Friday Night

The Empress, on Thursday, caught a ride to Madison and I picked her up at the West Town Mall. Thursday night is none of your business and most of Friday involved me going to work and her staying in the room.

However, after I got back from work we jumped in the car and I gave her a whirlwind tour (plus I had some paperwork to deliver) of my Madison. This involved the paperwork delivery and then a ride to the office where I was working last fall and then worked our way back to the West side and showed her where the current client is. Then we went to the room and I changed into something more comfortable.

Got back in the car and went up Gammon Rd., drove her past an old haunt of mine the (the house was that of a college roommate, don't know if his folks are still there are even if they are still alive we have not had regular contact now for eons). Then when we hit University Ave. we took a right turn. I love that road and I have many memories of University Ave. One of them was stopping at the McDs by the round building after the Pink Floyd Concert (yeah it probably wasn't the best way for us but it was the dir we got headed and I knew where I was going, and a reminder to at least one reader that was 18 or so years ago) to that one morning I had to walk back from some sorority house (nothing of significance happened) to my buddy's place off of Gammon Rd.

Well, I turned into the parking garage I recollect we always parked in and found meters. We left and found another one and that one too had meters but I had enough of the driving I was itching to hit State St, so I fed in about four+ hours worth of quarters, better safe than sorry.

The garage was near the Capital and opposite from State St, eventually we worked our way around and got on State St. Hehhehe, we passed Kathleen Falk's campaign headquarters right next to the Capital and I was NOT tempted to go in and inform them I was a JB/Paul fan. There were people at work in the Falk campaign headquarters.

So we get to State St. and start looking for a place we ate at the last time we were in the area. It was a Middle Eastern sorta Arabic place. Eventually we found it and it is Husnus. Husnus is actually a Turkish joint but there are many similarities between Turkish and Arabic. So we sat down and ate. I had a lamb dish and the Empress had a chicken dish. Both were very good, the gin and tonic I had was a touch strong but the lime in the drink didn't seem out of place (I have had gin and tonics in Madison that should have come with an olive instead of a lime). As I said the lamb dish (Lamb Pide) was good, it came with some bread so I could use the bread to get it started down my alimentary canal without using my utensils (this really is the best way to eat dishes like that). The chicken couscous was very good too, if you stop in Husnus (and I suggest you do) you will not go wrong with the pide or the couscous dishes.

All the usual players were there. Street musicians playing a variety of instruments, steel guitars, German flutes, and saxophones (this is the penultimate street music instrument). Of course also present were people shaking cups at us and asking us for some spare change.

Well we finished our dinner and left the joint. We walked down the street and wondered on over to the Terrace. A jazz band was playing and while that was nice it was crowded and I didn't feel like hanging out there. We continued along Lake Mendota's shore on the bike path and we walked for a good half-hour or so and then turned around. It was a beautiful evening to do so such a thing. The weather was pleasant, the sunset was nice, while there was a hatch on (what lake doesn't have a daily hatch during the summer?) no bugs were biting. We returned to the Terrace took care of some biological needs and then went back to our car.

The police, rescue squads, and fire fighters were very busy. The parking lot at the Terrace had some police officers and rescue squad people attending to someone. As we walked back up State St. the wail of sirens was commonplace.

We got back into our car and found ourselves on John Nolen and back to the Beltline for our trip back to our hotel room. Tomorrow a recap of SA and then some commentary on an Appletonian's view of Madison.

Marcus In Arabia: The Ubiquitous Chinese Restaurant.

Ah, Arusha!

The safari center of Tanzania. There are other areas of safari action in Tanzania but Arusha is the biggest one. Their most famous parks are around Arusha. Mt. Kilimanjaro is nearby as well. Yes, there is a Chinese Restaurant in Arusha. Where is there not?

Anyway as I noted before we were not in a hurry to hire guides. We shopped around for a couple of days and focused on the Mt. Kilimanjaro climb first. As is usually the case we did some souvenir shopping as well. There were all sorts of people on the streets ranging from locals to far out foreigners (I may have been a foreigner but was not far out). The locals were usually about their business and some of them were in the business of peddling stuff to tourists, touting for safari firms, restaurants, and the so on. We stopped by some trinket from a street vendor and were immediately swamped. You hate to have to say no to everyone else and so we did not buy from street vendors (those w/o shops) after that.

The city was not a spotless city as we'ld expect here in the USA or in Europe but it was not all that bad. There was not a lot of real serious poverty evident, but we did run across some beggars including one boy who we recognized working the same area day after day. I can not say it was apparent the boy should have been begging, there was plenty of paid work available.

The first trip we took out of Arusha was the Mt. Kilimanjaro trek. We eventually settled for a company the name of which I can not remember. I do remember it being staffed by Sikhs. We were teamed up with one older gent from the UK, and two young fellows just out of the Israeli army and they were touring Africa. They drove us out to a place we picked up some gear (it is cold on top, so we had to have winter clothing) and then they took us to another place we paid some fees signed some waivers and a hiking we went.

The first day I took my camera gear with me and by the end of the first half of the day it wore me out and I surrendered the gear to one of the porters. I did snap some daylight pictures. We eventually reached the first camp and it was good. I took some pix ate some food and had plenty of time to chat with our trek-mates.

The next day it was more of the same, every now and then I would find something good to take a picture of and my camera was never too far off so I took some pix. This was the first time we saw the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro. We eventually reached the second stop. This time it was noticeable we were fairly high up and the skis were brilliantly lit by the stars. I told the Israelis the day before about being able to see satellite and they thought I was full of it. The second night proved me out, we say a few of them. I snapped the brilliant star trails shot this night (the one from The Last Bit about one week ago) and another shot (I will not publish it soon, perhaps later).

Third day we went above the frost line. The vegetation petered out to a scrubby grass. I recall walking across one gravelly plain and noticing a good camera shot, the battery in my camera was out but I was prepared and swapped out the old for the new battery. The battery wasn't dead but cold, and I had read to keep two batteries one in the camera and one warm in the pocket. Good idea! We finally reached the third camp.

The Guidebook told us to eat! If we were not hungry to eat anyway! I was hungry so I ate! Probably too much as I woke up in the night and hurled. Chunks all over my long beard! Yuch! An hour or two later everyone woke and went for the final push to the summit. I rolled over and went back to sleep. My buddy told me the last hour or so was three steps at a time, stop pant like heck to try and catch ones breath, and three more steps.... My idea of a good time, even if I would have made it, a cigar was not in the works like I had planned. Well the crew returned some hours later and we headed back down. IIRC we went all the way down to the day two camp and spent the night there.

The most memorable incident on the day five was asking where the end of the trail was (it was close to the end) and some guy (a local guide or porter on his way up) pointed at a tree (we were in a forest) and said there. I guess, ask a stupid question get a stupid answer.

Anyway shortly thereafter we made it to Moshi and got a room for the night. Needless to say we were tired and quite stiff. But did we sleep good! We got on a bus and headed back to Arusha for part two of the trip.

Next installment: Challenging the Baboons!

Blue Monday

Much ado about Blue today.

However, we here have a legitimate cause for the blues. A sister-in-law I met just a week or so ago from a year ago is grave and is not expected to be with us for too much longer. She is the oldest of my wife's siblings which number 12 all together (my wife is the second youngest) and was bed ridden from a stroke sometime ago. Her mind was still sharp but recently from what The Empress can tell another stroke set in and this time much more serious.

About a year ago when we were there the same thing happened. One of her brothers passed away from a stroke that occured before we went to the Philippines and he passed away the day we arrived in Cebu.

We do not usually ask out [of life], but then again we never ask in either, it just happens. However no amount of philosophical pondering, rationalization, or whatnot eases the pain such a parting causes. Please remember our Ate in your prayers. Thanks.

Such Is Life

Sometime ago I told you all about one of sisters-in-law who was gravely ill. Well, about one week ago she passed away.

Of course we expected but that never seems to change one's reaction when the death of a close person actually happens. So, when I called the Empress the night she learned of the news she was in tears and of course the phone transmitted the sadness with the speed of light to myself. Obviously, since I just met our Ate once and the meeting was fairly brief (she was quite lucid and was insistent with all present we all speak English while I was around) it just did not hit me the same way it hit The Empress. Of course, the larger impact was the fact The Empress was saddened and I was not physically with her to help comfort her.

The bigger problem though was getting The Empress on her way to the funeral. Not an easy task. We went through a public consolidator to obtain the ticket she was going to use at the end of the month and when working with consolidators you find they are very inflexible. The desired flight was available for (total taxes & fees included) about 70% more than what we purchased the original ticket for (again total). Oh yeah, do not forget the cancellation and service fees.

No, bereavement only goes so far and seems to apply only to the fees & service charges charged for changing the reservation.

We ended up going with one of the larger consolidators (LC) as opposed to the one we used initially. LC had some seats left on the flight we are aiming for. Price was a tad cheaper (then the price quoted on the previous consolidator) so I booked it.

So, the Empress will be traveling soon with her niece.

I do not have much nice to say about the airline industry right now.

Another One of Those Weekends.

That is going to make work seem resting, refreshing, and relaxing.

Still, as busy as it was the to do list didn't get much shorter. We had a household appliance crisis that ate valuable time. Well, I guess that is better than what a dear friend of ours is going through.

The worst thing about it is I get all sorts of ideas about blogs. Of course, when I get time to sit down and crank them out they are long gone. Oh well see the close of the last paragraph.

Saturday on State St.

As if we didn't get enough of Downtown Madison on Friday night, the Empress and myself went back Saturday morning.

The Farmer's Market was in full swing so we walked around the Capital taking in the sights and sounds of that. It is a big deal and there was vegetables to be found. Mainly lettuce, green onions, and asparagus. The asparagus looked real good.

It seemed on the corners of the square were reserved for political activists and the left was quite well represented. I bite my tongue and just looked, it doesn't pay as for sure they are as dedicated and closed minded as myself about such affairs.

My cousin called and we arranged a meeting point and eventually we found each other. Well his father was out of his meeting just at that time so my cousin told him where we were and soon enough my uncle arrived on the scene. Well, then we went back to State St. and walked down the street.

Down towards lower State St. there were some young ones (college aged) asking everyone if the heard about Haditha and of course those fellows don't have to wait for the investigation to finish before they are certain as to what happened. Again my tongue was getting dented in with my teeth and I just ignored it. Of course in my mind I was playing through 100s of scenarios about jerking them around in such fashion but I did not realize those fantasies.

We eventually settled on an Italian restaurant called Ginos for our lunch. I had fettucine with meat sauce, a gin and tonic, and a glass of cabernet. It was good, the Empress had the last eggplant parmesan available and she liked it but she complained it was rather oily. I liked the music they played which consisted of baroque music (my guess is most of it was Vivaldi, but some Handel was mixed in as well) and some pieces by Mozart and Mendelssohn. I don't know if I will go back to it as there are many other places on State St. to eat at but I do suggest you stop in and check it out if you are hankering for Italian food, you will not go wrong.

So we hit State St. again and once again walked by the pushy young ones asking us if we had heard about Haditha. Today I had a little esprit de escalier and thought maybe I should have asked them if that is where Barry Bonds hit is Babe surpassing Home Run. Hehehehe.

Well we went to the Terrace for some desert. My uncle was hoping to get some "Alma Mater" ice cream but they had none. So I had a waffle cone (the small one, I would have hate to have seen the large) with their coffee flavored ice cream. It was very good.

We sat on the terrace ate our ice cream and watched the lake and the people. We were also crow watching. A crow had picked up a plastic baggy of something and flew into a tree with its booty. We then wondered what it had and how it was going get into the bag. More importantly we were watching to see if the crow would have dumped a load on the people below. Blessedly for the people below the crow did not such thing and we lost interest in the crow.

The one thing at the Terrace that got my attention was a laugh I heard. It was a head turning laugh because it sounded almost exactly like that of one of my college buddies (I went to Plattveille, not Madison) who lives in Madison. The laugher didn't look like my buddy but it has been a few years since we have seen each other. I was tempted to watch him and dial him up on my cell phone but I was afraid if it were not my buddy then I would be stuck explaining to my buddy what I am doing in town w/o calling him up. I'll call this week.

Anyway we then went back up State St. and parted ways and reunited and then the Empress ran into a work colleague. We stopped to talk with my wife's friends and my uncle and cousin faded into the crowd.

It was a good weekend not to be out and about. Later on this week I will talk more about the silly political things I saw.

Unbelievable.

From the right: Rose (in the pink), Nini, Marlene, Romel, Romel's sister (Del), the husband of Romel's sister.

The last couple of days The Empress and myself were in the Philippines we (The Empress knew them from before) met this couple. They were from the Philippines but lived in Seattle WA and were back for a visit.

Now, while in Manila we stayed at the house of my sister-in-law's family. My sister-in-law is named Virginia aka Nini. Nini's business partner is named Romel and the couple from Seattle were his sister and her husband. I met them a day or two before we left and I sat down and had some coffee and chat with them, very nice, very easy to talk to. The last night we were in Manila they all came over (Romel and his wife, Romel's sister and her husband) and we sat down and all had a chat.

The fact they were from Seattle got us to thinking about the possibilities as I also have family in the Seattle area, so we could visit my aunt and uncle and visit these friends of the Empress's family.

This AM we received notice that Romel's sister passed away quite unexpectedly. Apparently she had some bug that morphed into walking pneumonia and by the time they realized what it was and got her to the hospital it was too late the pneumonia was already serious.

The picture above was taken five to six weeks ago and the woman who passed away is the second person from the left. Does that look like someone about to pass away from pneumonia?

Now I don't mean to be complaining Lord....
And I know you've got your reasons for each and everything you do...
But tonight outside my window, there's a lonesome sound
And I just can't keep from thinking 'bout the ones the wolves pulled down.

Source: Garth Brooks - Wolves

Please say a prayer for Ate Del.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Wow!

When we left for Florida it was still summery out up here in WI. I ate some sweet corn the days before we left, and had BLT sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. I fear neither will be consumed again by myself until next July. Just before we left I also bought some lemons, limes, and oranges to make my favorite citrus juice concoction. However, it just doesn't seem appropriate anymore and probably will not until May or June '06.

It is defnitely fall up here now, last week it was not.

The Last Bit.

Yes, The Last bit is coming somewhat early tonight. I was up early and worked out and did not get too much sleep last night. See my post about healthy choices and I am making one tonight.

Anyway had a great weekend. Went to bed relatively early on Friday after making dinner (a tuna noodle casserole) for that night and the following night (a spaghetti sauce). We woke up on SA and took our time and we were on the hill at about 10:45. What a glorious day it was! It was warm enough that I was able to wear my sunglasses and a baseball cap (instead of goggles and my stocking hat). The snow was good, wasn't extremely fast but it was firm and I could get a good edge in. Skied for some time and had a chilli dog and that pitcher of beer with Barnubus. Apres ski we sat in the bear lodge and had a couple of beers outside.

Went back to the cabin and our buddy was there, Claudia and I went to mass and returned home. We ate (Barnubus and our buddy went to Phelps for dinner) and then we just sat around gabbing. We got up and went to visit the neighbors and we returned and crashed for the night.

Sunday at the hill was a little later and the hill was in definite spring shape. The weather was much warmer and the snow was soft. It wasn't bad but you had to be balanced on your skis because when you would ski into a pile of soft snow it would grab your skis and lurch you foward. I used to ski in a forward position and such conditions would have put me face down in the snow. Our buddy was on skates and Barnubus gave 'em a whirl and did not like them, he said no stability.

I quit at about 3:00 and joined Claudia and Barnubus and our buddy hung it up pretty much at four. The trip home was uneventful.

The picture of Barnubus is in front of pushed up pile of snow but that pile is very representative of the whole edge of the area that is plowed. Down in front of the cabin the snow is about 3' deep (flat even surface). When we arrived it was full on winter but when we left it was extremely spring-like.

I have two more Brule tickets to use up, so come on winter, hang in there for just a bit more!

Sir, May I Visit Siroccos Again?

The Empress and myself visited Siroccos in Appleton tonight. See Jeff Lindsay's review at: The Appleton Blog after you finish your meal here.

Some background first. The Empress and I lived in the Middle East (UAE). She for over 12 years and six years myself. So when it comes to Mediterranean food I know something about which I write about tonight. However, note this is based on Levantine & Gulf Arabic cuisine (i.e. Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian etc) and Mediterranean food is larger than just Arabic but there were teases of Arabic food in the menu and in the description the waitstaff gave us.

First Impressions

As you can google and find out on your own Siroccos is downtown Appleton in what used to be Peggy's Cafe (formerly owned & ran by a friend of mine). Enter it and you find yourself in an old brick building the interior slightly dark. Its a building that reveals little about what is inside without looking in it could be a lower flat of the local cat lady or an upscale restaurant only the likes of recently elected congressmen can afford (yes, this is a political dig). Walk in and you will find it close enough to the later for most people's liking. In fact the bar screams upscale (well scream is little extreme but the bar and its decor says haute cuisine in the quiet way one would say haute cuisine). It was about 5:00 pm when the Empress and I walked in and we were seated immediately.

Second Impressions

We were given menus and a listing of the soups and our drink orders were taken. I ordered my standard (rail) ginnentonic and The Empress ordered a lemon-lime soda with less ice. However, full ice must have been–full as her glass came filled about half with ice. My (rail) ginnentonic was excellent; the tonic crisp and the gin ginny with enough gin so the gin made its presence well known but not too much gin to require an olive instead of a lime slice.

Pro-Choice

Looking over the menu I was somewhat disappointed. I was hoping for a stronger Arabic contribution, unfortunately the number of pork dishes was high (not bad but not a typical Arabic menu, but recall this is a Mediterranean restaurant not an Arabic one) and only one or two items looked like they would belong on the menu of an Arabic restaurant. Malesh (nevermind) and I started looking over the rest of the items.

Here was our order. I ordered the stuffed pork tenderloins and The Empress ordered the ham wrapped scallops. In addition I ordered a black bean soup (with lime? with wine?). The soup was brought in a huge bowl with a piece of toasted bread. The soup struck me as a soup from the Middle East. It was good!

Dig In

Then our dinners came. The Empress was struck by how small the serving was. She was hoping to bring some leftovers to work the next day. However, when we dug in and ate we were satisfied with the taste. The food was definitely prepared with three senses in mind and all three senses were happy (sight, smell, and taste). When we were done we were full and satisfied, but disappointed we could not continue the experience tomorrow (and in the case of The Empress tease her colleagues in the break room).

Sticker Shock

Haute cuisine it was, haute pricess too. Our meal which consisted of one 7-Up (or Sprite whatever), two (rail) ginnentonics, one bowl of blackbean soup, one order of stuffed pork tenderloins, and an order of ham wrapped scallops came in at $65 (then add in a tip).

Overall

I liked the food and the service, but the pricing & serving size will keep us away. There is no shortage of restaurants in Appleton. I really do not see ourselves returning. If you are in Appleton for a show and want an elegant meal and are willing to pay for it then Siroccos should be on your short list otherwise go somewhere else.