Like booze barrels, wooden hot tubs leak when new. Until the staves swell with water over days to turn watertight, they can lose a lot of liquid. I’m trying a novel method to seal ours using much less water than typical. Here’s the mist chamber we devised (with my busted, fried voice narrating):

In the garden this morning, tidying up before the rains (just bins of basil and fallen calamansi) my idling mind drifts into music and I find myself thinking of MC nomenclature (Stereo, sucka, Young, Hammer, those with the most flavor, etc).

KFC hired multiple actors to play “the Colonel” in ads. New Bond films ought to follow suit. Start obvious: Idris Elba or Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Will Poulter. Push the boat out a bit. Emma Thompson. Barrowman. Then unleash Alan Carr and Danny Trejo. Perhaps simultaneously. The Brothers Bond.

Finished a manuscript. Put my usual thumbprint on the final page. Might’ve gotten carried away with the green ink.

Dublin graffiti. “One honest conversation can change everything.“ Mind you, a dishonest conversation can to do the same.

Taqueria counter clerk: Where have YOU been? Me: Mexico. 14 days. Clerk: You eat any good food? Me: I ate almost nothing BUT good food. Clerk: Hell, yeah.

Smaller vendors can be smart choices for plenty of reasons—including price. The Adobo Book (2004), a compilation of Filipino adobo recipes. $8 for a secondhand Thriftbooks copy; Amazon lists it new for over $90. Bonus curator’s trick: a little Goo Gone will lift that spine sticker right off.

I did not mind, at first, sharing space under the shelter of an oversized umbrella with the beach dog. But as he slept in the gravid, enervating heat of Zipolite, his flanks heaving with fitful dreams, he’d kick waves of sand my way. Eventually, we parted on cordial, if somewhat cool, terms.

It was Ludwig van—9th symphony, 4th movement. ALEX: Stop it...stop it, please! I beg of you! It's a sin! It's a sin! It's a sin, please! Brodsky leans forward and turns down the sound. DR. BRODSK: What's all this about sin? ~ A Clockwork Orange (1971 Stanley Kubrick script)

A few months ago, some sneakerhead on IG mentioned Dawn Powerwash for cleaning scuffed shoe soles. Not my scene, but I filed the thought in my memory shack. After 14 days of walking around dry, dusty Jalisco and Oaxaca, 40 seconds or so of spray & scrub did a bang-up job of cleaning my manky shoes.

Good morning, San Diego.

Oaxaca airport. Small. Ten gates. Crowded. Travelers sitting and lying upon the floor. Husband, realizing that dozens of seats hold others’ purses, backpacks, carry-on bags: Surely people wouldn’t just— Me: There is no more “surely.” Only what is. Fuxache. Here we are. Terminal realpolitik.

This Scotter implies the existence of the Scottest and I am, for the moment, foxed as to who that may be. Capaldi? Tennant? Maybe Karen Gillan or Billy Connelly? Hmm. I’m putting down Robert Carlyle as a placeholder. That feels right and proper.

This condo has a pool. This pool has a condor. (I don’t actually know what sort of buzzard this is, but right on the coast of Puerto Ángel, Oaxaca and for the sake of reflection, I went with condor. Feel free to correct if you have relevant avian knowledge).

Frolic? Me? In the surf? No, no, no. In all that sun? GTFO. I have other plans.

If there’s something strange on Mustafar, Who you gonna call?

“What the hell,” says my husband at the sight of a dead pufferfish on the beach, “is THAT?“ “That,” I elucidate, “is a dead pufferfish on the beach.” “Don’t,” I advise, “touch.”

A tumble of tamales for your dining pleasure. 📍 El Mercado 20 de November Oaxaca de Juárez

Dia de Muertos Outside Xochimilco cemetery Oaxaca, Mexico

After not having touched my LinkedIn account for the better part of a decade, the firm’s AI move was the nudge I needed simply to delete the account. It’s also reminded me to hunt down and 86 all my other old zombie accounts. Autumn cleaning.

Cobblestones Calle José López Alavez Oaxaca de Juárez

Molotes de plátano con coloradito at Ancestral Cocina Tradicional in Oaxaca. Delicious. A shout goes up from one table. I don’t quite catch it. The restaurant erupts into cheers. Husband: I don’t suspect many Mexicans are Toronto fans. Mr: Ah, *uck. I was rooting for them Jays.

And a very feliz jalowin to you, one and all.

Afternoon drinks at De la O, a sorta-tiki cantina in Guadalajara when my husband—who is not part of the food/drinks world and doesn’t necessarily know our ways—exclaimed with surprise: “They use the SAME blue tape on their bottles that YOU do!” Prolly two or three other places do, too.

Encacahuatadas for breakfast at Café PalReal, Guadalajara: blue corn tortillas filled with requesón and nopal, drowned in peanut sauce with cream, red onions, avocado, slices of radish, and cilantro.

Tijuana airport. Headed to Oaxaca for Dia de Muertos, but first: a few meals in Guadalajara.

A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) by Walter M. Miller Jr.

Chanterelle season. These were meant for risotto, but husband came home with a couple of thick bone-in pork chops. Quick change of plans, sautéed with bacon fat and butter, a deniable amount of cayenne, deglazed with vermouth, enrobed with cream. Success. A few left uncooked for a morning omelette.

After hearing the term ‘yacht rock’ for years and having only a vague sense of what it entails, I’ve caved this morning and decided to learn. “Maybe I’ll like it,” I thought. Me, clicking through yacht rock playlists:

Costco now sells top round sliced for milanesas. I bought 2 kilos, flattened each slice with my trusty Schnitzelklopfer, and turned them into German rouladen, stuffed with Benton’s bacon, onion, carrot—and pickles. Seared, braised in red wine sauce. Here, slathered with mustard before filling.

Scratch paper 📍 North Park public library San Diego, California.

Yesterday Me in charge of buying the beef and Tomorrow Me in charge of eating the beef, arguing over who’s going to cook the beef.

Too few places serve frozen margaritas in schooners. Just an absolute cudgel of a drink.

Kurumon market dabbles in the Halloween spirit. Osaka, Japan October 2024

Contractor on a house project submitted his final invoice this morning $6,375 under budget. Ladies and gentlemen, we have landed squarely in Alice’s Law territory.

Banana custard ice cream strewn through with Red Hots candies. Looks like a tub of smallpox.

Oh, ho, ho, I bet there is.

Drinks and dinner last night with a drinks industry friend at Happy Medium, San Diego. Polite boy at the bar patiently waits for staff to notice him and take his order.

I take photos of notable manhole covers when traveling. Japan has a load of cool ones, even painted in gaudy colors, but the US is no slacker when it comes to iron design. Leta see more. Post ‘em if you got ‘em.

Ribs (pleura removed, flanken cut, then into 1-2 rib sections), honey, oyster sauce, hella garlic, black pepper, star anise, Aleppo pepper, and sea salt. Roast at 350°F/180°C for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Is good.

Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean.

Checking in online for an upcoming doctor’s checkup. The intake form asked me to consent to their notetaking app without mentioning that it’s AI. I see every week examples of how inept, how genuinely bad, AI text generation is. Consent? LOL. No. GTFO. Not trusting that with anything important.

Madder occasionally shows up in very old drinks receipts for imparting a red hue. Cochineal (the insect-derived red of cardinals’ vestments, kings’ robes, and, until vegans got wind of it, strawberry Frappuccinos) came later. Nice to see this.

Mexico trip coming up. Guadalajara (first time) and Oaxaca (a repeat). Checking in with friends, Instagram, etc., as I research food options, but some old timey printed matter isn’t out of place.

A turn in the weather. Wool and flannel now. Persistent damp. Grey. This morning‘s reading (with a stein of hot tea as a ward against the chill): Michael Viney’s A Year’s Turning. For 40+ years, Viney was a columnist for The Irish Times. Essays on his rural life in County Mayo, home of the Rowleys.

Compared to my usual delightful cocktail of half Vladimir Wankoff brand drugstore vodka and half flat Diet Coke, this 15 year old pot-still Irish whiskey lacks complexity and depth.

Me, seeing them Portland frogs.

Work continues on the new hot tub. Smells like a cedar forest. When I stay out there, the smell fades to nothing, but every time I come out after being inside, the aroma lands like a sledgehammer blow. I love it. Next job: power washing and oiling the mangaris deck to bring out its deep, red hue.

Akabu Shuzo sake to begin a three-hour omakase at Yakitori Tsuta in San Diego. The skewers were all chicken (skin, tail, neck, thigh, butterflied wings, heart, and more.), but small dishes included fig, cucumber, black sesame tofu, smoked duck, steamed custard, ramen, etc. Outstanding meal.

Autumn garden projects. Tending to a neglected and now rootbound Kentucky Colonel mint, a spiral of potential. Might cut into pieces and re-pot. Looks like crown. King of the juleps, I am. Well. On this block, anyway. I know a contender or two for the crown.