June 30, 2025 Breakfast - Fried Salami and Eggs with Toast. Lunch - Costco Hot dog. Dinner - Grilled Lamb Chops with Tzatziki and Tomato and Zucchini Couscous

June 30, 2025 Breakfast - Fried Salami and Eggs with Toast. Lunch - Costco Hot dog. Dinner - Grilled Lamb Chops with Tzatziki and Tomato and Zucchini Couscous

Today was a wonderful day no agenda and lots od activity and good food along the way.

I woke up at 7:15 and watched the Market open down a vit but miraculously it came back by the end of the day to produce a .04% gain. The market is turning toward negative after an amazing five or six day runthat has gotten my portfolio within 2.3% of its all time high after taking enough out of the portfolio to fund my investment in Multilayer that makes it equal my all time high and after taking an additional 7% out to fund the loan to Earn. In other words I am at an all time high. 

At 9:30 after dressing I made breakfast I wanted something sustaining, so I fried four slices of salami and two eggs and toasted three slices of baguette that I buttered and spread with French Bonne Mamman four fruit preserves and I made a cup of hot chocolate. It was a very French and very filling breakfast which was lucky because I did not eat lunch until 1:50.

At 10:30 I drove to Shahin’s office and waited an hour for him. Then we started preparing my tax return and discovered Willy’s tax info was inaccessibility locked in a Zip drive and I was missing one of my 1099s.

Mr. Had I came at 12:30 and we discussed his case and when he left a Shahin made a two hour appointment for me on Wednesday July 2.

Tax prep for Shahin and me is a long distant marathon as is the six months of billings that still need to be prepared. I sometimes think that for people raised in ancient cultures like Persians and Afghanis like Shahin and Mr. Hadi that time takes on a perspective that exceeds periods greater than simply Manana.

At 1:40 I drove to Costco to eat a hot dog for lunch. Today was great because there were containers of chopped onion so I relished my hot dog with mustard, catsup, onions and sweet pickle relish with a Pepsi cola.

At 2:30 I drove to Hunter Lumber and bought 20 gallons of red label Penofin to coat and seal the wood shakes on the roofs of the house and garage. Repairing the roofs is a recurring event every five or six years. But I love my wooden house and cedar shake roof.

I then drove to Central Trailer Supply and picked up the 2024 tax returns for Sharp Properties and then drove to Old Republic Title to deliver them to the escrow Secretary. I spent about a hour discussing title issues with the young in house underwriting attorney and escrow secretary.

When I returned home it was 4:30. I sent my June 27 memo to the underwriting attorney with copies of the relevant documents and then checked my day’s portfolio performance and was pleased with the small gain of .04%.

At 5:30 I joined Suzette in the kitchen. 

Dinner - We decided to cook the fresh lamb chops I bought at Costco several days ago. We also decided to cook tomato, zucchini, and shallot couscous and make a tzatziki sauce. 

I sliced and sautéed a sliced zucchini, shallot, and tomato and 1 cup of  couscous and boiled water in the kettle  added 1 1/2 cups of water to make the couscous. The secret to making good couscous is to cook it on low temp and develop steam to steam it for four or five minutes which requires adjusting the heat from high to low to off.

For the tzatziki sauce I peeled, seeded, sliced  and salted 1/2 cucumber and minced two cloves of garlic and 1/2 cup of fresh mint from our garden and added 1 cup of plain yogurt and juice of 1/2 lemon juice.

While I was making couscous and tzatziki Suzette grilled the nine or ten small lamb chops.

Then I opened a bottle of Cotes Du Rhone and we ate a really good meal.

After dinner we ate milk chocolate and sipped Maison Serene cognac and watched and slept through two episodes of Who is feeding Phil and Suzette went to bed at 10:30 and I stayed up to blog.

Bon Appetit 

June 29, 2025 Breakfast - Lax and Bagel Lunch - Salmon Salad. Dinner - Herring Sandwiches

June 29, 2025 Breakfast - Lax and Bagel  Lunch - Salmon Salad. Dinner - Herring Sandwiches

It was a light food day with no cooking. For breakfast at around 10:00 I made us toasted bagels with cream cheese garnished with slices of red onion, Gravad lax and capers.

Then around 2:30 we made Teriyaki Salmon Salads with lettuce from our garden,,a Roma tomato, crumbled Teriyaki salmon, red onion slices, a hard boiled egg, and a lovely shallot Dijonnaise dressing.

Then I worked on my taxes and Suzette went to the garden and picked fresh figs from our bush, quartered them and opened them and stuffed them with goat cheese for a snack.

At 6:00 I spread two slices of German pumpernickel with butter and melted slices of Jarlsberg cheese and added a squirt of salmon cream on them for a snack.

At 5:30 I watched the zuSA men’s soccer team beat Guatemala on the 7th penalty kick after full time. Then I joined Suzette to watch PBS

Dinner - At 8:00 we were hungry and so I toasted bread and spread them with butter and sour cream and garnished them with red onion slices and pickled herring and a pickle for dinner. We shared a Carlsberg beer.

We watched Miss Francis, Patience, and Grantchester from 6:00 until 9:00 when Suzette went to bed.

I watched Atlantic Crossing until 10:00 and then went to bed.

It was a relaxing day without much emphasis on food.

Bon Appetit

June 28, 2025 Lunch - Chicken Salad Sandwich. Dinner - Brats and Sautéed Napa Cabbage with Red Onion

 June 28, 2025 Lunch - Chicken Salad Sandwich. Dinner - Brats and Sautéed Napa Cabbage with Red Onion

This was a busy day with unexciting food.

We ate a slice of toast and left Amy’s at 8:30?

We arrived at Costco at 9:45. While Suzette filled the Highlander I bought two cases of wine  plus two bottles of Faustino Albariño, 21 bottles of Vireton Pinot Gris, two bottles of Embroidery, and a bottle of Gruner Vitliner.

We drove to Belen and picked up gardening equipment and took it to the Center. After we dropped the equipment Mike made us two chicken salad sandwiches that we ate on the way back to pick up the wheel barrows.

After we dropped the wheel barrows at the Center we drove home arriving at 2:30.

We rested until 5:30 when I started watching the z Honduras v. Panama match.

Then at 6:00 I chopped a bowl of Napa cabbage, four cloves of garlic, and 1/6 of a red onion.

I sautéed the mixture while Suzette grilled two brats and two buns.

Suzette spread one side of the bun with homemade horseradish and Mayo.

I added catsup and we each took a pile of Sautéed Napa and onion.

We drank glasses of Santa Christina Tuscan Cabernet Sauvignon.

Later we watched an episode of Who is Feeding Phil-p about Basque Country food and then the end of the Saudia Arabia v. Mexico match and Suzette fetched a package of Swedish desserts and heated two of them. I opened a bottle of Maison Serene cognac and made a cup of tea and enjoyed a lovely dessert.

Then we watched Death in Paradise after which  Suzette went to bed.

I stayed up to blog and watch an Australian police show on PBS. 

Bon Appetit

June 27, 2025 Lunch - Leftover Enchiladas and Rice, Pea, and Salmon Bowl. Dinner - Shrimp Salad at Amy’s

June 27, 2025 Lunch - Leftover Enchiladas and Rice, Pea, and Salmon Bowl.  Dinner  - Shrimp Salad at Amy’s

It was liberating to have filed my pleading due today last night. It gave me a free morning.

I ate a chocolate croissant and watched the market open up again for the fourth or fifth day in a row. . Then at 8:00 I walked 2200 steps  to Sulver and around the triangle to 15th and back. I was sore and tired but happy when I returned.

Soon after I returned to my desk Rahim called with two additional contracts to review and I spent much of the morning reviewing and discussing a contract with him and discussing the LRGA with a client until 1:45 when Suzette came home and I watched the market close at a new all time high for the NASDAQ and the S&P. This left my portfolio 2.7% away from its all time high after recovering from a loss of around 15.5% of its value before and after Liberation Day on April 2.

Unfortunately, today Canada imposed tariffs of digital services that enraged Trump to cut off all negotiations with Canada, so the prospect of a tariff war became real and that will spook investors and the market on Monday.  Trump likes to be the bully but does not like it when a country he is bullying fights back.

The U.S. is probably the world’s largest exporter of digital services.

Suzette layered PPI Rice, peas from our garden, and PPI Teriyaki Salmon in a bowl and heated it in the microwave for a quick lunch. I also heated my leftover enchiladas from yesterday’s lunch and enjoyed both and got the energy boost I needed to help my muscles function at full capacity for the afternoon.

We drove to Santa Fe at 2:30.

I drove and Suzette googled art openings on the way. When we arrived we drove to Olive Rush’s House on Canyon Road.

 We were greeted by several of her nieces and nephews who were all artists and told us that they had pooled their money to buy the house from the Quakers when they decided to sell it.

Leah and Tocino were selling their works of art but the family had assembled two rooms full of Olive’s works. We learned that Olive was a member of a group of muralists who worked in fresco. There were several parts of house decorated in frescos over the plastered Adobe on the horno and above lintels In the living room where many lovely watercolors and a large fresco of bulls were displayed as the main gallery. 

In a smaller adjoining dining room were a lot of magazine covers and illustrations from books and magazines.

Olive had a successful career as an illustrator in New York before moving to Santa Fe in the 1920’s and Suzette was attracted to a small book called A New Mexican Boy by Helen Marshall in the second room that she will probably buy to add Rush’s illustration to her collection of 20th Century New Mexican female artists.

What is also interesting is that the house is one of only a few vintage artist’s studios intact.

After about 45 minutes we drove to Blue Rain Gallery near the corner of Guadalupe and Paseo de Peralta for the opening off Erin Currier’s latest body of work.

There were many of the larger darker heavily painted works but I was immediately attracted to a smaller portrait of a woman named Maria Goretti who was approached In 1902 at the age of 22 to have sex and when she refused, the young man stabbed her 14 times. As she lay dying in the hospital, she forgave her assailant. Her 20 year old assailant was tried and sent to jail for 27 years, during which time he repented his deed and when released sought and was given forgiveness from Maria’s mother. Maria was canonized as a Saint of forgiveness as one of the youngest persons to ever be canonized.

I loved the painting and bought it for $4500.00 plus tax during the opening.

We then walked two doors down to Charlotte Jackson’s Gallery and viewed the William Metcalf Double Take exhibit. We liked them but not enough to buy one st $9800.

Around 6:30 we drove to Amy’s house in Eldorado.

We drank a glass of wine and talked until the sun set and then Amy fixed lovely platters of shrimp salad that we drank with glasses of Vireton, a Pinot Gris produced by Archer’s Summit that was a delightful wine.

After dinner we talked more, mostly about the family and went to bed at 11:30. I found and took a sip of orange liquor while the girls drank Fume Blanc.

We slept in Amy’s sofa’s hide a bed in her guest bedroom.

Vahl is on a tour in Africa and on this day at Victoria Falls.

Bon Appetit

June 26, 2025 Lunch - Mary and Tito’s Dinner - PPI Salmon Teriyaki and PPI Casarecce Pasta with Steak and mushrooms

June 26, 2025 Lunch - Mary and Tito’s  Dinner - PPI Salmon Teriyaki and PPI Casarecce Pasta with Steak and mushrooms

I did not eat breakfast.

At 10:50 I walked 1/2 block to Charlie’s and he drove me to Mary and Tito’s where we met the book club members for lunch.

Paul and I ordered enchiladas, his with red and chicken, mine with red, beef,and an egg. I only ate half and boxed the other half and took it home.

Pradip ordered green chili. Keith came later and ordered Enchiladas with green 

I also ordered a guacamole salad as an appetizer for our table

After lunch all eight of us went to my house for the meeting.

We discussed Diva and Kandinsky.

After the meeting I served clafoutis with whipped cream and Grande Marnier.

When Suzette came home she sautéed the leftover Casarecce Pasta with steak and Mushrooms.

Suzette also filled bowls with a layer of rice, a layer of peas, and on top some teriyaki salmon and heated the bowls. I ate both dishes.

We then watched Midsomer Mysteries. Suzette went t bed at 9:45 and I tried to stay up to watch  Foyle”s War but fell asleep in the chair.andvwent to bed when I awakened at 11:00.

I filed a major pleading in the LRGA today at 7:00 with Suzette’s help.

Bon Appetit