I got another shot of the-buck-with-the-strange-antlers this week when he re-appeared in our back-woods again.
You'd think he would have shed this ugly pair by now, which they usually do around January through March, but he's still hanging on to them ..

Talking about deer and woods, we went 'into the woods' ourselves during McMinnville's Gallery Theater's first show of the year:

As usual we picked the Sunday matinee, which is a good choice during this time of the year when evenings are dark and can be frosty and therefore slippery!

'Into the woods'  is a 1987 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical intertwines the plots of several Brothers Grimm fairy tales, exploring the consequences of the characters' wishes and quests.

The story line:
As the result of the curse of a once-beautiful witch, a baker and his wife are childless. Three days before the rise of a blue moon, they venture into the forest to find the ingredients that will reverse the spell and restore the witch's beauty: a milk-white cow, hair as yellow as corn, a blood-red cape, and a slipper of gold.
During their journey, they meet Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Jack, each one on a quest to fulfill a wish.

As before we were very impressed by the talent and professionalism of the play, for such a small-town theater they're doing such an amazing job. The show was fast and very funny with great songs and quirky conversations.
We're blown away every time we go!

                                             

This season's shows seem to lean a little more to the 'for the whole family' style of musicals but, as with this latest show's fairy-tales (which are actually pretty gruesome), they are probably just as delightful for us adults/young at hearts!
We're looking forward to Harvey, for which we already have tickets for the second of April!

James had signed up for another golf-lesson at the Red Tail golf Center:

 

So I spent another hour in the close-by Washington Square shopping mall.
                                                        
                         

As you can see in the pictures it's a rather upscale mall and after cruising the stores for a second time I now know that none of these stores sell anything remotely interesting for me.

                                                                            
 
The shoes, clothes and accessories are too stylish and fashion-y (which is just not my style), I'm also not interested in jewelry or all kind of crazy gadgets or newest electronics and we have all the furniture we can possibly have in our small 'house' and are not interested in replacing anything that still works perfectly fine to begin with!
On top of that, or is it just me, but everything seems just insanely expensive these days?!

Any-who .. been there, done that!

We did go for an early dinner at Din Tai Fung this time around though.
Last time we were there we had no desire to wait for over two hours to be seated as walk-ins (!) so this time we'd made reservations.



The interior is rather simple and dark, all black with bamboo accents and stylish Asian lamps.

We ordered their signature dish Xiao long bao, a soup and pork meatballs filled dumpling, spicy chicken wontons and string beans with garlic.

                                                      

Well .. we can't say it was bad, but we weren't too impressed either.
The food was rather bland and the dumplings not very hot but the beans were great, the atmosphere pleasant and different and the waiter very friendly and knowledgeable, explaining into detail how the food was made and supposed to be eaten.

Of course we'd eaten most of it before I thought of taking a picture ..

But as with everything in this mall, for what we got, it was over-prized and lacking that something that would make it 'special' for us.
There are lots of Asian restaurants that do an equally, and often better, job. I don't think we'll be back.

After dinner we also picked up some pastries from the 85ºC bakery. (Another thing I didn't do last time and had regretted since).
By the way, the name 85ºC comes from the idea that the perfect brewing temperature for espresso coffee is 85º Celsius. It symbolizes their devotion to provide coffee, breads and cakes of the highest quality to every guest.

The French pastries and fluffy Asian breads and buns are baked onsite and are still warm when you get them from the self-serve bakery area. All are delicious and uniformly light, fluffy and not overly sweet and prices are very reasonable.
Funny enough, almost everything is individually wrapped, or will be placed in beautiful and artfully folded boxes at the check-out.

We took a tray and tongs and went to town filling our tray with goodness. 

                                         

We stopped ourselves at 2 pieces each (such restraint): a chocolate 'bun', a mixed berry bun, a sort of coconut danish and that box is hiding a slice of double chocolate mousse cake, the latter we had for desert when we got home.
Delicious! And Yes, we'll be back!

Let's see, what else?
Last week's snow had melted away by Saturday, which was convenient because we had places to go, but Monday morning we woke up to ..

                      

Yikes! 22F! And not too long after breakfast it started to snow again!

I guess Punxsutawney Phil wasn't kidding when he predicted 6 more weeks of winter!
Unfortunately the snow didn't stick around for long, after a couple of hours it turned into sleet and by the afternoon it was raining and everything turned green again.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted and according to the weathermen (and Phil) we have more coming. I'll take it!

Last, here's James' swing as recorded during his lesson and compared to Rory Mcilroy's:

As you can see, if you're a golfer and know what you're looking for, Rory swings beautifully 'in to out' as they say (see his club there coming from the left) and James ... not so much.

It makes a big difference in accuracy as well as distance so .. back to the driving range it is! Practice, practice, practice ..