I got my schedule back to some semblance of normalcy this weekend.  Friday night I made my return to the Brooksider, for the first time in three weeks.  Not much had changed though;  Didn’t figure it had.  It was nice enough outside to spend a few hours on the patio with the “regular” crowd, then I went indoors for a while and sat with a handful of the TFB-BBQ members.  (They aren’t cut quite as rough as the average Brookside resident;  Bit too chilly out for them.)  Meanwhile, Donette was out having dinner at Extra Virgin with a bunch of friends.  They were taking advantage of the KC Restaurant Week specials that were going on.  If you didn’t hear about that deal, a ton of local restaurants were offering fixed menu specials, benefiting Harvesters.  Sounds like they all liked the choices too, and I liked the leftovers that made their way home.

Saturday I decided I wanted to get in on some of the Restaurant Week offerings.  So, we met our friend Susan down at Avenues Bistro for some lunch.  This wasn’t my pick, to be clear.  While I had never been there, I maintain a general aversion to any place with the word “Bistro” in the name.  They certainly didn’t do anything to sway my opinion on that stance either.  Our lunch ended up carving two and a half hours out of my day, causing to me to totally miss the Missouri game.  The vast majority of this time was spent sitting in our booth waiting and waiting and waiting for each course to come out.  (It certainly wasn’t spent eating;  It didn’t take too long to put away my main course, which consisted of three pieces of ravioli.)  Under-whelmed, to be sure.  I don’t know if the service is always that slow, or if they were busier than usual;  I seriously doubt I will ever find out either.  We went home for a few hours, and then figured that since our over-priced lunch didn’t actually consist of any food, we’d go get some dinner.  We considered a few of the “fancier” options on the list, but eventually decided on walking over to The Well.  The fixed menu there was a choice of either mahi-mahi or ribs, so Donette went with the ribs and I had the fish.  The portions they brought out were the polar opposite of what we had for lunch.  We were both actually pretty full after our (enormous) salads, then they brought her a 1/2-slab of ribs with a plate of fries, beans and slaw, and me a huge portion of fish sitting on a mound of risotto and squash.  It was all quite good too, although we had to box most of it to save room for dessert.

Sunday Donette headed north with some girls to run in the 10k “Groundhog Run.”  I mulled over the thought of going for a bicycle ride, but opted instead to take the dog over to the nearby high school for some exercise.  And exercise she did;  Whew, she must have had some energy stored up.  We played ball for a solid hour, and I think she’d have gone another 30 minutes if I’d let her.  Poor dog was so tired she was barely running though, so I figured we’d better call it a day.  When we got back home I fired up a pot roast for dinner.  Pretty much the same menu as last week, but I made a few changes.  I used a chuck roast instead of a rump, and cooked it in my dutch oven instead of a slow cooker.  Susan came over and helped us taste-test it;  Honestly I don’t think it was much different than last week’s, although I think I like the chuck cut better.  After dinner the girls popped in some Oscar-nominated movie, which both of them said stunk.  I took the upstairs TV and watched “Super 8,” which garnered an “OK” rating from me.