Well my current funk continues;  However, I have a nice vacation on the horizon so we’ll see what effect that has.  It’ll take things to the extreme one direction or another is my guess.  Hey, that week was nothing to complain about though, I’ve had worse.  We ate out nearly every night, which, if not necessarily in the budget, is certainly fun.  We started that trend off Monday night with dinner at 75th Street Brewery.  It was solid as ever;  We split a dinner in true old-people fashion, which worked out well.  Tuesday night probably bears a recap too.  We ordered takeout from Waldo Pizza, a perennial favorite.  For reasons that even I cannot explain, I came up with a combination of roasted chicken, bacon, and anchovies for my toppings.  Wow, I’m getting a bit unsettled just thinking about it.  I must say, the pizza was really quite good.  So good, in fact, that I ate the entire thing by myself.  (It was “buy one, get one 1/2 price” night, so Donette had her own combo.)   The phrase “All things in moderation” comes to mind.  My stomach was really quite out-of-sorts the rest of the night…  And I think I’ll leave the recap of Tuesday at that, for everyone’s sake.  Wednesday night was at Jalapeno’s, and Thursday we went to the Brooksider.  I’ve had everything on the menu (several times over) at both of these places so they really don’t bear re-telling.

Friday, I met Donette and her parents up at the Brooksider for lunch.  Although I just finished saying I’d had everything on the menu, that proved not quite true.  Actually, in truth, all I ever eat there is the chicken strips.  They aren’t exactly known as the culinary epicentre of the area, but the chicken strips are solid, (not to mention 1/2 price before 7:00) so it makes for an easy decision.  Friday, though, I branched out and ordered the “lunch special.”  This monumental event, combined with the fact that I never eat lunch at the Brooksider, added considerable excitement to my daily routine, needless to say.  The lunch plate was a large chicken-fried steak, with mashed potatos and green beans on the side, smothered in a considerable pool of gravy.  Quite delicious, although I had some trouble staying awake at my desk the rest of the afternoon.  That night for dinner, we cooked at home for the only time the entire week, fixing a recipe I’d seen on Robin Miller earlier in the week.  We fixed it on the grill though;  Too hot to be firing up the oven.

Saturday, the event of the day was Kelly Martin’s 40th birthday party.  Another one bites the dust, so to speak.  After dropping Gabe off at Aunt Ronda’s, I took Donette up there to join several other girls in a big stretch limo. They then drove over to the Martin house and picked Kelly up.  They drove around all afternoon doing whatever it is that girls do when they get together, and then came back to the house at 6:30 for a big party.  This whole episode was a surprise event, facilitated by Chris believe it or not.  It looked to be a big success, but I found myself just as entertained by the planning as the party itself.  I have watched all these girls email back and forth for several weeks, plotting and scheming how to best lie to their good friend Kelly in order to conceal their true motives.  It was troubling how easily they came up with these elaborate hoaxes, and how straight-faced they were as they told them.  Just as unnerving was the obvious glee they took in this whole act of deception.  I have seen evil my friends, and it lives among us.

Oh, another positive from last week was that I finally got my “tax rebate” check thing.  I don’t really know why mine was so late, something to do with how we filed through Turbotax.  Unfortunately, now that it finally got here, I’ve pretty much lost interest in the things I had planned for it.  I ended up ordering a new iPod, which I really don’t need.  It’s nicer than my old one though, and I thought it in the best interest of the economy to do something with it.  I also got two tickets to a “Brewmaster Dinner” at 75th Street this Tuesday evening, which I thought sounded festive.  The rest went in the checking account to pay overdue bills;  BORING!!