I made a steak this weekend--all by myself--and it was good. Wasn't sure for a few minutes there if I'd actually get to enjoy it while it was still hot. I don't have an outdoor grill (nor have I ever been all that great at grilling, too worried about whether the meat is done), so I pan-seared the steak in a cast iron skillet for 90 seconds on each side and then stuck it in the oven. Well, guess what happens when you toss a slab of meat into a hot cast iron pan?

Smoke.

Lots of smoke.

Even with the stove fan on high and all the doors and windows open, it got pretty bad. I fully expected my smoke alarm to go off and summon the fire department who would all laugh themselves silly over my dinner (while it got cold).

But no, it was great. The smoke alarm did not go off. I rested the meat, threw it on a plate with some salt & vinegar potatoes, poured a glass of 1992 Heitz cab (ask Ben someday how I came to be in possession of that great bottle of wine), and had an excellent dinner.

I also succeeded in baking a nice loaf of the no-knead bread this weekend. The first attempt failed last weekend when I forgot to add the salt, but this one turned out quite nicely. I agree with Uncle Bob that the crust is awfully crusty, but the bread is nice and chewy.

In random bird news, a huge hawk swooped down right in front of my car this morning as I was leaving for church, startling the heck out of me and a runner on the sidewalk. It alighted in a tree in the center divide of my street and proceeded to eat its breakfast (a rodent, not the runner). I couldn't see it well enough in my side mirror to figure out what kind it was, and the light turned green before I could turn around and get a good look. There haven't been all that many hawks around lately, mostly crows. A wild turkey stopped traffic briefly on Crow Canyon the other morning, but even those haven't been around as much as usual.

Two baby doves, five days old. Mom is off taking a break somewhere, probably tired of trying to sit on top of a pair of baby birds who are maybe one-third her size already. I keep forgetting to bring a real camera, so this is taken with my stupid Moto Q work phone, whose only redeeming quality is that the camera is slightly better than my LG Rumor personal phone.

I completely forgot to mention the other day in my praise of great actors the amazing performance by Stephen Root as the pathetic gay vampire on True Blood in a role completely unlike his usual great comedic work, but awe-inspiring nonetheless. (I hear he's in No Country for Old Men as well, but I haven't had a chance to watch that yet since I only recently found the USB drive where that's stored).

A lot of big expenses hit all at once this month, so I'm keeping to a very tight budget until the next paycheck and challenging myself to eat out of the pantry again. So far it's working pretty well, though I learned last night that if you make a baked penne dish to extend two servings of dry pasta and some leftover sauce into maybe three or four servings, you have to add something besides cheese and breadcrumbs to bulk it up. Otherwise it's just the same two servings of cooked pasta, only with stickier, cheesier sauce.

The baby doves hatched on Monday morning. We were starting to get worried about her because the gestation period for dove eggs is about 18 days and it was getting pretty close. This is a photo of mom sitting on the nest on Friday afternoon taken from the top of the stairs. Now we're worried about the babies falling off that beam.

Still no barn swallow nest on my patio. My neighbor's raucous party the other night shook loose most of the mud that was there. Maybe they gave it up as a bad location.

Today I awoke to temperatures that could almost be considered chilly. Supposedly it will stay reasonable for a couple more days before the flames of hell crank up again. I made nimbu pani, an Indian version of limeade this weekend. They drank it by the gallon in Midnight's Children, so I had to go look it up. The main difference comes from adding a pinch of salt that smooths out the sugar and tartness. Isis really likes it. I used about half as many limes as the recipe calls for to get 1 1/2 C, and the concentrate makes about 8 glasses.

Today it's supposed to cool down to a chilly 92. I considered wearing a sweater this morning. (Since it is currently 67° in my office, a sweater would not have been a bad idea.) All alone in the office today with one person out sick, one on a sort of slowdown, and two on vacation. I actually have a lot to do, so maybe sheer boredom will motivate me to get it all done with a minimum of procrastination. Since I am at this moment writing a blog entry, that doesn't seem too likely.

The stupid doves are trying the whole nesting thing again, in the exact same spot. This time however, their pile of twigs looks sturdier, like maybe they consulted a contractor or something, and the mom bird is plumped down right on top like she's been glued there. Hope springs eternal.

No nests have materialized yet on my patio. There was quite a flurry of activity over the weekend and a few more splats of mud showed up on the ceiling beam, but it didn't look like any progress had been made yesterday.

I had more of the BLT avocado salad last night, and no it didn't really improve much. Meh.

Tragedy in Dublin! For the past few weeks we've had a pair of doves bobbing around the open-air office building walkways. At one point they decided to build a nest on a 3" wide wood beam supporting the stairway roof (though I strongly advised against it on several occasions). You could tell it wasn't going well because twigs littered the stairway and nothing stayed put on the beam, and as of Friday they seemed to have wisely abandoned the idea and moved on. But this morning we got to work and found a huge mess of scattered twigs all over the stairs, along with a tiny broken egg. Doves are the stupidest birds on the face of the earth. It's a wonder they've managed to keep the species going this long.

In other nesting news: despite a lot of frantic swallow activity and the barest beginnings of a mud nest on a ceiling beam, a nest has yet to materialize on my patio this year. I have no idea what happened to the swallows who started the work, but we also have had a lot of hawks hanging around, so maybe they feel it's safer elsewhere.

The first two roses of the year bloomed late last week and unfortunately hit their peak this weekend when I was down in LA. I've already had a helluva time keeping the aphids at bay. Yes, mom, I will prune those dead leaves as soon as I can.

Observation of the week: Kerrygold Blarney Stone cheese + Saltine crackers = Cheetos (Puff style).