Week 30

Here's your earworm for the week from 1985, which is the 80s-est year of the decade, in my opinion: Some Like It Hot. I was actually banned from singing/playing this song at home last summer, but on weeks like this, when it's HOT, I can't help it. (If you actually watch the video, check out the lady needlessly and irresponsibly shaving her armpits around 1:55.)

The grass is still growing, and we have more new blinds, this time in the bedroom. We're on a roll!

Tight quarters

It was a stinker of a week in some ways. Luna's still having intestinal problems so we took her to the vet. It's a bit of a mystery and feeling like a two-steps-forward-one-step-back situation with her right now.

Work was all over the place. We're hiring people, we're planning big things, there are giant dump trucks in what used to be our parking lot, and it felt like all the random other things hit me this week and I felt the impending deadlines of September. I was back to eating quick lunches in my office and missed my lunch hour picnics of late.

One last Friends Breakfast at Monique's place

I spent an evening and Saturday morning helping my friend move out of her apartment, which was bittersweet as she has lived down the street from us these past years and hosted Sunday morning breakfasts there most months.

Despite the heat and all the swirling thoughts, I'm able to calm my mind and cool off enough to fall asleep each night, which I am so very grateful for.

Looking up while dining al fresco downtown

Watching

It was a big week for the screen.

Joel turned on Turner and Hooch the other night after insisting my Tom Hanks education was not complete without it. I agree. Tom was in peak form here. But there's a reason I generally refrain from movies about dogs, and this one was no different.

We also finished GLOW, and I'm ready to say it's one of the best shows I've watched in years.

On Friday, we both felt somewhat brain-dead after work and a trip to the air-conditioned movies was about all we could handle, so we saw Sorry to Bother You. I was slower than Joel to come to the conclusion that I didn't think it was as great as critically reviewed to be, but I was completely engaged in a very confused way as I tried to decipher the allegorical tale.

Finally, I kept current on my lifelong love of Hugh Grant and watched the 3-part series A Very English Scandal. Hugh looked rather weathered indeed, and Ben Whishaw gave a great portrayal of a scorned lover who just wanted his frickin' National Insurance Card.

Reading

I finished Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. This one didn't hook me as much as the first two - it wasn't until the last 100 pages or so when I started caring about the characters again. Enough to probably read the fourth and final book in the series.

I'm also catching up on some new-to-me female authors, like Penelope Fitzgerald and Mavis Gallant. I've almost finished Fitzgerald's The Bookshop. It's a refreshing and charming change of pace.

There's just something about going to the library in the summer

Doing/Making

I stayed home from work on Tuesday with Luna and made great progress on my Francis sweater! I might even be able to finish it this week, which would be a record time for me. It will be very lightweight and breezy.

Recipes

I didn't even crack open the barbecue this week, which is a first since we got it. I did make a revamped version of BLT Bowtie pasta, though. It's a very simple recipe that entails sautéing chopped bacon till crisp, then frying garlic and rosemary in the bacon fat with a can of diced tomatoes, reducing with a little white wine, and greening up by adding fresh arugula at the end so it wilts with the bowtie pasta. You add the bacon back in, and then sprinkle with parmesan. But this time, I had some mozzarella pearls I added in instead, which I think was a much better match. Yum.