Take 5, D.

Week Notes, 2025-09-14

Weekly Features from September 8th - September 14th:

A fun weekend birthday celebration has come to a close, hence the reason for the one-day delay in posting. It was by far my highlight of the week that was, so let's dive into the recap.

✍🏼 Prior to my birthday, I wrote up some thoughts about turning 54 and published them on Thursday 09-11. I have plans this week regarding Step 15 in the list, so if they bear fruit, I'll talk about the results soon.

🎂 On the actual birthday of Saturday 09-13, L. and I enjoyed a lazy morning together. She surprised me with a 375ml of Lalo tequila blanco, as we are both trying to expand our palates and get around prior no-go zones from our youth. There's usually amongst alcohol enjoyers that one drink which does them in, whether by overindulgence or a harsh reaction or both, so they'll avoid it later on in their lives in spite of their palates maturing over time. While I never had a bad tequila experience, I will say many of them were strange as it's just a different feeling in my system than, for example, red wine or vodka. As a result, I really never sought out tequila for myself, but part of the birthday celebration involved challenging prior prejudices. This gift of Lalo was symbolic of what was to come.

🇫🇷 Dinner was held at Café Provençal in Kirkwood, MO, a restaurant (more like a French brasserie) that has been in business for over 30 years. We noticed several regulars showing up for dinner on Saturday night, which went a long way into explaining the longevity of this establishment. L. warned me ahead of time that we should look at small plates and salads/soups instead of a main course, as the majority of the dishes would be quite rich. While deciding, we saw neighboring tables receive their main course of Beef Wellington, and its size only reinforced L.'s warning. Instead of going big, I started with a French Onion soup, while L. had the Salad Betterave. Our small plates orders consisted of Crab Cakes, along with Scallops with Gruyère in White Wine Sauce. Both dishes were delicious, but the Scallops truly stood out. Dessert was a Lemon Tart and a Profiterole. We washed this items down with a glass of Crémant de Limoux, as sparkling wine goes with practically everything. The portions weren't large, but L.'s predictions of richness were spot-on.

🇲🇽 Our next destination was a ways off, allowing for us to digest our meals comfortably. French cuisine doesn't really challenge our perceptions, but our next destination would be: Monstera Mezcaleria. Visiting here would be the flip side to the gift of Lalo mentioned above, as we have been inspired by our upcoming vacation to reevaluate our view of Mexican spirits. We're not in our 20s anymore, so any experiences we may have had back then shouldn't count today. As for the establishment, they focus on mezcal and tequila in cocktails or flights, along with an offering of regional Mexican spirits like sotol, raicilla, bacanora, and charanda. The bar started out with a focus on natural wines, which they still serve and sell. The crowd there is understandably younger than either myself or L., so I suspect that our obvious ages may have given the bartenders some pause at first. We started with a cocktail, then eventually moved on to a flight of "introductory" mezcals. Our two favorites turned out to be the most expensive ones, at least when bought by the bottle: 5 Sentidos Espadín Capón (about $110), and the Real Minero Espadín (about $140). During our flight, we both turned around from our seats as we were overhearing snippets of conversations that sounded familiar to us, leading us to meet three people we both knew: one from L.'s job, and two women who work at Side Project Brewery. By the time L. and I left near midnight, our voices were pleasantly shot from long discussions with all of these folks. A successful challenge, met and conquered!

🪿 Or so we thought. The morning of Sunday 09-14 came in early, not because we were feeling the effects of the night before, but because of an errand we had to run. Back in mid-August, we made reservations to buy a concrete goose from a lawn ornament store in Tipton, MO. L. received a text from the seller on my birthday, saying that the order had arrived, so we made plans to make a 2.5-hour drive out to Tipton to pick up our new family member. We had originally thought about an early departure, as the seller only works weekends and closes at 4 PM on Sunday. The activities from the previous night put a slight damper on our departure time as neither one of us slept well. Our goal was to leave around 8:30 AM, but we got rolling out the door at 10 AM instead. Fortunately, the drive to Tipton along I-44 and US 50 was uneventful and light, and we arrived without incident at 1 PM. We picked up our new goose, secured him in the back, then reversed our drive and arrived home after 5 PM. Getting the goose inside our house was difficult, but we somehow managed it without injuries to ourselves or Gordie. So now, without further delay, here's the family portrait (from left to right: the "Untitled Goose Game" goose, Gertie the lady goose, and our new goose Gordie):

Gertie didn't have a name until yesterday as she was just "Goosie," but with Gordie's arrival, we felt she deserved a name of her own. In keeping with the spirit of the game, the "Untitled Goose" shall remain untitled.

💬 Beyond my birthday celebration, the week was otherwise quiet once you factor out the news out *waves hands* there. The only thing I'll say about last week's big news event is this: the reactions we're seeing from the media and government aren't so much a dress rehearsal for a bigger event, but a normalization of expected behaviors going forward. The goal will be, whenever this bigger event happens (and I guess it will happen in 2026), there won't be a need for such a strong reaction because it will be internalized by the population as a whole. No need to be chastised externally when you can chastise yourself with imagined consequences.

🧳 This week, I plan to nail down our flights to and from the Southwest in mid-November, along with the rental car reservation. We still don't have much of an itinerary for the vacation, but we can at least secure our transportation needs.

🆕 I will be providing further explanations for the media files I'm noting below. This week, I will be talking more about the--*spins wheel of fortune*--Reading links.

Other Things to Note from The Week That Was:

💫 Creating:

🏥 Health:

🎧 Listening:

🗄Organizing:

📖 Reading:

🌾 Socializing:

🧪 Testing:

📺 Watching:

🗃️ Work:

#Documentation #Life #Metablogging #WeeklyNotes