I believe I’ll post an update on Monday, just for the sake of nostalgia.  Likely brief though, our weekend was rained out.  I’m growing a bit weary of hearing “We need the rain.”  Enough is enough.  The whole area is under water.  It seems to have gone from one extreme to the other.  Oh well, this week’s forecast looks moderately more promising.

Seriously, it rained so much we didn’t really do much.  Saturday we worked in the garage, and I washed my bicycles.  Whoa, slow down Kenagys, getting kind of wacky.  Oh well, it passed the time.  For evening entertainment we headed over to the clubhouse for a wine tasting.  That was firmly in the “better than sitting at home, but just barely” category.  We wisely brought a few friends with us so we wouldn’t have to meet any new ones.  Clever.  After that we headed back to our house for a good round of cards.

Sunday brought more rain.  Steady, maddening rain, and sort of cold to boot.  I fired up a Gunsmoke marathon, and was pretty content to just sit on the couch all day, but I started getting a bit antsy after four or five episodes.  We ended up meeting some friends in the Old Folsom area, and kicked around there all day.  And that was pretty much our weekend.  Better luck next time.

Well, I THOUGHT bike riding season was here.  Got out a few times last week, and declared the season officially open.  Then came the rains, and cold.  Darn it, thought I had a schedule going there for a bit.  Oh well, it’ll warm back up soon I hope, and it surely won’t rain much longer.  Everybody keeps saying “we need the water” so I guess I’ll just go with it.

Lame weekend, at least for me.  Doni kicked it up a bit, but I wasn’t there and so cannot relate the details of her events.  I did have a nice little happy hour Friday, on my back patio.  It was rather pleasant sitting out on our covered patio in the rain, watching TV.  After a while the rain hitting the metal cover got so loud I couldn’t hear the TV though, so I called it a day and went back inside.

Saturday Doni had a big costume party at a friend’s house.  They were throwing a “Tarantino Movie” themed party, and you were supposed to dress up as a character from one of his movies.  I don’t know what ever happened to just getting together for drinks and eats. Crazy kids.  Anyway, I was stuck working so I missed out on the fun.  I’m not entirely sure I would have gone had I NOT been working, but it was a moot point I guess.  For her part, Doni went as Daisy Domergue from The Hateful Eight, and did a darn fine job of it at that.  It looked like a great time from all the pics.  I had a good time working too.  Really.  Seriously.  Uh huh.

Sunday I was somewhat rudely awoken for more work.  That carried on for a bit, then we met some friends for brunch at the nearby Bella Bru.  And a fine brunch it was, I rather enjoyed it.  I got to hear all about how much fun they’d had the night before without me.  Not sure how that’s even possible, maybe they were just making it up.  After we ate everyone (except me) was still caught up in the spirit of the event, so we headed back to our house and watched Natural Born Killers, followed by From Dusk Til Dawn.  Another wasted Sunday in the books, check.

Things are slow out here, very slow.  I had a few note-worthy events over the last few weeks though.  One thing, I went mountain biking with some guys last week.  I rather miss cycling, and I’ve about accepted nobody I know out here is going to road-ride with me, so I caved and got a mountain bike.  Different world, I know that.  I pretty much suffered the whole ride, but it was oddly fun.  It didn’t help that it was pitch dark out, making it rather hard to see.  I’ve got lights, but they weren’t really cutting it.  Eh, I only wrecked once, I’ll call it a victory.  Granted, it’s hard to wreck when you’re walking your bike most of the time, but we’ll leave that part out.

As far as the weekend goes, we stayed in Friday night.  It’s starting to get a little nicer out, so I moved my TV out to the back patio and hung out there for the evening.  Doesn’t take a whole lot to entertain me.  Saturday it was even nicer out, so I grabbed a few slabs of ribs from the grocery and fired up the smoker.  It was an experiment of sorts.  I bought one slab of loin backs, and one slab of spares.  Same exact rub, same cook times, to see which I liked better.  Not a particularly valid experiment, as I already had it in my head I like spares better, but it was fun all the same.  Both of them came out quite passable.  I declare BBQ season officially OPEN.  Sunday we got off to a pretty slow start.  I made the critical error of turning on the TV, finding a few movies, and wasting a rather embarrassing part of the afternoon.  It happens.  It happens quite frequently, actually.  Doni hosted her annual Oscars party that evening, so eventually I had to get up and around to help with preparations for that.  It’s a “girls only” event, so when it kicked off I headed over to a buddy’s house with a few other banished husbands for steaks on the grill.  Works for me.

Whew, busy weekend.  Once again I totally failed in my note-taking strategy, so I don’t really remember specifically what we did, but it seems we were very busy.  I recall Friday night I tried to drum up a little support for a group happy hour, but got no takers.  We ended up on our back patio, which wasn’t a bad option at all.  Fired up the propane heater and had a nice evening of it.  When the temp started getting a little uncomfortably chilly we moved inside for “movie night.”  I’d been wanting to re-watch “From Dusk Till Dawn,” so we fired that up.  I think I actually made it through the first 30 minutes or so before falling asleep.

Saturday we got up medium-early and started on our project to hang our living room TV on the wall.  That was to be one of the things we were going to hire out, but due to certain, ummm, budgetary constraints we decided to tackle it ourselves.  It wasn’t that hard I suppose, although very time consuming.  It ended up taking me the better part of the day actually.  I was happy with the results, and as of this writing it is still attached to the wall, so I declare it a success.  I had grand plans of going mountain biking in the afternoon, but there wasn’t enough sunlight left in the day by the time I finished the TV project.  Sigh.  Can’t wait for the longer days to get here.

Sunday we got all social and went to the neighborhood “Valentine’s 5K.”  It was just sort of a fun-run.  Matter of fact, we walked most of it.  Boy it wore me out a lot more than it probably should have though.  I really need to start up some form of exercise.  After that short burst of activity, we did a little bit of work in the back yard.  Cleaned out the garden, and planted three grape vines.  We have a trellis along the back fence, which was originally intended for hop vines.  Every time those would start growing, Teagan would blunder through them and snap them off at the ground though.  Hopefully the grapes will be a little hardier.  For our big Valentines dinner, we grilled up steak and lobster.  That’s become our annual dinner for some reason.  Well, I guess the main reason is, it’s dang tasty.  Doni got to pick the after-dinner movie that night.  I don’t remember what it was called, and I don’t guess it really matters because I was asleep before it even started.

Yep, late again.  Poor planning on my part, I’ve been unavoidably detained.  I headed out of town this weekend with a buddy from Texas.  We drove down to Rohnert Park and stayed with a friend, so we could attend the big Pliny The Younger beer release at nearby Santa Rosa.  I’m sure everyone remembers all the details from last year’s trip, so I’ll be brief.  They brew this 3x IPA once a year at Russian River Brewing, and it’s ready the first weekend of February.  I guess it’s considered sort of the unicorn of West Coast style IPA’s.  Hop perfection, if you will.  We had intended our trip last year to be our one-and-only time going, but the closer the date came, the more fun I remembered having.  When my friend David from our Texas days said he’d fly in for it, it sealed the deal.  We had a great time, as usual.  As I’m sure I said last year, I’m not really sure there is a beer worth standing in line 5 hours for.  But if there is, I’d guess it would be the Pliny.