Good Food etc...

I think I need to stop giving Daisy tennis balls. She loves them, and will chase them every time you throw them across the room, but she always ends up chewing them up into a million pieces and I end up picking all these tiny little rubber chunks out of my rug. And there are a bunch of tennis ball scraps around all the time, as pictured. But she likes them so much, I'll probably just keep giving them to her.

My mom gave all of the dogs (Daisy, Gus, and Jo) tennis balls for Christmas. They all had fun chasing them around for a few minutes...Gus and Jo lost interest, but Daisy kept destroying them for days...and we got a few to take home. I gave her one yesterday when I got back from Chicago, and you can see what it looks like in the picture...

I went home for a week and a half...we celebrated my dads birthday, my recent audition success, and of course, Christmas. The highlight of the trip (besides getting to see my parents of course!) was eating at two of Chicago's best restaurants in one week. The first was Arun's, a Thai restaurant: no menus...they just bring you a 12 course tasting dinner (6 appetizers, 4 main courses, 2 deserts...with 5 different wine pairings) The highlight of the meal was definitely the one bite salad...so much flavor in one bite...it was kind of insane.

My favorite of the two was Topolobampo...you may have heard of chef Rick Bayless from Top Chef Masters (which he won)...we all got the tasting menus here too...only 5 courses this time (with a wine pairing going along with each course)...each one of my courses used a different kind of mole (who knew there were so many?!?!?) It was probably the best meal I've ever had!

Dog Sitting

For the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of dog-sitting Zhuzha. Zhuzha has stayed with me before when her mother (Tatiana, the violist in my quartet) has gone out of town for a day or two. However, she has been gone for nearly a month, and Zhuzha has settled right in with me. Its kind of nice to have someone to keep me company when I am sitting around at home!

I'm also getting very used to having a dog...and I'm thinking that I'm going to have to replace her when Tatiana comes back home. Well, at the end of the summer at least, since I'll be in and out of Little Rock for a few weeks!

Today I am doing double duty...my upstairs neighbor Beth is out of town for the day, and I'm taking care of her Dog, Ginger, as well. This morning I tried to walk both of them at the same time...but Zhuzha was not terribly happy about this (although they have shared plenty of walks before)...and I was going to have Ginger hang out in my apartment so she wouldn't have to sit by herself all day...but Zhuzha was not very welcoming, so poor Ginger has spent the day by herself upstairs. And they have been getting walked separately.

More exercise for me I guess.