Keeping Up with Elliott

Wednesday, June 12, 2013 – Keeping Up with Elliott

Elliott enjoyed brunch at Circa.

On the terrace at The Kennedy Center

Christian, Elisa and Matt getting ready for brunch at home

I’ve been busy keeping up with Elliott, who simply refuses to act his age!  We’ve been brunching out (last Saturday at Circa in Foggy Bottom), brunching in (last Sunday with Elisa, Christian and Matt) and entertaining ourselves with activities such as a ballet performance at the Kennedy Center and the occasional movie.  Elliott even joined me for a vegetarian Indian lunch at Woodlands Restaurant. 

With Elisa and Christian visiting from New York this past weekend, I finally had some company in the kitchen.  This inspired me to prepare portabella sliders, a culinary experiment that turned out to be a big success.  I stuffed the caps (about 2 or 3 inches across) with a mixture of shallots, roasted plum tomatoes, panko bread crumbs, and garlic and herb infused oil, topped them with shredded cheese, and baked them in the oven.  We also discovered that the combination of goat Brie and figs makes a great hors d’oeuvre, along with a glass of crisp Sauvignon Blanc.

In addition to all the food-related activities, we’ve been making the usual rounds of Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Ikea as we continue our quest to remodel the bathrooms.  We’re currently stalled somewhere in the beginning stages of bathroom #3, which is the master bathroom.  Before we started, I didn’t realize how exhausting this process would be. 

Subbing has given me a wonderful opportunity to escape temporarily from dealing with the remodeling issues.  It’s been an especially pleasant distraction because I’ve been subbing frequently for my friend Georgi, an AHS ESOL teacher, and have gotten to feel very comfortable in her classes.  In fact, I found myself thinking of them as “my” classes this week.  It’s funny how easily I fell back into the old routines from my teaching days.  Even the early morning alarm no longer bothers me.  It’s just a chance to get outside before sunrise and appreciate the sights, sounds and smells of the day as it awakens.  Of course, I was all caught up in the end-of-school-year excitement, too.  Now that classes have ended for the year, I’m actually looking forward to the start of the new school year in September so I can sub again.  I was even momentarily tempted to offer to return, on a part-time basis, next year.  But sanity returned before I made any commitments I would surely regret.

There’s a lot going on at the moment and the intensity will only increase over the next five months.  Elisa and Christian are planning a November wedding in New York and I’ve volunteered to help in any way I can – shopping for a wedding gown, checking out area hotels, choosing a menu, etc.  It seems like a lot more work than when Elliott and I got married back in December, 1983, a mere six weeks after we got engaged.