What a crappy game. I guess, being a Nor-Cal-ian, I can even go so far as to say crappy games. After the debacle that was the Chiefs/Bengals, I proceeded to watch the semi-home-team 49’ers, only to see it end in a quite similar fashion. Guess I’ll just mow the lawn on Super Bowl Sunday. On the upside, I made a pot of chicken gumbo that came out fairly well. It was definitely the highlight of the day, but that just ain’t saying much unfortunately. Bah.
I don’t have much to work with this week, outside of some great food and great football. So, the lame update that follows is not really my fault. Or, since I kind of elected to lay on the couch and stare at the TV all weekend, maybe it is my fault. Let’s not play the blame-game here though. Friday night, I can’t think that we really did anything. We even skipped out on our normally scheduled happy hour event, for no particular reason. Just didn’t feel like it. I think we might have tried watching a movie or something, which of course led me to promptly fall asleep on the couch. Saturday evening, we drove all the way down to Folsom for a birthday dinner at a friend’s house. We watched the 49’ers game while enjoying a fantastic meal of short ribs over polenta. Good game, good food… Good evening. Sunday was effectively a full day of football. We were either actively watching the game, or pacing the floor waiting for the game. No food was needed, we were still stuffed from the prior evening. I guess the Chief’s game falls under the “all is well that ends well” category, but I’ll have to keep an extra-close eye on my blood pressure this week.
Three-day weekend, in the books. I might start one of those online petitions to make every weekend three days. Not sure any of those petitions has ever resulted in a single thing being changed, but maybe mine will be the first. I have to think it would be well received by the majority of the population, especially out here. Just a guess. Anyway, pipe dreams aside, that wasn’t a bad weekend. We’re in a nice stretch of 60-degree weather, which is certainly welcome. I took advantage of it to wash a few of the vehicles, rearrange the storage shed a bit, and I broke out the bicycle for a few rides. I haven’t ridden either of my bicycles since we moved to this house, well over a year ago. And, er, it shows. In order to counteract any possible health benefits of this resumed exercise regime, we also went out to eat on Thursday, in our continuing search for decent fried chicken. We’ve lived out here 8-some-odd years now and haven’t had a plate of fried chicken since. Well, we’ve made it at home a few times, but the mess generally discourages that menu. We have tried several restaurants as part of this arduous culinary quest, but all have fallen (far) short. Probably the most memorable failure was a trip clear down to Sacramento to a place loudly proclaiming, “The Best Fried Chicken in Sacramento.” I cannot lie, I was excited. Expectations were high. Too high, perhaps. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and when we pulled up to the location it was clear it was sort of a fast-food type of place, not a sit-down restaurant. OK, they’ve got a Go Chicken Go kind of thing going on, no problems there. Sign me up for a two piece dark and some gizzards, extra sauce. Only problem was, I couldn’t find the two piece combo meal on the menu, or the gizzards for that matter. No matter how long I stared, all I could find was boneless chicken strips. So, I just kept staring, patiently waiting for the kiddy menu to flip over to the real one. Alas, it was not to be. All they served was chicken strips. The best fried chicken, indeed. I wasn’t expecting to happen upon the west coast equivalent of Strouds, but chicken strips?!?!?! I died a little bit inside that day. Heck, I could have saved a few gallons of gas and just got a McNugget meal up the hill. I’m not even sure how they were, because I left without ordering, quietly sobbing, unable to contain my grief.
Anyway, I never gave up, resolving to search even harder. And search I have, always with similar results. Then, on Thursday we ended up at a rather remote hole-in-the-wall, Sportsmans Hall. I had researched the menu thoroughly, and confidence was high that we might be on to something. Rest assured, I had a few plan B’s selected in case everything went bad. A lengthy, detailed interview of the unlucky waitress who drew our table confirmed that yes, they did indeed serve actual fried chicken! Eureka! I was further encouraged that she gave me a confused stare under questioning, like “what the heck else would it be?” Look lady, you ever been outside this place? It’s a fried-chicken desert out there. I excitedly ordered the chicken plate, laughing hysterically when she jokingly asked, “would you like the mashed potatoes with that?” (Uh, that WAS a joke, right? Seemed to bring on more confused stares. That’s OK.) Then, I waited. And waited, and waited. I took this as yet another positive sign, as no acceptable fried chicken comes out quickly. After a good 30-plus minutes, my patience was rewarded with a fine looking plate of genuine fried chicken! Lots and lots of fried chicken, as a matter of fact. A full half a bird, and a somewhat large bird at that. Success! I anxiously dove into the huge plate, and it tasted as good as it looked. The long quest is over, we’ve found a spot for that occasional fried chicken fix. We’ll be back, I’m sure, probably sooner than later.
Second weekend of the year… I guess that means we’re settled in now. We kind of kicked back and recovered this weekend. I’m not sure exactly what we were recovering from, but it seems like as good an excuse for doing nothing as any. We started off Friday by going to our regularly scheduled appointment at the Foothill Beer Temple. Nothing too special to report there. It was about the same as last Friday. And the Friday before, and before that, and… You get the idea. We did make an impromptu stop on the way home to have dinner at The Place. It was dinner time, and there were a few parking places available (not always the case,) so we made the call. Well worth the stop. We ended up on the new side, which is pretty much a bar. We’d been there once before and gave it a solid B rating. The biggest upside is they have seating available, whereas the main dining room is generally full, and a lengthy wait for a table. It’s not quite as “fancy” either, which is a relative term in the area we live in. No tablecloths, and no waitstaff. Works for us. Our only real complaint on our last visit was that they only served pizza, not the full menu from the restaurant. Hey, their pizza is awesome, but so are their pasta entrees. Just seemed weird, considering they are only separated by a door. Well, I guess others had commented to that effect, because they had the full menu available this time. Bonus! We had a delicious meal, then headed on home for an evening on the couch. Turned on a movie, which as usual immediately put me to sleep.
Saturday, we got all prepped up for the Chiefs game. The day got a rough start when the coffee maker went kaput, but we were able to fight through that major inconvenience. (Anybody else think Keurig coffee makers only last one year? We seem to buy one every year. Yeah, slow learners I guess.) Anyway, that kind of sums up our Saturday. The game was moderately stressful and left us is such an exhausted state that we were unable to rally for any other activities.
Sunday, I decided to try my hand at making pozole. I’m not entirely sure how this made its way onto the menu, but I’ve been wanting to make it for some time and declared Sunday to be the day. Not too bad! I have to think it would have been even more enjoyable had the weather been a little more wintery, but we’re definitely due for some warmer temps so that’s OK. Our final rating was that we’d just as soon have a few other soups that we make semi-frequently, so it might have been a one-and-done, but it was fun. Check that box off, so to speak.
I guess I missed my first update in a while. As always, I have a totally legitimate excuse though. We were snowed in without power! If that seems unlikely given our chosen region of the country, let me assure you it’s a fact. We had an inkling since we moved here that we’d gone just a bit too high in elevation, and that has now been confirmed. The snow started coming down Friday the 24th, and it just kept coming. We got a little snow last winter at this house, but nothing like this time. By Sunday there was over a foot, and it was still coming down. I, of course, elected to ignore all the warning to stock up on supplies in case things went bad. I don’t have to do that, I live in freaking California! Well, things went bad. Early Monday morning the lights started flickering. Once an hour or so, but they always came back on after a few minutes. About 6:00, things went dark… And stayed dark. Huh. Interesting. Glad I made my coffee already, let’s wait this out. By 10:00 or so, a few doubts were starting to creep in. What the heck is going on here. We’re on a low-rent power grid, so our lights go out occasionally, but just for a few hours. I checked the website, which offered the super helpful info that yep, we had no power, and there was no estimated time for restoral. I was starting to worry about the food in the fridge by now, so I reluctantly trudged out in the snow to start up the generator. Whoops, no gas in the cans. Well, there was some in the generator, so I got it started and strung a few extension cords around the house. Plugged in the refrigerator, the Internet stuff, and the coffee pot and called it good. I don’t remember at what time, but several hours later the generator ran out of gas, and we still had no power. OK, the jokes over PG&E, flip the switch. I did a little searching around on various websites, and the pictures I found were pretty grim. The lines had been snapping under the weight of the snow, and trees were falling over everywhere and breaking the poles. Uh oh. Well, my generator runs on propane also, so I scrounged up all the 1/2-full bottles around the yard and got the power going again. A little more research on the subject indicated we weren’t getting our power back anytime soon. So, I loaded up the gas cans in the back of the Jeep and headed out into the mess. As a side note, that Jeep turned out to be one of my better random stupid purchases. The other two cars weren’t going anywhere in that mess. The trusty Wrangler got through it OK though, and I headed up the street to the nearest filling station. Whoops, no power, closed. Didn’t see that coming. Option B was about ten miles the other direction, so I headed that way. I made it about four miles and hit a real mess. There were poles sheared off all the way down the road, trees blocking the way, and power lines strung around like spaghetti. (And no utility workers onsite.) Not much to do but turn around, so I took Option C, which is a long, slow, winding route through the back roads. It was slow, but it got me there. Filled up the two cans and headed back to the house, which was slowly but steadily getting colder.
It ended up that routine would repeat itself until late Thursday when the power finally came back on. By that time the house had dropped to 48, and we had bailed out for a friend’s house down the hill a few miles. The power company had been saying we could expect power to be restored by Jan 5, so I guess we were supposed to be happy with Dec 30. And, for that matter, we were. I was tired of running back and forth filling the gas cans, and I wanted to celebrate NYE at home. We didn’t do a lot of celebrating, because we were feeling a little beat up, but honestly we probably wouldn’t have anyway. We headed up to a nearby bar, had a plate of wings, and rang in the “English New Year,” which was at a much more old-person friendly 4:00 in the afternoon. At the end of the big storm, I guess I’ll chalk it all up to “lesson learned.” I’ll keep those gas cans filled up from now on, and might even buy a third one. Two would get me through the day, but a third would have saved me a few trips. More propane in the house tank would have been nice too. Our gas fireplace in the living room helped take the edge off the cold a bit (no blower without power,) but the tank was low and I was getting worried that would run out too. If the Tesla batteries we ordered 14 months ago would ever actually show up, the whole thing would have been a non-issue. Maybe they’ll get here in ’22.
