Well the nice weather didn’t last too long.  Drat.  Oh well, Fall is just around the corner.  I’ll survive.  Perhaps.

That was a rather busy weekend.  Perhaps even too busy for my tastes, I haven’t decided yet.  Friday we kinda took it easy…  At first we weren’t going to do anything at all, but then decided that the weather was so nice we better at least make an effort at getting out.  We walked around the corner to Waldo Wine and hit the “free Friday tasting” for a few hours.  Can’t beat that deal.  Meet a few neighbors, taste a few wines that we’re too cheap to ever actually buy, and get out of the house for a few hours.  After that we went back home, hunkered down, and watched a movie.

Saturday was truly a day of entertainment.  Not sure if that’s a good thing or not; a little too busy for my tastes.  Doni wisely prepped for the day by sleeping until 11:00 in the afternoon with the menagerie.  As soon as she and Gabe saw fit to get out of bed, we loaded up and headed out to Petsmart for our weekend re-stock on treats, food, toys, etc.  We got the boy a few more “interactive toys,” which are supposed to occupy his time in his crate, and a few bones and such.  His foster Mom works there too, so we visited with her for a while.  After our little shopping trip, we headed up to the Northlands to hit the lake with the Martins.  Few hours of floating around in the water, then we went to a birthday party at one of their neighbors’ houses.  After THAT party we headed back to our ‘hood and picked up the pup, then went to a house-warming party at Susan’s.  This was quite the well-attended fiesta, and we ended up staying quite ridiculously late.  Gabe seemed to enjoy all the attention too, and he behaved very nicely.

Sunday we slept in for a bit, then trudged down to Jalapenos for a little lunch.  While we sat there munching our enchiladas, we also planned out our menu for the week.  Very organized of us, I thought.  The basis for this little rash of planning was reading Braun’s Food Blog.  He has single-handedly inspired me to get back into cooking.  Somewhere between the house in Texas and the apartment downtown, I kind of lost interest in the whole food thing.  It’s just so much easier to let somebody else cook it for you.  But, I’m gonna give it a try again, starting this very week.  Gonna start off slow…  Maybe just one or two nights a week, and see what happens.  After deciding on our culinary schedule for the week, we split up to go do “stuff”.  Doni hit the local markets to collect up the ingredients for said menu, and I went home to mow the lawn.  Somewhere during the one-mile drive from the restaurant to the house, I decided it was too hot to mow and went to Woodside to play tennis.  Hopefully everyone can appreciate the stupidity of this decision.  “Man, way too hot to mow, think I’ll go run around on a big slab of asphalt.”  Oh well, the sweat did me good.  Todd and I took on Mike and Kristy in a few games of doubles.  This was billed as the clash between our age and experience, versus their youth and energy.  Our age turned out to be quite a hindrance, and actually we don’t have any experience, so we lost rather badly.  What the heck, it was fun.  Wait a minute…  It sucked.  After laying on the couch for a few hours under ice packs, we went over to Susan’s for some Chinese take-out and HBO.

That wrapped up the week.  Tonight we’re going to the last Starlight show of the season, “Hello Dolly.”  Prime rib on the menu.  I’ll start my new cooking regimen tomorrow.