See what I did there? After blogging about fall and pumpkin spice and cooler weather (okay, I didn’t really do any of those things…but my last title had the word “fall” in it) it’s been a really hot week and weekend, and I must say…I’m over it. Luckily this morning hasn’t been so bad, mostly overcast and breezy, so fingers crossed we are moving on? (Full disclosure, I started this post last night, and today I’m already more pleased by the weather, so…maybe things are turning.)

This weekend was pretty fun!  Louie’s dad was visiting from Philly for a couple days so we went out to eat a few times and did a little sightseeing. We went to Treehouse, which is a vegan restaurant that I am conflicted about. I don’t like that their descriptions of dishes involve words like “sausage” or “chicken” and don’t specify how those things are actually made. I get that they want to show you that you don’t need meat, but to me it feels like deception. I had the seitan katsu, which was actually quite good, but the description said it was chicken (which I knew it wasn’t…it was seitan!) which to me, is just weird. Nonetheless, the meal was tasty enough, especially the beets—I’ve become obsessed with beets! The other meal we had was at Olio, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite restaurants. My favorite dishes there are the smoked whitefish salad and the roasted beets with ricotta. Yummy!

We also went up to walk across the Old Chain of Rocks bridge. I’d been there on my bike before, but this time we just parked (on the Illinois side, the Missouri parking lot was closed) and walked across.

These little buildings fascinated us. It seems they are water intake towers and are inaccessible today.

Yesterday Louie and I met up with some people my friend Eliana’s birthday. We had pizza at Dewey’s Pizza and frozen yogurt at a nearby Tutti Frutti. It was nice to meet a few new people and celebrate her 30th (so young!) birthday with her. It’s always fun to chat with friends of friends and expand our social horizons.

And then this morning I ran 7 miles (around the Botanical Gardens and Tower Grove park from my house) and now…getting ready to teach and must do a bit of practicing. Luckily there is leftover pizza to refuel after my run (great for carb-loading AND refueling, right?!).

Today I have a few students who wanted to take Labor Day off for various reasons, but I’m teaching the rest. I figured I started late enough in August that we didn’t need a break yet! Talk to me in a couple months…and I’ve set up a fall recital date for the students, which is a first for us. I have other ideas too, like some sort of ensemble Christmas performance with another teacher, but I also know things just get crazy around that time (for me and everybody else) and I’m not sure I want to tackle too much.

Oh, and I promise more trip recaps are on their way. I’m working on the Yellowstone blog post—it’s just a long post but I am working on it, in case you are wondering. I haven’t forgotten, and I will finish!

The Beggin Pet Parade was this morning in Soulard, and since the good folks at Purina sent me two VIP tickets in addition to some great goodies (leash, blanket, treats, frisbee) we HAD to go. Nearly 70 degree weather was the icing on the cake and I knew it would be a great day.

I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect or what would be happening. I’m not a huge “group activity” or “festival” person because I get impatient and overwhelmed easily. But I figured we could manage a parade and besides, we had tickets to the VIP tent—which meant food and drink. Now, before you get too excited, remember I’m not eating meat right now and I had practicing to do later, so no drinking for me. We had hoped to run into my friend April but there were just too many people and the phone service was slow so we couldn’t communicate where we were well enough to find each other.

Only water for MacKenzie too.

I won’t bore you with unnecessary details (I know, who AM I?) but we had a great time just walking around. MacKenzie loved sniffing all the other dogs and enjoyed being out in the seriously unseasonably lovely weather.

Louie and I had fun people and dog watching and checking out the neighborhood. We walked the entire parade route before the parade and then decided to go back and get some food at the tent. There wasn’t much offered without meat but we got a little pasta and salad. There was a long line for the bar and since we weren’t day-drinking (like most do at these events, I do get jealous of people who don’t need to practice or do homework or other work later on weekend days!) we didn’t feel it was worth it.

And the perhaps lame part was that we decided to skip the parade. We’d seen a ton of dogs already and the weather was almost too nice to just sit around. Maybe we are weird, but we decided to walk around more and went all around Lafayette Square as well.

Swans! And geese and ducks!

The rest of my weekend was nice as well. Yesterday was beautiful and while I did have to work in the afternoon I managed to get a nice run in in the morning.

See I took a picture!

Here’s the two cats hanging out—this is pretty close for them but they seemed content enough for awhile! Fatness (dark cat) is pretty aggressive and territorial but Chloe (white cat) has learned that she’s MOSTLY all talk and just ignores her.

Last night we decided to go out for dinner to a local Chinese restaurant. We wanted to get green beans with a black bean sauce and this egg tofu with mushrooms dish. When our server informed us that they were out of the egg tofu, we were disappointed, but asked her which of the regular tofu dishes she recommended. We picked one of her favorite choices to order. The food came out a few minutes later and I tried a bit of the dish. I looked at Louie after my first bite and said, “I think this has chicken in it.” (Remember, we have been not eating meat for a few weeks now!). We asked the server if the dish had chicken, and she said, oh no, no chicken. Only mushrooms and pork.

(We decided to eat it anyway, since sending it back would also be wasteful, and we aren’t even REAL vegetarians. We learned a valuable lesson which is to ask if a meal has meat even if you think if won’t because, for instance, it is listed under the vegetarian portion of the menu, because you just NEVER KNOW. Also the dish was really quite tasty and a good recommendation, just not a good recommendation for a couple who is awkwardly trying to avoid eating meat.)

Did you go to the pet parade? Do you find it uncomfortable asking for special treatment if you have dietary restrictions or food allergies?