I had a brain fart while making dinner tonight (Blistered Broccoli Pasta with Walnuts, Pecorino, and Mint) – instead of putting the pasta in the boiling water, I dumped in the broccoli. I realized the mistake in about 20 seconds and drained everything, then continued with the recipe. It came out OK, but the broccoli was noticeably sweeter and greener than usual (and less crunchy, too!).

We watched Episode 2 of Life at the Waterhole this evening – I’m looking forward to next week’s finale.

We had to be out of the house this morning for our housecleaner; Diane had scheduled a dentist’s appointment for that time, and I came with her. While she was being worked on, I did a walking tour of the five shopping centers nearest her dentist – there’s been a lot of turnover since the last time I was in the area. The biggest of the centers, Westgate Mall, has done some landscaping, which was a pleasant change from parking lots and sidewalks.

After the dentist was finished with Diane, it was still too early to go home, so we took our usual walk on the Los Gatos Creek Trail, and that put us near the Pruneyard Shopping Center at lunchtime. The next thing on our agenda was grocery shopping, and it didn’t seem like a good idea to shop on empty stomachs, so we decided to throw caution to the winds and eat at a restaurant. Outside, of course.

The Pruneyard was in the middle of yet another revitalization when the pandemic hit (it’s at least the third major renovation since we moved to Los Gatos). They’ve opened a lot of new restaurants in the last couple of years; today, we tried Starbird Chicken.

First, I tried ordering through their kiosk, but there was no way to ask for anything “on the side”, so we went to the counter and ordered from a human being. A few minutes later, the food was ready, and we discovered that they didn’t seem to know how to put anything on the side even if they could take the order – Diane’s salad was already dressed, and I didn’t get the sauces that should have come with my Korean Fried Chicken sandwich. We should have gone back to get the order fixed, but we didn’t. The food was bland; the fries weren’t even worth finishing. I can, though, heartily recommend the Ginger Mint Limeade.

Today was also XM renewal day – I’ve been paying $5/month for the “Select” package, and it was about to go up to their usual rate of $16.99/month. I went to their website, hit the chat button, and in less than 10 minutes, I got another year at $5/month. Easy.

Our trivia friends have been recommending the PBS/BBC series, Life at the Waterhole. They were right – we watched Episode 1 this evening and it was fascinating. We’re supposed to go to South Africa this fall, so we’re also using it for familiarization. Sadly, the excursion to Tanzania was cancelled because of the COVID-19 situation there; I’m guessing we have a 50/50 chance of making the rest of the trip this year (there’s already a backup date for next year).

I gave a speech at the Silicon Valley Storytellers tonight – the title was “I Make Things Up!”, and it was about my journey to the District Table Topics championship. It was not quite impromptu, but I did make up a good bit of it as I was talking.

I finally managed to get back to working on photos from earlier this year – my goal is to trim Apple Photos down to the photos which evoke memories. I’ll keep many more photos in Lightroom.

Of course, then I have to decide what to do with photos which I think look good but really don’t bring back memories, like this one of Ross Creek when it had water, three short months ago. Posting them on the blog is one way of keeping track of them, right?

This morning, we went to the Farmers’ Market. We walked through town – the restaurants were hopping! We walked through Oak Meadow Park – there was a very long line for the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad. As we drove home, we saw a very long line of cars trying to get into Vasona Park.

This evening, I went for a quick walk to complete a perfect week (as defined by my Apple Watch’s Fitness app, anyway).

See you tomorrow.

After discovering I’d inadvertently bought lemon balm yesterday, we planted it in one of the raised beds. This morning, I decided to find out more about lemon balm. Wikipedia told me that it’s in the mint family, spreads “vegetatively”, and “propagates vigorously” (though that last statement has a “citation needed” attached to it).

Since we’d deliberately avoided planting mint in the raised beds (or anywhere in the ground – we have enough trouble with ivy coming from the other side of the fence, thank you very much indeed), putting lemon balm there seemed like a Bad Idea.

This afternoon, we went to the hardware store and bought a planter for the lemon balm, and I transplanted it. It doesn’t seem to have taken root in the bed, yet, so I hope we’re safe.