We hit a first in our time here last week;  Two good dinners out!  Our first hit was at Sutter Street Steakhouse on Tuesday.  We’ve been meaning to get there for a long time, and rather randomly decided Tuesday was as good a night as any.  I’ll have to say, after all our restaurant fails here in the last three years, I went in with a large amount of skepticism.  Luckily it lived up to its billing though, we both had great dinners.  Actually, we both had the same exact dinners;  ribeye steaks.  I had no doubt the quality of the beef would be up to par, but I did have serious reservations about anyone in this entire area cooking it as requested.  They were spot on though, we were both quite happy.  Overjoyed, even.  Elated.  Ecstatic.  Euphoric.  OK you get the idea.  Good meal.

Thursday night we joined our friends Michael & Alaina at Rudy’s Hideaway in nearby Rancho Cordova.  The main attraction here was their Thursday evening lobster special, and I’d made up my mind on that before we even saw the menu.  I’m pretty sure I’ve never ordered a whole lobster before, so that was my excitement for the meal.  Luckily it wasn’t nearly the dining challenge that I’ve always feared, it was actually pretty easy to deal with.  Quite delicious too.  I’d definitely go back to either of these restaurants if the opportunity came up.  The only downside is, neither of them were exactly “every day priced” menus, at least not in our book.  Heck, I’d like to go to one of them every week, but the checking account wouldn’t hold up very long.  At least it’s nice to know there is something good available if a special occasion comes up though.

As for the weekend, we stayed relatively occupied.  We took it easy Friday night, in preparation for our big garage sale on Saturday morning.  It was a “community event,” the one sale a year our hoity-toity HOA allows, so we figured we better take advantage this time around.  It was, in short, absolute mayhem.  We were very quickly overrun by hordes of bargain hunters, and it didn’t slow down for several exhausting hours.  Our goal wasn’t so much to make money as to get rid of stuff, and we did a pretty darn good job of that.  Our motto was “No reasonable offer refused,” and for that matter we didn’t refuse any unreasonable offers either.  Get that stuff outta here.  I was definitely overwhelmed by the turnout though, it was stressful for a while.  Donette was running around the yard yelling “YUP!!!” like an auctioneer, and people were throwing cash at me faster than I could keep track.  When the smoke cleared, we had an extra $750 in our pockets.  That sounds like a lot for a morning’s work, but the downside is our house is completely empty.  As in nowhere to sit.  Nowhere to eat.  No area rugs on the floor.  Oh well, mission accomplished.  After that debacle, we headed over to the clubhouse where Donette was hosting the monthly “Friends of the Vine” wine tasting.  Our friend Michael had hooked us up with a local winery, and they graciously provided a lot of wine for the event.  Usually she just invites people to bring a bottle of wine and an appetizer, and come meet your neighbors.  That’s usually good for one other couple showing up, sometimes two.  Man, you offer a few free sips of wine and the entire neighborhood shows up.  Funny how that works.  It was a great time though, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Sunday we turned it way down.  That big day before took it out of me.  I found the Chiefs game on the TV, and then after that watched the other random games all afternoon.  It’s starting to cool down a little bit, so it was a fine day to waste time on the back patio watching the season openers.  For dinner we headed over to a friend’s house for a delicious tri tip, and watched a few episodes of The Sopranos in their back yard.  We’ve started up the whole series with them, gives us something to do on otherwise quiet Sunday nights.  We’ve made it to Season 1, Episode 4, we’ll see if we can keep it up.