Er, maybe not.
Edgewater Beach Now
May not be the current picture. But you still get the idea.
Right in your own backyard
One of the most distinguishing features of the landscape and topography around here is the multitude of “knobs”. These are hills of hard rock that were created when the softer surrounding area was eroded away. They are usually long, narrow hills that rise from one hundred to three hundred feet above the surrounding terrain. They are great for light hiking, and I have developed quite a fondness for walking up and down them. In fact, now whenever I see one, I long to get to the top.
So I have been longing for the past year to climb a particularly handsome knob that stands behind the building of one of my clients. This week, while I was there, waiting for a meeting to begin, I finally asked “Who owns that hill behind the building?”
“Who owns the hill?”
“Yes. I have a hankering to climb that hill.”
“It’s a park.”
“Park?”
“Yes. A city park. There’s a civil war fort at the top. The path starts right over there by the building next door.”
I couldn’t believe it. Why had I not opened my mouth before? After the meeting, I walked next door, and sure enough, there was a historical marker and a few concrete steps that led up to a wide path. Turns out this path is the very Civil War road that was used to supply the fort at the summit.
When I reached the top I found not just one, but two Civil War forts, one of which is in surprisingly good condition for being 150 years old. You can also walk beside the very stone fence that Morgan’s raiders used during a skirmish upon this fort. Very cool.
When I returned to my office I mentioned my lunchtime reconnaissance to a co-worker who said “Yeah, it’s a nice place. If you like that, you should see the one just past our building. It has a nice spring at the top”. My jaw dropped. Nobody tells me anything!
Posted in History, Outdoors
Leave a comment
That’s 芋角 to you, neighbor
The Empress of China is a venerable Chinese restaurant down the street from our house. I don’t know how many years it has been there, but it came under new management late last year, and they freshened up the menu by adding dim sum.
CVH and I love dim sum when we’re hungering for Chinese, so we’ve taken advantage of this handy source. The congee soup is addicting, the rice crepes satisfying, and there’s really no substitute for a fried taro root when you really want one. We always order much more than we can eat at one sitting, and end up taking another meal or three’s worth home.
Today, after we had filled ourselves up with all the above, as well as shrimp stuffed eggplant and lettuce wrap chicken, the new manager came out to say hello. When our order had gone back to the kitchen, she’d asked if some Asians had come into the restaurant. Told no, she looked at our order again, and said “Oh, it must be them!” She said we were the only Americans (I knew what she meant) who asked for dim sum, but she didn’t know our names. We introduced ourselves, and said that we’d spread the news about their tasty dim sum to more people like us. Her thanks were clearly sincere, and I felt like an honored gringo.
Posted in Food & Eats
Leave a comment
French Impressionists
We got to see this famous Chagall
…are not my favorite art category. But we still enjoyed the current exhibit at the Speed Art Museum, “Renior to Chagall”, in part because CVH does like the impressionists and I like Chagall; plus they snuck in a Braque and a late impressionist Cezanne, which were more to my tastes.
There were some Degas ballet dancers, of course (the notes claimed he depicted them in over fifteen hundred works of his, which staggers the imagination), a couple of Gauguins, a Toulouse-Lautrec, and one of Mary Cassatt’s naked toddlers (why did she do so many of those, anyway?).
Posted in News from Louisville
Leave a comment
Chew every bite 100 times
Louisville participated in TEDx: Changing the Way We Eat today. Cities around the country joined with a master of ceremonies in NYC for presentations on promoting a sustainable food economy (cartoon below courtesy xkcd.com). I’m not so sure we can feed everyone in the world with organic food raised within 100 miles of their home, but we do like to support our local farmers here in Kentucky as a viable alternative to Chinese food. The people in Manhattan did point out that Louisville had the most people signed up for this conference of any other city in America. Who knew that we were such a hotbed of the food revolution?
We met with other local food-oriented folks, local food providers and retailers, and listened to the Mayor say this was a good thing for our city. Then we had a really delicious lunch.
(I’ve since noticed this “x” suffix on other acronyms; I think it means “not really”.)
Posted in Food & Eats, News from Louisville
Leave a comment
Craft Day
December twenty-seventh turned out to be crafts day at our house. Our daughter-in-law made tutus for the grandkids.
GC1 made a pepperoni pizza for lunch
In the kitchen with pizza dough and pepperoni slices
And she helped her mom make a couple of cool blanket-things like this one
Crafty Blanket In Front of Xmas Tree
Posted in News from Louisville
Leave a comment
The Frazier History Museum
The day after Christmas we went downtown and visited the Frazier. They had a special display of Christmas trees from around the world. GC1 had recently completed a school project on Christmas in Italy (they’re teaching them how to do PowerPoint presentations in first grade now), so we had to find the Italian tree.
We were also treated to an interpretation of the folk tale “Brave Martha and the Dragon”, as well as the true tale of Anne Bonney, a fascinating pirate of the 18th century Caribbean. Justin got to wear chain mail and a replica helmet that made him look like something right out of the Iliad. We even met Teddy Roosevelt (or a reasonable facsimile thereof).
CSA soldier?
Being the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, the museum had an exhibit on the “brother against brother” conflict that arose all too often in Kentucky, a state with split allegiances. I was looking through some period photos on display when I came across this one that looks an awful lot like my great-great-granduncle Konrad, except that I thought he had fought on the Union side.
Not to mention that I was surprised that they had color film back then.
Posted in History, News from Louisville
Leave a comment
Christmas Morning
Nothing quite like young children on Christmas morning. The eldest granddaughter (GC1) got up and immediately wanted to know if Santa had eaten the cookies and milk that had been left out for him. Once that fact had been established, then her attention turned to the stockings on the bookcase which had become (magically) filled with treats. Then, clearly, it was time to wake up her parents and get down to the serious work of opening all the presents. Soon there was a pile of boxes and wrapping paper as tall as her stacked up in the living room. Meanwhile, her little sister was having trouble with the concept that some of the presents were for her, while others were destined for other people. But eventually she had enough toys to distract her.
GC1 got this cool moon lamp that casts a dim, some might say moon-like, glow in a dark room and goes through the phases from full to new. I was jealous, but CVH said we were not getting one for the master bedroom. GC1 also received a fashion book; a couple of her creations are shown below.
Then, for the one thousandth time, we were treated to GC1’s favorite Christmas song, “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas”. Eventually GC2 got into the spirit and started dancing about the room, but stopped and protested when she determined that I was recording her. Apparently she has very strong feelings about bootleg videos of her performances. GC2 protests bootleg videorecording (wmv)
I gave my wife several romantic gifts, including a water filter and a meat grinder:
As well as a toaster. She was pleased.
I was blessed to receive books on CD for my long commute, and a t-shirt with basic Linux commands printed upside down on the front, so that if I get stuck while working on the computer, I only have to look down. Justin said it looked like something from “Big Bang Theory”.
"Lila"
"Baleiy"
Posted in News from Louisville
Leave a comment
Kalightoscope
All of us at Kalightascope 2011
Kalightoscope is a display of giant light sculptures handmade by Chinese artisans from Zigong. The kids got a kick out of the lights, the snow fairy, Santa’s village, and all the other trappings of the season. After seeing the lights, we sat down for some delicious gelato.
Grandchild Two as a Snow Fairy
Some of the giant ornaments on display
CVH and the Giant Nutcracker
In Kentucky, Santa arrives with thoroughbreds
Posted in News from Louisville
Leave a comment
A visit to the bird sanctuary
One Granddaugther meets an Eastern Screech Owl
The kids came up for Christmas weekend, and today we took them to visit the bird sanctuary where CVH volunteers. They got to see a barn owl, eastern screech owl, and a peregrine falcon up close and personal.
Now she meets a Barn Owl
After the visit, we took Grandchild One to the library to see if they had any books on birds of prey. I was amazed to see that they had about a dozen books on owls alone. We left with our hands full.
We all went out to lunch for dim sum. In general, this was well received, although not everyone’s appetite was whetted by the black egg congee, particularly once they found out what a black egg was.
Posted in Food & Eats, News from Louisville, Outdoors
Leave a comment