Something for (and from) my grill friend

Yesterday, Valentine's Day, was our "other" anniversary; we met at a Valentine's Day dance in 1961.

Since this was the 50th anniversary, the golden one, I of course set out to find a golden heart piece of jewelry. Predictably, it was almost all high-schooly stuff, a 14-carat gold heart with I WUV U scraped onto it by a robot pantograph. I did manage finally to find a heart-shaped necklace with gold underneath a few modest diamonds.

I know what Gay got me, though it hasn't come yet – an equally expensive gift made of glass rather than diamonds. The Ultima Thule of low-power wide-field telescope eyepieces, the 31-mm Nagler Type 5, a "space-walk" eyepiece with an 82-degree field, flat to the edge. It will be great on the 9.25", and when I'm well enough to haul out the 12" again, it should be a miracle-maker.

Went out on an anniversary bike ride and came back with a couple of modest filets mignon to put on the grill. They were absolutely perfect. Grilled them to about medium rare and served them with potatoes and fresh artichokes. Weird ice cream for dessert, a Ben & Jerry's mixture with broken-up candy bars.

Then we went to see an interesting movie, Casino Jack, a biopic about the powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Kevin Spacey does a kind of postmodern Shakespearean turn on this sleazy Republican power broker – so confidently in charge of his life and so much a helpless chip bobbing in the currents of history. Well, he may have changed history, for the part he played in keeping the Bushes in power.


Going into surgery Thursday to re-attach the large intestine to the ileum. Not trivial but not particularly perilous. A few weeks of discomfort afterwards, but I shouldn't be in the hospital more than a week.

Joe