Early this afternoon, Gretchen returned from her five day retreat in the Adirondacks. She was actually tanned enough to have spent that time in a tropical location, though the black fly welts around her neck told a different story.
Gretchen and I usually watch American Idol together, and since she'd been away during the grand finale, we'd decided to wait to watch it until she returned. It wasn't easy staying in a news blackout about the results; I had to be very careful while scanning headlines on the HuffingtonPost, for example.
So this afternoon we watched the final result show, where the unassuming paint salesman Lee Dewyzetook the whole thing. Gretchen had been a Crystal Bowersox fan, though I'd been mostly non-partisan, not too excited about any of the final contestants. I'd actually been an early fan of Siobhan Magnus until she started to gross me out. Tonight she was featured heavily in finale performances and I realized what it was that I'd come not to like about her. As she sings, her face develops the expression of someone reacting to a brutally toxic cloud of intestinal gas. See for yourself.
This evening Ray cooked us dinner, another of his incredible Indian meals featuring rice and two different curries. The food was actually more pan-Indian-Ocean-rim than Indian, drawing on African and southeast Asian influences as well. There was coconut milk in one dish and peanut butter in the other and it was incredibly delicious. He's been working as a waiter of late, but this doesn't just waste his white collar skills; it wastes his most useful restaurant skills as well.
