A problem with having a CSA is that it's 10:30pm and I need to go make pesto tonight before the basil goes bad.
Natter 68: Bork Bork Bork
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Or having the temp hovering at 90 and realizing that the thing that is best done with apples and zucchini is to make bread. DOH too hot!
Pesto accomplished.
I think I've been so focused on being a grown up today to ignore some of the deeply trashy news that's been hitting my inbox about deadbeat family members and people I knew in high school.
Zmayhem are back from an overnight trip to the Monterey Aquarium where we celebrated JZ's dad's round number birthday. All the kids and their partners flew in and I brought the grandkids and he was very surprised and very pleased.
Dinner was spectacular. Emmett had lobster mac n' cheese as a starter and filet mignon for the main course. I had the best duck ever cooked in some kind of port wine reduction.
And then today the World's Greatest Aquarium! Sea otters! Young Sea Otters playing two inches from your nose! Giant Pacific Octopus! Hammerhead sharks and penguins and mesmermizing jellyfish and moray eels in every shade and tufted puffins and a massive Ocean Sunfish (so ill-shaped) and elaborate seahorses named Weedy Dragons and sea turtles that we took pictures of for Jess.
Long drive back home and we're all wiped but it was great for Emmett and Matilda to see all their Aunts and Uncles and the mid-week excursion was a great success.
And then today the World's Greatest Aquarium! Sea otters! Young Sea Otters playing two inches from your nose! Giant Pacific Octopus! Hammerhead sharks and penguins and mesmermizing jellyfish and moray eels in every shade and tufted puffins and a massive Ocean Sunfish (so ill-shaped) and elaborate seahorses named Weedy Dragons and sea turtles that we took pictures of for Jess.
Oh, wow, seriously? They had a gigantic floating head on your visit? My one regret from my visit to Monterey was the absence of sunfish at that time. (More precisely, they claimed to have one, but it was a juvenile and not particularly distinguishable.)
Ryan is currently top of his childcare class in seahorse identification. I've lately been rereading this book: [link] Ryan can never pass up the chance to meditate upon its cover. (His mantra: "Seahorse!")
They had a gigantic floating head on your visit?
They did. It was huge and, well, really ugly. We all agreed it was the most ill-shaped fish we saw. Even uglier than some of the creepy crabs.
But impressively large and ugly. We got many closeup views of it. Emmett got some on his iPhone; I'll have him send me one to post.
I've lately been rereading this book: [link].
I just bought it. Anything that you are rereading and is a field that interests me, I know I should just get it. Thanks for the unintended recommendation, billytea.
Even uglier than some of the creepy crabs.
Do you mean the spider crabs? I do like the spider crabs.
Hey, which penguin species do they have at Monterey now? Melbourne has only two, but they're an impressive two: gentoos and kings. Taronga Zoo has a display of plastic friezes of all seventeen species, though they're limited to the little penguins in the live variety.
Oddly and inexplicably, there are penguins at a hotel near here. In Hawaii. It doesn't seem right. There are also flamingos and ibexes. All outdoors.