Week-end

This week, like most in Orlando, was fulfilling. We toasted with friends at a going away party with mint juleps and NOLA beer. We sipped sake over hot pots and ended the night with a walk home, full and sleepy. 

I accomplished four loads of laundry, and in between each I read a stack of magazines by the pool with sun block, phone calls with friends, and an icy cup of champagne. In the evening, I noticed the buds on an old orchid plant, sprouting just in time for spring.

And then there was the Sunday brunch of bagels, hummus, eggs, bacon, and sriracha potatoes, paired with mimosas and a friend. There was the hilarity of losing her car downtown, walking for an hour in the heat, and S coming to the rescue, just to find her car on the block we missed. After that, we decided we deserved another drink and found a gem; a wine room with no corkage fee, a bottle of a summery white wine, and a flatbread to share outside.

S + I experimented in the kitchen with a meaty sandwich of leftover steak, sliced thick on top of tuscan bread. I made an aioli sauce from scratch with eggs, garlic, lemon, Italian olive oil, and dill and parsley for color. On top of the aioli and the steak was a shallot slaw with roughly chopped parsley and dill, seasoned with lemon and grey sea salt. It was a mouthful of summer flavors and perfectly crunchy textures.

S surprised me with a clipping of gorgeous pinkish-red flowers from the neighborhood and our new bike rack hung up on the wall. Anchored and everything. And there's the first bloom of the season of our neighborhoods star jasmine. Just walking to my car in the morning, I catch the lingering of its perfume in the wind.

Our plants have been doing so well in this weather, with sun in the afternoons sandwiched by breezy nights and mornings, followed by cloudy days. There's new growth on our jasmine, money tree, and horseradish tree. Our orchids have sprouted little buds, and the pepper seeds are slowly reaching above the pot's rim.

Behind my bike, neatly hung up on the wall, is a gift from a friend. An aged map of Paris. It alludes to biking through the arrondissements of Paris, which I hope Erin finds time to do when she moves there for two months. Don't worry, I'm jealous too.
Spring is my favorite time of the year; no wonder we picked this time to marry last year.