Score, I have the day off!  Donette had to work though, so it’s up to Gabe and I to entertain ourselves all day.  I predict an afternoon of the Winter Olympics.

So that was an unexpectedly entertaining weekend.  I was chatting online with our friend Kim last Thursday, and we were tossing around possible times for a visit, since we hadn’t seen her & Ed for a while.  I said, “Hey I got a four-day weekend, why don’t you just come to KC?”  So she checked with Ed, and they booked a flight and came in Friday night.  Ahhh, to be young and carefree again.  (As opposed to old, broken-down and carefree.)  We picked them up at the airport about 9:30 or so, which was wayyyyyy too late to actually go out that night, so we just sat around the house catching up.

So the actual reason I wanted them to come up was to take a first run on my “Taste Of KC” pub crawl that I’ve been developing.  We’ve got visitors coming into town this summer and I am working on fine-tuning my list of places to visit.  So, Saturday afternoon, we hopped on the bus and traveled down to the City Market for the first place on the list, Harry’s Country Club.  This was sort of a last-minute addition to the itinerary;  I’d never actually been there but wanted to hit someplace in that area and I’d heard good reviews on it.  It turned out to be a good pick, I wouldn’t be surprised if we went there again soon.  We had a great lunch there, although it was remarkably busy for a Saturday afternoon downtown.  From there we walked to the Phoenix, then to the Flying Saucer.  I picked the Phoenix because it’s right next to my office, so I could show the possibly interested parties where I work.  The Flying Saucer is just a fun place, even if it’s a chain, and the P&L district is worth a visit I think.  From there we hopped back on the bus and went to Kelly’s and McCoy’s;  I figure you pretty much have to see Westport while in KC.  As a side note, for anyone who might actually go to Westport, Kelly’s appears to be constructing a huge upstairs patio, which I’m sure will be a big draw should Spring ever actually arrive.  After Westport, we deviated slightly from my schedule.  I had the Peanut on Main down as my next stop, but we switched that to Tomfooleries & Fred P Otts so Ed & Kim could see some of their old haunts.  Our last stop was The Well in the Waldo area.  I wanted to hit a few more places in Waldo, but it was getting pretty late by that time and the old man was out of gas, plus poor Gabey had been locked in the house all day.  So, we cut the tour short and headed home, and spent the rest of the night playing Wii.

Sunday, well…  It was much like most of our Sundays.  We did briefly leave the house and hit the brunch up at 75th Street.  It got trimmed of the tour the night before, so I guess better late than never.  It’s a pretty good brunch by the way;  If you’re looking for a Sunday afternoon meal you could definitely do worse.  After that, we went back to the house, and the girls promptly fell asleep.  Ed & I spent the afternoon watching the Olympics, and then we drove them back to the airport later in the evening.  For the holiday today, I shall spend my time recuperating, and maybe restructuring my tour list.  It’s a good start, but needs a little fine-tuning.  Gotta pick up the pace for one thing;  I don’t want to be rushed, but I didn’t want to have to cut off any can’t-miss locations either, like Bobby Baker’s and maybe the Brooksider.  Work in progress.

I think I pretty much maximized that weekend, given that I was oncall.  That’s a pretty entertainment-limiting event, but I did what I could with it.  Kicked things off Friday with a little Happy Hour down at the Flying Saucer with the Martins.  Kept things low-key but it was fun enough.  After that we all headed back to mid-town, and had dinner at Cantina Del Ray.  I wanted to branch out from my usual asada enchiladas, but then decided not to mess with a good thing and ordered them as usual.  Can’t go wrong, plus I just like saying “asada enchilada.”  Yes, I am easily amused.  After dinner we headed back to the house and played Rock Band for a few hours.  We actually even found a few songs that we’d never played before…  I thought we’d been through the whole game.

Saturday was entertaining for Donette, but not so much for me.  She went out with the Brooksider crowd for a full day of carousing around the Waldo area.  And I mean “full day”;  They were out from like 10:00 in the morning until 7:00 at night or so.  Can’t really fill in the details on it, because I wasn’t there.  I spent the day on the couch working and watching B Movies.  (Isn’t “B Movies” an actual term for cheesy films?  These were probably more like “D” or “F” movies if so…  Just how I like ’em.)  I worked all night too.  Lame.  What can ya’ do.

Sunday I was going a bit stir-crazy, so I headed up to the shootin’ range with Mark and burned up a few hundred .22 rounds.  I haven’t shot the .22 in a while, and I always forget how fun it is.  It makes target practice a lot more enjoyable when you don’t even have to think about the cost.  I usually just see a quarter flying downrange every time I pull the trigger, but with the lil’ .22 it’s not an issue.  Fun stuff.  After that, we headed down to the Brooksider and watched an hour or so of the pre-game coverage.  They were having a wing-eating contest at half-time that I sort of wanted to stick around for, but decided against it.  I tried a little taste of the sauce they were using, and it was so ridiculously hot I really wanted wanted to watch somebody try and eat it.  Wow, it was crazy hot.  (I’m breaking out in a sweat just thinking about it.)  But, our friends Tom & Nancy were having a party a block from the house, so I decided on that instead.  It was a good time;  I even actually stayed for the entire game.  I am quite sure I have never stayed for an entire Super Bowl party, so it was either a really good party or a really good game.  Or maybe some of both.

Wow I am tired.  I have been on a stress-induced lack of sleep marathon, and it seems to be catching up with me.  Definitely affected my weekend enjoyment.  Stressed from???  Oh I won’t burden you with that, I know people only like good news.  But I’m tired.

Friday, for instance, I was running on precious few hours of sleep.  We went ahead and stopped by the Brooksider for a little happy hour, but didn’t stay long.  Went home and had a nice dinner, and then threw “Inglorious Basterds” in the DVD player.  This had the predictable result of putting me to sleep immediately.  I am not sure I made it past the opening credits truthfully, and I slept soundly through the whole movie.  I caught little bits and pieces of last Friday’s showing, but I don’t remember a single thing from this one.  Donette said it was pretty good so I’ll have to watch it before we mail it back to Netflix.

Saturday we set about doing a whole lot of nothing.  I had one computer in the queue to tune up, so I knocked that out.  Later in the afternoon Martin called and said he was up at Kennedy’s with KB, Brice & Fahlstrom, so I headed up there to watch the Missouri game and hang out for the afternoon.  We watched the less-than-thrilling basketball game, then ended up at Waldo to shoot some pool.  It turned into a veritable billiards marathon.  Haven’t done that in a while.

Sunday I was rather dismayed to find I was actually sore all over.  From a few games of pool??!!  OK now THAT is out of shape.  Might be time to get back in the gym.  It actually hampered my day somewhat.  My arms hurt, my knees ached…  Yeah, kinda sad.  I was effectively relegated to the couch for the better part of the day.  Donette went down to Jalapenos to meet “the girls” around dinner time, so I took that opportunity to hang in the Brooksider for an hour or so.  Other than that, the day was wasted.  Again.

Wow, I am even more challenged than usual for material this week.  We just never really got out of the gate.  I’d blame the weather but it really wasn’t that bad.  Just lazy I guess.  Friday was “OK” on the amusement scale, or at least as good as it got.  Donette came down and picked me up from work and we went to happy hour at The Flying Saucer, which is high on our list of “places we like but never go to.”  We only stayed about an hour, (hence the phrase “happy hour“) and then headed home for some dinner.  We’ve been on sort of a ‘fridge cleaning project lately, and as such have ended up with some… errr… unusual dishes as a result.  Case in point, Friday evening was “fried rice with smoked baby-back ribs.”  Bet you don’t find that on any local Chinese restaurant menus.  Hey, you throw enough garlic and hot sauce in anything and it comes out about the same anyway.  After that we went our separate ways for the rest of the evening;  Her to the downstairs (Wii) television, and me to the upstairs (PS-3) television.  I got some new PS-3 toys last week and have been busy playing around with them.  I got a second game, and an HDMI switch and associated cables.  The HDMI set up is SWEET.  I had no idea a simple cable could make so much difference.  Wow, it’s like a totally different game.  If you have a PS-3 and are still using the cables that came with it, stop whatever you are doing, run to the store, and buy new ones.  Now.  I didn’t get a whole lot of game-time in though, as I fell asleep on the couch at 8:00.  That’s become something of a habit lately, which I’m actively working on fixing but not having a lot of luck.  “Old Man Syndrome,” I think.  Asleep at 8:00, up at 3:00.  What can ya’ do.

I am tempted to just skip Saturday and move right on to Sunday, but in the interest of thoroughness I’ll throw a few sentences in.  We kicked off the day with our usual morning hobby of late, the crossword puzzle.  Now there’s some wholesome bonding for you.  After that, we literally spent the rest of the day 5 feet from each other, me on the laptop and her on the desktop, playing online games against each other.  All…  Day… Long.  Wow.  Oh well, it was an oddly engaging afternoon.  I did step out of the house for a little bit and took Gabe on a nice long walk.  We got about 2 miles in.  Our usual trail was still a little soupy with all the melt-off, so we walked in the grass the whole way.  I mention that not because it is of any interest what so ever, only to make this paragraph a bit longer.  After our stroll, it was back to the computer games until dinner rolled around.  Donette made some pizzas, again following the theme of “clean out the ‘fridge.”  I ended up with one topped with chicken, sundried tomatoes, and mushrooms, and she had canadian bacon with pineapple.  After that it was off to our respective TV’s to waste the remainder of the day with our amusements of choice.

Sunday was only marginally more entertaining than Saturday.  As a matter of fact, Donette actually completed the entire weekend without ever stepping foot out the front door.  Not to get the paper, the mail, walk around the block…  Nothing.  Rather impressive, really.  Not that I was too far behind her.  I did go to the shootin’ range for a while with Mark, and burned through a few boxes of ammo.  After that I went back home and cleaned the guns, and then we talked about going out to dinner.  After deciding against dinner, we talked about going to the Brooksider to watch the football games.  After deciding against that, we resumed playing online games against each other while watching the football games at home.  Sigh.  I blame the economy.  I guess with all the money we saved staying home this weekend we can afford to do absolutely nothing next weekend also.

So, I wasn’t able to update this yesterday due to an extremely full schedule on the holiday.  That, of course, is a blatant lie;  I just didn’t feel like typing it.  Plus, there is always that slimmest of chances that I might do something noteworthy on my day off, which might bear re-telling.  That, of course, didn’t come about.  I was slightly out of sorts from a rather busy weekend though.  We started things off Friday night with a pseudo high-school reunion up at The Well.  It was kind of an informal get together;  Somebody posted on Facebook “Grandview alumn night at The Well” and that was about the extent of the planning.  Had a rather good time of it at any rate.  I’d say about thirty people or so showed up, some of whom I even remembered.  We must have been enjoying ourselves;  We stayed out until (gasp) 10:30!!

Saturday, I was scheduled to throw some ribs on the smoker and then spend the rest of the day watching them cook.  That plan was derailed when I opened the ‘fridge to find the ribs frozen solid.  This opened me up to spend the day in a more productive manner, so when I got a text message that everybody was headed to the Brooksider I quickly decided that qualified as “productive.”  Well, I’m not sure about the productivity of the afternoon, but it was fun.  Rather well-attended too;  Martin, Scotten, Munkirs, Brice, Fahlstrom, etc.  Lots of planning was put towards the BBQ team schedule for the upcoming season.  Rather remarkable considering the team has technically disbanded.  Hmmm.  I ended up spending the majority of the day down there, finally dragging home to watch the evening football game on my own couch.

Sunday we started the day off right by meeting Donette’s family up at 75th Street to try out the new brunch menu.  I was quite happy with it;  We might well make it part of our regular rotation.  I made a reasonable effort at depleting their stock of smoked salmon, but they must have been ready for me because there was still some on the tray when we left.  It’s worth checking out if you dare venture to the Waldo area on a Sunday.  It’s only the second week they’ve done it so they are still getting a few kinks worked out, but a few more weeks and it’ll be ready for prime-time.  By the time we got done stuffing ourselves, the ribs has thawed sufficiently, so after reading the paper I threw them on the smoker and commenced to wasting the rest of the day.  While they were cooking, I spent somewhere around way-too-long working on a backlog of computers that been dropped off at the house with various afflictions.  There must be a rash of “bad stuff” going around or something, ’cause they were messed up.  I got the computers pretty well fixed up, but the ribs didn’t come out too well.  I think they coulda stood another hour on the smoker.  Not remarkably, I had a little trouble keeping the temperature up;  It was running right around 200 for most of time.  I sliced up one slab and they were…  “OK” I guess.  (Donette gave them a rather harsh “thumbs down.”)  I wrapped the other slab up in foil and threw them in the oven, they should be a little better but I haven’t tried them yet.  Donette, meanwhile, had some friends over for a TV watching party.  They watched whatever awards show was on;  Golden Globes if I remember correctly?  (And my memory is always highly suspect.)  I never ventured downstairs so I’m not sure who all came over, or how many.  Sounded like about a hundred.  I spent my evening upstairs playing “Need for Speed” on the PS-3 and watching a few movies.

As for my day off on Monday, well I didn’t accomplish too much.  Munkirs came by and picked me up, and we did a little bicycle shopping.  Didn’t find that perfect deal though, at least not yet.  The guy at Waldo Bikes suggested I get the most heavy-duty wheels available…  Not sure exactly what he was implying by that.  Geez, come on man.  Every bike I looked at, “Don’t worry, I can swap those rims out for you.”  Harsh.  After that I continued working on the pile of broken PC’s at the house for the rest of the afternoon.  For dinner Donette was going to make some tacos, but alas, the chicken that was destined for that meal had gone a little bad on us.  So, we headed up to 75th Street again and had some tasty mussels for dinner.  And I do mean tasty;  They were even better than usual for some reason.  Good timing on our part I guess.