marinade to see how that comes out. I also want to do some grilled polenta, whip up some sangria, and maybe grill some potatoes, too. It’s going to be great! Assuming the weather is as nice next weekend as it was this weekend, of course.
Hanne mentioned this morning that she liked our apartment before, but with the grill and our backyard area, now she loves it. I have to concur with her: it’s pretty incredible that we have this space at our disposal. I walked around and sprayed some homemade weed killer on the dandilions and other assorted weeds on the back patio,so hopefully they will have been cleared up by next weekend so the place looks a little better out here.
Still no word from Sheraton about my trip to New York, but I did get a copy of the background check they performed on me. Yay! No felonies or misdomeanors.
Tonight, aside from the usual Sunday evening laundry that occupies my time, Hanne and I will be sitting out here in the back and drinking white wine that the boyfriend of one of our upstairs neighbors brought us last night when he stopped by to have a kabob and some homebrew. No grilling, but we have plenty of leftovers to eat. I think that’s just about a perfect plan.
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