On my way to Dallas again...

So instead of enjoying Halloween in Austin with Mitch, or in Bastrop, handing out candy to the kids in my neighborhood, I'll be in Dallas, in a hotel room, because the second half of the Wardrip hearing starts up at 8:30 tomorrow morning. *sigh* We're ready to go as far as the case goes, which is good. I baked a sour cream spice cake with cream cheese frosting for my witnesses, and some banana bread too. Mitch took several slices with him to work this morning. I think we're going to meet for lunch, and then I'm off to the airport.

Yesterday Mitch and I made our travel plans for the holidays-- a week with his parents and extended family in Vegas, Dec 20-26, then a week with some family friends on the East Coast Dec 26-Jan 3.

I pulled out all my winter clothes this past weekend because I really enjoyed the brief cold snap we had (it got down to 50! whoohooo!) but sadly had to stack it next to my summer clothes, because it's going to keep warming up and getting chilly all the way through Christmas. Last year it was 82 when I was putting up Christmas lights... makes it a little hard to get into the spirit! But I have already started perusing my cookbooks and thinking about my recipes for the Thanksgiving dinner and the Christmas party. I always like to have a few old favorites especially for the Christmas party-- like spicy beef triangles, baked brie, molasses cookies, and my family-recipe eggnog... but I want to add some new things too.

Anyway I better get packing.

For those of you who would like to see what this salsa thing is all about, here's a link to a performance at the Bayou City Mambo. The couple dances with the Eddie Torres Dancers in NYC-- Eddie Torres being the Father of modern Mambo-- and are independently famous in their own rights. Adolfo used to live in Texas and has fantastic charisma; Melissa has been dancing with Eddie since she was a child. Of course, this is not how we dance on the social dancefloor-- this is performance, choreography-- but it's exciting to watch and so very musical.

Click

here

to see Adolfo and Melissa's performance.