salade de Jours d'été (Salad days of summer)

A couple of weeks ago while the Guads sans Nice were in town we hosted a Saturday night barbeque. For as long as I can remember, every Saturday night my parents would have steak-night. When I was younger, before my palette was refined, I decided I didn't like steak so my mother would let me accompany her to Dan's for grocery shopping. I would be allowed to choose what I wanted for dinner on Saturday - I would choose really fancy meals like spaghetti-o-s or a T.V. dinner. Eventually I learned to appreciate a finely barbequed steak and was included in on the festivities. Even my friends want to be a part of steak night. My dad would allow them to join us for steak night if they completed their assigned chores. Everyone worked for steak night.
Steak night is not just about the steak, you see - it is the side dishes that make the magic happen. The sour dough garlic toast grilled on the barbie, the fresh salad (not from a bag) complete with avocado and then there is the piece de résistance, the sautéed mushrooms made with a recipe so secret not even me, his own daughter knows…. (not really, he will share the recipe it’s just so much better when he makes them).
This is not a meal for the faint of heart – literally – if your cholesterol is over 180 you are not invited. Remarkably, after all of these years enjoying the spoils of steak night, my cholesterol remains steady at 138.
Here is a picture of the masterpiece. It was impossible to finish this in one sitting. It took a couple of days to enjoy. As we had special guest, grilled shrimp was also on the menu.













Here is a picture of the gang at dinner.

The kids went to the basement to look for the tennis racquets or horse shoes to play in the back yard and came up with my clubs:

The Faces of Summer!

J'ai eu la chirurgie d'oeil (I had eye surgery)

Yes, it's true - I did it again on June 26 - stitches in the eye, extreme sensitivity to light, horrible headaches and all... I went to the eye doctor for a prescription for glasses. Unfortunately the vision had significantly worsened in my left and, as expected, this caused some concern so the doctor ran some additional tests and determined that I would need a corneal wedge resection to correct the massive astigmatism that had formed.

I am sending this post via e-mail so I am not sure how this link will translate http://optometry.com/lasik.html#dark.

If you don't want to read the long and complicated explanation of what he did to me I will give you the short version. My doctor cut a small, triangular piece of my cornea out and then stitched my cornea back together. It sure was a treat. The drugs during the surgery weren't as good this time but the drugs after were grrrreat.

Now, as I am going through the healing process again, I am sitting here at work with one good eye wearing a visor to cut the glare of the florescent lights.

Did I mention I had stitches in my eye....?

 

Naissance (Birth)

Last night I watched one of the most painful movies I have ever seen. While I have not had a child I think that Natural child birth would be a more pleasant experience then watching ‘Birth’ starring Nicole Kidman.
3 main reasons I absolutely hated this movie. I have more than 3 reasons – let me know if you would like me to elaborate further.
1-Her haircut. Nicole had a horrible haircut. Some people can pull off the elf-like short hair cut – not Nicole. I couldn’t even find any pictures on the web of her with this haircut – it must be so bad that nobody wanted to post one. Just a personal opinion but with her being the lead character I had to look at the horrible haircut an awful lot.
2-Length of shots. There are some shots in this movie that go on FOREVER without any dialog – there will be some background music playing building the moment I guess – but how long does it take to build a moment? In one scene, the main character, Anna, is at the symphony or the ballet or some sort of cultural event that lots of rich people attend. The camera zoomed in on her face and just stayed there – An educated movie watcher would know that she was starting to really consider the possibility of this 10 year old kid being her husband and it was really causing her some internal struggle. I got it. I got it 30 seconds into the shot – how much time did the director or whoever did the editing think I would need to get it?
3- Creepy. I won’t go into any details but the story goes a little too far for me trying to develop the possibility of a marital relationship between Anna and this kid. It was not convincing at all.
I am not a picky movie watcher. I am very easy to entertain. It takes a great deal for me to absolutely hate a movie. It is safe to say that this movie and the movie Madonna starred in, ‘The Next Best Thing’ are two movies that I absolutely hate.