Quiet weekend out this way. The majority of the time was spent staring out the window at the hammering rain storms, hoping a ton of mud doesn’t roll downhill at us. Good times. So far we’re dry, at least where we’re supposed to be. The yard may be a permanent mud pit at this point. Last night’s 40 mph wind storm didn’t appear to affect it in the least. I try to not even look at the extended forecast anymore, it’s just about more than I can take. Rain, wind, and cold. Usually some mixture of the three, with a few days of snow thrown in for fun.

Our one outing over the weekend was a trip down to Folsom for a Fancy Dinner, with the Fancy Folk. We don’t get invited on these outings much anymore since we moved to the low-rent area code, so we were pleasantly surprised to make the list. (I’m assuming somebody else couldn’t make it that night and we were fill-ins, but let’s just go with they actually wanted us to come.) Dinner was at Fourk Kitchen, which we hadn’t been to before. They serve a fixed four course dinner, and the chef comes out and tells you a little about each dish. Where they sourced the ingredients, how it’s prepared, etc. Fancy indeed. The main course of the evening was chicken piccata, which, to be honest, just isn’t one of my favorites. It’s good, sure. Can’t say I’ve ever found myself thinking, “man I’d really like chicken piccata for dinner” though. Surely not what I would order off a menu given any other choices. It was good though. Heck, I even think I’ll try it at home soon. Dessert was chocolate lava cake, which I’m 100% adverse to. No thank you. The ice cream on top was good. All in all though, a fun night, and reasonably priced. It would take a little more inviting menu lineup to get me clear down there again, but it was worth the trip.

[Show slideshow]

Well, another week, another stretch of rain and snow. In a rather welcome change of pace though, the snow was here at home, and the rain was in Maui where we were. OK, yeah, a week of rain isn’t exactly the ideal weather for a week long vacation at the beach. But, as we reminded ourselves several times, it beat the heck out of the snow and cold at home. Little disappointing, I have to admit, but we made the best of it. Lots of good food, some sight-seeing, and a few brief trips to the beach between storms. We’ll get ’em next time, maybe. In the meantime, we’re back in good ol’ CA, and the snow is STILL coming down. We couldn’t even get up the drive to the garage, had to park the car at the bottom and hike through two feet of snow in the dark. Carrying luggage. And dogs. In flip-flops. (Hot tip: It can’t be done. I’ll find that left shoe come Spring I guess.)

[Show slideshow]

Snowed in again. This winter has been… “challenging.” Last year was livable, with the very notable exception of the major storm in January. That was a few weeks of mess though. This winter has either been wicked cold, raining, snowing, or some combination of the three. Save a few very brief breaks of 60’s, it’s been too cold to leave the house for months. Heck, it’s been too cold to leave bed most days. Our mantra has been “it’ll warm up any day now,” but I am actually starting to have doubts. It might just be freezing the rest of the year. No bueno.

Nothing to relate from the weekend. Can’t leave the house. More TV. BOO! We did cook some reasonably good food along the way, which luckily we had in the freezer. I also made avocado toast for breakfast a few times, as we had a bunch of avocados approaching end-of-life. I gotta say, I just don’t get that pairing. Never have. People just rave and carry on about it, even claiming “oh, you have to go to such-and-such restaurant, they have the BEST avocado toast!!!!” Yeah… It’s OK… at the end of the day it’s a smushed up avocado spread on a piece of toast. I guess you might get a particularly great piece of toast (whatever constitutes great toast,) or a perfectly ripe avocado, but, well… It’s still a smushed avocado on toast. I’m likely showing my cheapskate side here (again,) but it also bugs me that people even order it at restaurants in the first place. Pay $15 for it, and claim it’s the best breakfast they ever had. Errrr… You know you can drop by the grocery on the way home, grab an avocado and a loaf of local bread, and have the same exact thing? Hey, whatever. Me, I’ll stick with the biscuits and gravy when I go out. (And invariably complain about that also, as it’s easy to make better at home. But at least you have to put a LITTLE effort into it.)

[Show slideshow]

I hope everyone enjoyed their President’s Day holiday! I know I didn’t, because it wasn’t a holiday for me. Woe. Despair. Oh well, I’ll get ’em next time. The worst part is, I spent the entire weekend saving my strength to have a big day, then figured out at the last minute that I didn’t get the day off at all. This leaves me with mighty scarce material to work with here. Even less than usual, if that’s possible. My apparent lack of ability to read a calendar, combined with the continuing crummy weather, made for an overall slow weekend. We did a little cooking, watched a few quite unmemorable movies, and… slept? I guess Friday we took the trash out, and then retrieved the cans post-pickup. Yeah I think I’ll call it a weekend summary at that point.

[Show slideshow]

Wow, that was a good game. I think I would have considered that a good game even if KC lost, but luckily I’ll never know. I don’t seem to remember it being as exciting as the comeback a few years ago against SF, but it was fun to watch for sure. We didn’t do it up too big for the game. Went over to a friend’s house and they fixed some great football food, and the four of us munched on it and cheered KC on. I have to say, I have no interest in the commercials or halftime what-so-ever, so I don’t have any input to that part. The whole idea of a “funny” or “great” commercial just totally escapes me. It’s a commercial. Go get something to eat, flip over to something else… Who wants to actually pay attention to a commercial?!?! I will accept that I seem to be in a vast minority there though, so I guess I hope everyone else “enjoyed” them.

[Show slideshow]