Our Week

Jonny and Jenny arrived in SLC December 17 and spent their first week with Jenny's parents, the Leathams. They spent Christmas weekend with Earl Holding and his family in Sun Valley, and then stayed with us until they returned to Chicago on January 1.

During Our Week, there was lots of time just relaxing and talking. Jonny and Michael got out their computers and compared spreadsheets. Michael formulated a spreadsheet showing a real estate investment plan that would generate $3 million over 15 years. Jonny created a spreadsheet showing the amortization of the cost of the clothes he wears! Dress was casual (Towel with bare chest OK. T-shirt OK.)

We helped Jonny finish a poem about his moustache for his friends' "Burt Reynolds' Moustache Award" party. Jonny went dressesd as a Western poet, in white Wrangler pants, white turtleneck, cowboy boots, and an artist's cap. Michael even helped Jonny create a (fake) book cover for Jonny's (fake) newly issued book of poems "available only at Walgreens for $6."

We had a "cook-in", in which we each cooked part of an Indian meal. The menu, planned by chief chefs Gretta and Jonny, was chicken tikka with cilantro/mint/coconut sauce, shrimp mango curry, potatoes with peas and chiles, basmati rice, tropical fruit salad, and, for dessert, vermicelli with raisins and cardomom. Melissa chopped the fruit salad, Michael made the potatoes and peas and grilled the chicken, and Jonny and Jenny made the vermicelli. Jenny had fond memories of her Delhi cook making vermicelli just like Jonny and Jenny created. Jenny also got to try on Gretta's special, onion-cutting glasses (no tears).

We also ate at just-opened Red Iguana II and at Market Street Grill, and we went to the movies virtually every night. The combination of films was diverse--"Precious," a heart-breaking and heart-warming tale of an abused single mother in Harlem; "Sherlock Holmes," an action thriller with haunting views of 19th century London; and "Up In the Air," a wry tale of a rootless man who fired people for a living. We decided that all we needed, to have a complete tour of movie genres, was to add "The Princess and the Frog" (animation) and "Avatar" (science fiction).

We also spent two evenings watching Jonny compete in the East High alumni basketball tournament. It was fun to see Jonny's old friends and their new wives--Kimball and Liz Parker, James and Kirsten Norman, as well as to see Jonny make a three-point basket.