Wow, that was possibly the shortest weekend in history. Too much work, not enough play. Then the next thing you know it’s back to all work, no play weekdays. Lame. We snuck in a little fun on Sunday with a good wine tasting trip. We started the day at one of our wineries we are members at, Bom Vino. They’ve been sort of “weird” as of late. We never get any communication from them at all, and last Fall our shipment just showed up at our door one day. Odd since we’re definitely on the “pick up” list, as it’s only about 8 miles from our house. We were going to get everything straightened out while we were there yesterday, but alas, the gates were closed. Hmmm. Out of business? We don’t know. It definitely wouldn’t hurt my feelings to get dropped from their club, we’ve got enough of them and this one is a little out of the way. Anyway, after a quick regroup, we went and met some friends at Fleur de Lys. Nice place, we like going there. From there we hit a few more in our regular rotation, then actually branched out and tried a new one! Yeah, crazy. It was nice. I’d tell you all about it but I forgot the name, whoops. I also failed to take a pic all day, I’ll have to fall back on some from the past week.

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We had some company up for the weekend, which took up all our time. Our friends Renfield Cornelius and Bingo spent the weekend with us; Well actually I guess since they’re dogs maybe that makes them technically Quinn & Nacho’s friends? Semantics. Anyway, we had a grand old time. They are a lot easier to entertain than their owners, and just generally more fun. We took them all to a nearby winery Friday, then Saturday they helped us burn some brush in the back yard. Good time all around.

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So, I’ve been locked down with the ‘vid for the last two weeks. Makes my update material even scarcer than usual. “So, I woke up, moved to the couch, and took a nap.” And repeat. We picked it up somewhere along our recent Arizona adventure, presumably on the way home. What a nuisance. Ya’ know, it’s not like I ever go out anyway, but knowing you can’t makes it worse somehow. Waiting it out I guess. Heck I don’t even have any pictures to post! I did feel up to going outside Saturday, and decided to burn a big brush pile that’s been building up in the front yard. Wow, when they say it’s dry out here they ain’t kidding. Tossed a match at it, and a few minutes later I was running for the garden hose. It stayed put though, no trouble. We ended up walking around the yard and gathering branches for a few hours and tossing them on, got quite a bit of clean up done!

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Lame weekend. I haven’t put in so much couch-time since… Well, probably last weekend. Usually I can sort of disguise it as “relaxed” though; This weekend was just boring. I did watch the majority of the basketball games, some of which were entertaining. At the end of the day I didn’t care much who won or lost though, so that takes some of the excitement out of it. I was hoping for a little run from MU, but they went out in the first round. Probably for the best, they’d have just been destroyed by Gonzaga like Oklahoma was. We also tried our first attempt at the “order ahead” grocery thing. Yeah, you get on their website and order all your groceries, then go pick it up and they put it in your trunk for you. Lesson learned, always check the “no substitutions” box. I ordered my annual corned beef. I was actually a bit excited about it matter of fact, as I had a new pastrami seasoning recipe I was going to bust out on it this year. She got all the way home, and they’d given me a bottom round. AAAGGGHHHH!!!! I said brisket!!! What the heck am I supposed to do with this thing? Ugh. I threw it on the smoker anyway, but I don’t have very high hopes. I’d say ’21 is pretty much ruined.

In the very short “positive” column, I got my new skillet! Yes, such is my life these days, new skillets are big news. The biggest news was that it finally came. I ordered that thing in November! I considered asking for a refund several times over the last 16 weeks, but I really wanted my skillet. Geez, 16 weeks. “Oh, the covid, oh the shipping times, oh the holidays…” SIXTEEN WEEKS?!?!?! IT’S A SKILLET!!!! This company makes a grand total of two things: A 10″ skillet and a 12″ skillet. That’s it!!! Two things!!! And it takes that long!??!!? Well whatever, I guess I finally have it, and I like it. The only thing I’d remark on is that it’s an odd color. I already knew that, and I knew it would bother me, but I ordered it all the same. It’s kind of a copper color. Cast iron skillets are black. That’s about all there is to that story. “Well, it will get darker with use.” Guess what, NEW cast iron skillets are black too. Hey, I cooked some eggs and they didn’t stick, I guess that’s about all I should ask at this point.

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Ahhhh, back from a moderately relaxing vacation. We packed up the motorhome back on the 5th and took off for sunny Salome, Arizona for a full week stay. Not exactly a common destination I would imagine, but our friend’s mother stays the winter there so we went down for a visit before she heads north for the summer. (Apparently Salome regularly hits 115 in the summer; Yeah no thanks.) We had a great time, a nice mixture of kicking back with the occasional activity thrown in for good measure. They’ve got this sweet ATV, as pretty much everybody in the area does. Some friends of theirs were nice enough to loan us two more so we got to do some desert exploring. It’s something of an official pastime there it seems, and there are more miles of trail than you could probably ever cover. And those ATV’s, (not sure what they’re officially called… not a four-wheeler but not a dune buggy either) would pretty much go over anything in their way without so much as spinning a tire. Good times. I immediately started shopping them, but quickly found out they can’t be street licensed in CA, the No-Fun-State. That would limit it’s usefulness around here quite a bit. That was the whole week I guess, nothing else to report on. The motorhome treated us good (knock on wood…) and the whole trip was just pretty smooth. I might look into leaving the dogs behind next time, we’ll see. They just aren’t used to being alone, and you can’t very well have them tagging along everywhere. Luckily a nice neighbor checked on them in the motorhome while we were gone, but they were still plenty anxious when we got back every day, to put it mildly. Nacho has a shriek that just can’t be described; I need to video it someday so people will believe it.

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