Well, they finally made up their minds and set the service on Saturday the 20th. They've opted for cremation and a memorial service at the big Episcopal church downtown in Tulsa, which is good, since I dislike going to funeral home services. While I hate dragging these things out, the good thing is that with over a week to plan, I was able to get a plane ticket for half the cost I was expecting. Now I just have to re-rearrange my plans for this weekend and move things around for the following weekend. And, I have more time to shop for new clothes!

My cousin died tonight about 8 p.m. Tulsa time. I'm still waiting for her partner and my aunt to make the service arrangements so I can book a plane ticket to go back to Oklahoma. I guess tomorrow I'll go shopping for some new funeral clothes.

Flew back home from Oklahoma last night. John McCain was sitting up in first class on my flight from Dallas to D.C. There was also an incredibly cute college boy sitting next to me in the middle seat who said his name was Hoof.

I expect I'll be flying back to Tulsa in a week or two. My cousin's situation is grim. They brought her home under hospice care on Tuesday, and I noticed that they've removed the feeding tubes they were using. Because of all the IV pain meds, she's in essentially a drug-induced coma, and not able to communicate. So, it's just a matter of time. I need a new dark suit and some black dress shoes that don't have a hole in the sole.

Had a long layover in Dallas, so my friend David and his son Aaron met me at the airport and we drove to a nearby Denny's for dinner. How wonderful: I fly all the way to Dallas, only to go to a Denny's. We ate typical Denny's food, with the exception of one interesting new dish, a half dozen pancake poppers, which looked like little deep fried fritters dusted with confectioner's sugar and served with a bowl of syrup. Here are pictures of the food and of Aaron. Don't know why I didn't get any pictures of David.....Aaron took several of us, but that was with his own camera.

Wednesday my friend Bill took me to lunch at one of his favorite places in Tulsa, The Brothers Houligan. I'd been to the midtown location before, but this was my first time at their newish east Tulsa location.

The daily lunch special Wednesday was fried shrimp, so that's what Bill got. They brought him half a dozen large, butterflied, battered shrimp, and he thought they were very tasty. I got a luncheon-sized chicken fried steak. It tasted good. It was a long piece of round steak with a light breading on it, then the steak was covered in white cream gravy. Bowls of green beans, mashed potatoes, and cream gravy were presented family style for us to share.

---

That evening, I went to The Farm shopping center with my friend Tony, where we ate at Villa Ravenna, a northern Italian-style restaurant.

We started off with glasses of chianti while we tried to read the menus in the very dark restaurant; our table was illuminated with but one lighted taper in the center. Tony ordered the avocado salad and I ordered the cream of mushroom soup. My soup arrived so hot I couldn't eat it at first. The bowl was filled with a nice, thick, flavorful soup.



For his main course, Tony got the veal parmegiana. I found their presentation and recipe interesting; there was a layer of ham between the veal and the melted mozzarella cheese. It came with a side of spaghetti. Speaking of which, I had the spaghetti carbonara. The carbonara was good, but once again, the recipe was interesting and non-traditional. Instead of just using egg and parmesan cheese, they put a little bit of alfredo sauce on the pasta.



In lieu of dessert, we each had a little glass of limoncello.

---

Tonight Tony and I had an early dinner at Wilson's BBQ up in north Tulsa. Wilson's is an authentic old time Tulsa barbecue joint in an iffy part of town. I did notice that they had spruced up the exterior of the building and the parking lot since the last time I was there probably five years ago.

Tony got the short ribs and I had the full beef ribs. Both platters came with bread, cole slaw, and baked beans. The ribs were, as always, delicious and messy. Good thing each table is stocked with a big roll of paper towels.



For dessert, I had a sweet potato pie and Tony got the buttermilk pie. I like their sweet potato pie because it's distinctly spiced and it doesn't taste of pumpkin pie spice as so many sweet potato pies I've had have done.

Friday we drove up to the Joplin and Miami areas to do the annual family cemetery decorating. After we got done with that, we stopped by the Wyandotte and Peoria tribal casinos. Lots of little wins, but no bigger wins, so I spent all my meagre gambling capital in quest of the big money.

While we'd brought sandwiches from home for lunch, for dinner, we went to the Coleman Room at Buffalo Run (the Peoria casino), since my mother had never eaten there. Some of you may remember my previous review of the place from November 2004, shortly after the casino opened.

They had a special limited menu put together for Memorial Day weekend. My mother had the horseradish-crusted halibut. I had the prime rib. Both entrees came with a salad, baked potato, and a melange of steamed vegetables. Portions continue to be large. Both plates were garnished with an orchid flower and a sprig of rosemary.

For dessert, we shared a carrot bundt cake with cream cheese frosting I thought was surprisingly good, especially considering it only cost $4.

Not much has changed since the first review, other than they have their liquor license now. It continues to be a nice place for the area, but they still are small town and haven't fully trained their wait staff. A typical example of their training shortfalls is the waitress having to come back and ask my mother what kind of potato she wanted with her fish, after the waitress had initially said the fish came with rice, contrary to what the menu said. Apparently the staff hadn't been briefed on the menus.

---

Saturday afternoon and evening, we went up to the Delaware pow-wow. They had a good dance with a lot of dancers and a lot of drums. I counted five drums in the center, and another three Northern drums were on the side of the arena in front of our chairs, and two more drums were on the side on the other side of the speaker's stand. We stayed til midnight.

---

Sunday I drove to Tulsa to spend some time at the hospital with the family, then I met my friend Tony for dinner. We went to a Mexican place downtown called El Guapo's Cantina and sat upstairs on their rooftop patio. El Guapo's specializes in Oaxacan style cuisine.

I ordered one of their house specialties, the enchiladas de molé poblano. They wrapped smoked chicken in corn tortillas, then covered them with molé sauce (chocolate and roasted pepper sauce), crema (Mexican-style sour cream), and crumbles of Cotija cheese. The enchiladas came with rice and beans.

Tony ordered the smoked steak and cheese flautas. After a momentary problem when the kitchen sent him fish tacos instead and we had to wait for the flautas to come up (an attentive manager came over to apologize and comped the flautas for us), his food arrived and looked very artistic. They'd made long flautas, cut them on the diagonal, then arranged them on the plate on a pool of cheese sauce with spots of chile verde and tomatillo sauce. His rice and beans were on the side.



For dessert, Tony got the fried ice cream, which was presented on a large white plate with a lot of decorative strawberry sauce and chocolate sauce around the ice cream. I got the peaches and cream sopapilla relleno. Sopapillas are deep-fried pockets of pastry, and I'd expected to get one stuffed with peaches and cream. Their version, though, had peaches between two flattened sopapillas, with ice cream on the plate and garnishes of whipped cream and strawberry sauce.



Here's a view of sunset over the river from the balcony of Tony's twenty-fifth floor apartment.

Our new housemate Sean arrived today from Phoenix. He starts his new job at the Senate tomorrow. This afternoon, I Metroed down to the Capitol with him so he'd know how to get to his office building in the morning, and we ended up walking from the Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House playing tourist. Once we were done, it was dinnertime and he was a bit hungry, so, as Washington is a Southern town, I thought we should have Southern food and we were off to Georgia Brown's Restaurant on McPherson Square for his first Southern repast.

He ordered the Carolina gumbo, a thick stew of shrimp, andoille sausage, crab, chicken, and duck with Carolina red rice. He seemed to like it, as he cleaned his plate. I had (for the second day in a row) the Alaskan halibut, pan-bronzed and topped with a cranberry maple sage pesto and presented on a bed of grilled asparagus and hominy. I'm glad halibut is in season.



For dessert, he got the peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream, and I had the bourbon pecan pie with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

Laurent and I went to go see Angels and Demons after brunch Sunday afternoon. The local Scottish Rite Valley bought a huge block of tickets and gave them to members and guests, taking up much of the theater auditorium. Since I'd already read the Dan Brown novel, I was aware of the storyline in the companion book to his popular The DaVinci Code novel, so I won't belabor the plot (or its weaknesses) here. I thought the movie was a credible rendition of the novel, and if you liked The DaVinci Code, you'll like Angels and Demons.

Speaking of brunch, before the show, we went to Clyde's of Gallery Place, where we started off with morning bloody Marys. Laurent had sirloin steak and scrambled eggs, which also came with deep-fried potato cakes and caramelized onion. Since halibut is in season right now, I got the pan-seared Alaskan halibut with green bean potato salad and spring vegetable slaw. They do a good job with fish at Clyde's, and my halibut was thick, meaty, and juicy. I thought the potato salad was unusual and good, too; made from slices of fingerling potatoes and julienned green beans, it was dressed with a spring onion vinaigrette.

After the movie, we walked over to the Ace Hardware store in Penn Quarter by the new Safeway, since Laurent had to have a key made and pick up a couple of other little hardwarey things. Once we were done, we popped in to the new Busboys and Poets location in the same complex for desserts. After we looked at the menus, though, Laurent decided he was hungry again, so he ate an order of hummus and pita bread and a bowl of chili instead of having dessert. I stuck with the original plan and got the white chocolate banana bread pudding served warm with a scoop of coconut ice cream.

Saturday a bunch of us got together to help Laurent move to a new apartment. It was a little rainy Saturday, but we managed to move the stuff in between the moments of rain and nothing got wet. Laurent had a full slate of volunteers working different times throughout the day. After everything got to the new place, some of us stayed to help unpack boxes and put things on the walls and in the drawers. At last, we got done and some of us decided to go to Shirlington (a neighborhood of Arlington, Va.) for dinner. The day's cloudburst finally happened as we walked from the parking garage to the restaurant.

On the strong recommendation of Todd (who was driving), we went to T.H.A.I in Shirlington, a (believe it or not) Thai restaurant that turned out to be very nice with a luxurious contemporary Thai ambiance to the dining room and some exciting food presentations. Too bad I didn't have my camera along.

We started off sharing some appetizers. A supplemented order of spring rolls (the usual order was for three) came and they were unlike anything I'd had before. Each vegetable-stuffed, lightly deep-fried rolls was about one foot long and the four rolls were stacked in an interwoven architectural structure. A bowl of carrot dipping sauce came with the rolls. We also got an order of crab shu mai, which were open faced steamed dumpling stuffed with crab, pork, shrimp, and water chestnut accompanied by a ginger-soy dipping sauce, and presented on a long, narrow, rectangular platter.

Meanwhile, Laurent and Mary were drinking golden frozen margaritas.

For her main course, Mary got the king pad ped, a large oval platter of stir-fried chicken and both shiitake and wood ear mushrooms enrobed in soybean sauce and sprinkled with fried ginger root. Todd ordered a dish called "Penang Perfect," essentially a chicken curry with peanut sauce and coconut milk presented in a contemporary rounded boat-shaped bowl (he says it's what he always gets). Laurent selected the "Kapow Delight," a stir-fry of beef, broccoli, and basil leaves in chili-garlic sauce. All of these entrees came with steamed white rice. I picked the chicken pad thai, the traditional rice noodle dish with chicken, bean sprouts, egg, scallion, and peanuts, artfully arranged on a large square plate.

Desserts were spectacular. Laurent got the banana split bruleé, with caramelized banana halves topped with a row of coconut ice cream, Thai coffee ice cream, and strawberry sorbet, clouds of whipped creams, drizzles of chocolate and caramel sauces. Todd picked the flambé Thai banana, a showy dish of banana halves and segments with coconut ice cream sprinkled with diced orange peel, minced ginger, toasted coconut, and sesame seeds, then flambéed tableside with Grand Marnier.

T.H.A.I definitely goes on my recommended Thai restaurant list.

After dinner, we went to a nice little wine shop in Shirlington Village called the Curious Grape, where they vended not only wines, but cheeses, gourmet chocolates, and an assortment of stemware and accoutrements for wines. Todd got a couple of bottles of Locadi Moscato d'Asti, which turned out to be quite delicious once we got back to Laurent's new place. We chilled and then drank them down while watching the movie Taken, starring Liam Neeson.

After all this, I still made it home in time to watch the season finale of Saturday Night Live.

Well, I saw Star Trek today. It was a late afternoon matinee and I think there were only about half a dozen people in the theater. Good movie. Lots of action, and lots of camera shaking to make it seem like there was even more action going on. I particularly liked the performances of the new Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban). And, what's the deal with Mr. Chekov being seventeen-years-old? I won't talk about the rest of the movie cause I don't want to spoil things for those of you who've not yet seen it.

The other night Robert and I went to Crisfield Seafood Restaurant, just across the D.C. line in Silver Spring, Md. Crisfield's is one of those old eateries that's been around for over sixty years, and the place probably hasn't changed a bit in all those decades.

We'd never been to the place before, and misjudged it as more of an inexpensive diner than it turned out to be. Most of the entrees were in the $20-something range, about the same as one would pay in a more elegant establishment, and fried foods were predominant on the menu. While the food was tasty, I would have been happier had the prices been cheaper to reflect the casual diner-type atmosphere (complete with a large counter with bar stools).

We started our meals with bowls of soup, Robert electing the seafood chowder and me getting the clam chowder. Both were thick, rustic soups with plenty of seafood in them. I had the sense that my soup was super-hot because it had been being held on a steam table for some time during the dinner rush.

For main courses, we opted for sandwiches because they were only $9 or $10 each. Robert got the fried perch sandwich, and got two large filets on his bun. I had crab cake. The crab cake was excellent. It was thick and full of crab, and the outside was so evenly browned that I think it was deep fried instead of pan fried. Both sandwiches came on standard hamburger buns and were served with a nice, sweetish cole slaw (French fries were an available alternative).

I don't know whether or not we will go back to Crisfield's. It was certainly popular with a more mature, white crowd, and stayed full the entire time we were there. If we return, we'll want to try the main entrees and seafood platters.

My friend Justin is graduating from Arizona State University right about now, and I've been trying to watch the Webcast of the ceremony to hear President Obama give the commencement address. The video feed is there, but there's no sound!

It's been a busy week of meetings every night. Monday was lodge night, where we did the Fellowcraft degree for six guys. Tuesday was the Rose Croix Chapter meeting for Scottish Rite. Tonight I just got home from the Grand Lodge semi-annual meeting. I'm tired of sitting! Fortunately I don't have any more meetings to attend for the rest of the month.

Nothing else exciting going on in D.C. this week.