Funny Moment from the Djoker

I have not been much of a Novak Djokovic fan since he made some rather toolish comments about Andy Roddick after beating him in the quarterfinals at the US Open last year. I've been hating on him ever since.

But his post match interview after winning his 4th round match the other night went a long way towards redeeming him in my eyes. He's gracious and funny, and talks John McEnroe into coming down on the court from the commentator's booth to hit a few.

Novak does his John McEnroe imitation while he's waiting, and Johnny Mac returns the favor when he gets on court.



My favorite moments:

6:56 Cliff Drysdale: "Oh, I hope he gets one in."
7:33 Darren Cahill: "That racquet looks about 200 years old."

Classic stuff!

Tennis Weekend

I spent last weekend in Cincinnati with my friend Tomato, shopping and watching some great tennis at the Western and Southern Financial Group Masters tournament.


The tournament is part of the US Open Series, which is a series of summer hardcourt tournaments that leads up to the US Open. It's also an ATP 1000 event, just a step below the grand slams in terms of ranking points, which means all the top players in the world attend.

We got to see Novak Djokovic


and Rafael Nadal


and my favorite doubles team, Bob and Mike Bryan.


We also saw John Isner (an up-and-coming US player) in the lobby of our hotel, which was pretty cool. It was a lot of fun. Tomato and I have been going for 3 years now, and we've got the good restaurants, shopping, parking, etc. all scoped out. We seem to keep missing Andy Roddick and Roger Federer, but maybe next year!

Coffee Nirvana

I recently acquired a fabulous new toy, a Keurig single-cup coffee maker.

The rack next to the coffee maker is full of pre-measured, single serving portions of coffee in all sorts of fabulous roasts and flavors. They're called K-cups.

You stick a K-cup in the machine, press the button...

And presto! A super yummy cup of coffee appears like magic. You can select the size cup you prefer, the temperature...it even makes cocoa and teas, too. It's really convenient and will be great for entertaining.

I'm sure a large portion of my current delight has to do with the novelty factor, but it really makes good coffee.

Fallingwater

I was in Farmington, PA the past few days for a business conference at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort. I had a free morning and took the opportunity to visit Fallingwater, the famous home built over a waterfall - designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kaufmann family.

I was intially disappointed to learn that there are no tours of the house on Wednesdays -the only time I was able to go - but was able to purchase a grounds pass, which is essentially a self-guided tour of the exterior. I figured this was better than nothing.

I was so pleased with the experience. Although I wasn't able to go inside the house, I could still walk around on several of the terraces, and peer in the windows. Since the outdoor spaces of Fallingwater are an integral part of the overall design, I still got a strong sense of the style and feel of it all.

the iconic view of Fallingwater

And the best part? THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE THERE. I am not kidding about this. There was one other car in the parking lot, and whoever it was, I never saw them. 135,000 people visit Fallingwater every year, and I had the grounds completely to myself. No people wandering through my photos. No pressure to hurry along. It was a wonderful silver lining, and I left not minding so much that I hadn't gotten the full tour.

A Kitchen Innovation

Mom got me this cool new gadget the other day...it's called a BeaterBlade+. It's a replacement mixing blade for my KitchenAid stand mixer. What makes it special is the rubber wings on the blade that scrape the bowl as it's mixing, theoretically eliminating the need to stop the mixer and scrape. Supposedly it will reduce mixing time by up to 50%.

Naturally, I had to try it out immediately. So, I made...a cheesecake. Shocking, huh?

It worked beautifully - I am very impressed. I don't think that it cut my mixing time in half, but it definitely made things faster and easier. This will come in quite handy when December rolls around and I am cranking out several dozen cheesecakes for Christmas gifts.

So, I had a yummy Oreo cheesecake stashed in the fridge when my friend Trig called about an impromtu get-together with friends at his house Friday night. Not much in the way of leftovers!