Last weekend we took a trip to South Padre Island for my niece’s wedding. It was a great, if perhaps a bit warm, event. We took off Thursday morning on the cheapest flight we could scrape up, which of course meant good ol’ Southwest. (I love to hate that airline apparently.) By the way, when I say “Thursday morning,” I mean bright and early at 5:00 AM. I don’t know why, but this departure time came as kind of an unpleasant, last-minute surprise to us. Despite having purchased the tickets several weeks ago, we somehow overlooked this bit of info until a few days before check-in. Oops. Being rather adaptable though, we got a hotel room down at the airport the night before to kind of cushion the blow. We still had to get on a shuttle at 3:30 in the morning, but that’s better than getting up and making the hour-long drive from our house at that time of morning. The good news about leaving so early was it gave us plenty of time to make our connecting flight in Dallas. The bad news was, we didn’t really need extra time because it was a five hour layover. Geez, did we look at this itinerary at all when we bought these tickets? Oh well, you have to make a few concessions to save a buck or two. At least everything stayed close to on time for a change, which was welcome after our last few flight debacles.

The second leg of the trip took us to our destination of Harlingen, TX, which I’ve never heard of. Nice airport though, very small and easy to get in and out of. Luckily my sister was able to pick us up for the hour-ish drive to Padre, as we opted to skip a rental car for the weekend. She dropped us at the condo we’d rented, and we stumbled in for a much-needed nap. The condo was… “acceptable.” I would characterize it as pretty run down and basic, but it was clean and comfy which are the highest attributes on our priority list. It was also in a great location, with easy walking distances to the beach, several restaurants, and the wedding events. Unfortunately, although the distances were very manageable, the humidity was NOT. Holy smokes. I think we are perhaps too acclimated to our arid home climate, which usually hovers around 40% humidity. We stepped out the door into the 85% sauna that was Padre and very nearly fainted. I’m honestly not sure how people live there, it is just quite inhospitable. But hey, I guess that’s why A/C was invented.

Overall, a great trip. The wedding was really nice, not to mention fun, and we got to see some old friends/family and meet some new ones. Had a pleasantly uneventful journey home, readjusted to our local weather and time zone, and are now resting comfortably in our familiar rut.

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The posting-from-a-laptop experiment continues, with moderate success. (As for yesterday… I just straight up forgot it was Monday. Not sure that is a good thing or bad, but it happened. So, here we are.) The only snag so far is the battery seems to be completely shot in my laptop. The rather obvious work-around for this situation is to… well… plug it in. OK, not that big of a snag, really. The actual FIX would be to replace the battery, but that ‘s an expense I don’t care to make, and it’s not really supposed to be replaceable anyway. (Which, considering the original price of the laptop, seems a bit ridiculous. It’s the world we live in now I guess.)

That was (another) down weekend. Donette’s sister and a few friends came up to visit on Friday, which was nice. I joined them for a tasty lunch at our neighborhood dive, and then they took off for Lake Tahoe to enjoy some cooler weather and the great scenery. Left to my own devices, I completed a fairly large amount of absolutely nothing. I did dive into a book I’ve been meaning to crack for quite some time. (Why that made think of the title “Arts & Crafts,” I am not entirely sure. I don’t think reading falls under either. Not important.) Anyway, a friend gave me this and several other paperbacks quite a while back, and I randomly picked up this one for my next undertaking. it is titled “The Summer House,” by James Patterson & Brendan DuBois. Anybody know why two authors are listed? I don’t, and it’s always made me slightly curious, if not to the point of actually researching it. I am under the impression that Mr. DuBois wrote the book, and paid a large sum to Mr. Patterson to put his name on the jacket. Could be way off, I just don’t know. Anyway… While I’m only about 150 pages into this one, I don’t think I care for it. I’ve liked most of the books in the stack, but not sure this one is going to work out. it’s written a little oddly, at least for me. (Or is it written normally, and I’m odd? No comments, please.) I don’t know enough about writing to even know what the term is for the style, but it annoys me. Briefly, it is about a team of four military investigators, trying to solve the murder of several civilians that was presumably committed by a team of Army Rangers. Each chapter is written from the view of a different team member. Not like first person, but… Something else. As I said, I don’t know what the term it. Chapter 1: Janey got in her car and started driving. Chapter 2: After Billy got to the crime scene he looked around. Chapter 3: Sgt Johnny boarded the plane to somewhere. Etc, etc. Heck, I’m not even sure why it bothers me, but I’m quite sure it does. I will slog through it though, like it or not. Early guess? The Rangers did not actually commit the murders, although they are involved at some level. The crime was committed by (haven’t come up with my guess on that yet) in order to keep (haven’t come up with my guess yet) in the political office of… Something. We’ll see how that theory pans out.

Otherwise, I didn’t accomplish much last weekend. Pruned the tomato plants, but honestly there’s not much to relate there. Took a 15-ish mile motorcycle ride to meet some friends for lunch, which is always fun. Last night, I went to the movies with a friend, which was superbly entertaining. Technically, since I’m a day late posting, that wasn’t a weekend event, but I need some filler material. I traveled ALL THE WAY down to the dreaded El Dorado Hills to see the somewhat new release, Bring Her Back. Unlike my current reading undertaking, this one gets an enthusiastic two thumbs up. Best movie I’ve seen in awhile, with the possible exception of The Outlaw Josey Wales. That one doesn’t really come in under the “new release” category though, so I’ll leave it off the list. I just find myself watching it every few weekends, and it never gets old. But I digress. Monday night’s cinematic event was likewise exceptional, if a slightly different genre. Maybe a little slow developing, but when it got wound up it really took off. At one rather memorable point, the entire audience (comprised of us and about 1/2-dozen other people,) audibly moaned, and the guy behind us says “uhhhh, I think I’m gonna puke.” Now THAT’S when you know you’re viewing a possible Oscar contender. Yep, great movie. After that, despite not having much of an appetite left, we crossed the strip mall for some sushi, which was quite delicious, and called it a Monday.

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Wow, I am just completely unable to get back into any kind of routine to regularly update this silly thing. There are myriad reasons behind my frequent lapse in posts, but chief among them is that I just really can’t be bothered to walk downstairs and turn on the PC. It’s almost like those 30+ years of sitting in a chair staring at a monitor have left me with some type of unique disability; I just can’t do it anymore. Or, maybe my pseudo-retirement has just made me that lazy. Yeah, let’s not rule that out either. Anyway, today I decided to try something new: I fished out one of my laptops and brought it upstairs so I can use it instead of the PC downstairs. That way I can sit on the couch, or the porch, or just stay in bed, whatever the situation calls for. Will this help? Who knows. The qualifying factor is that it’s not a Windows laptop, so that brings it own “challenges.” So far, so good though.

Maybe another factor in my lack of updates is that I really don’t do much anymore. As I mentioned last time, I’ve been on a run of trying out new recipes, but that’s about it. I do visit the lake up the hill a few miles from us, but not much to tell there. Hike with the dogs, commune with nature, that kind of Californian hippy stuff. Speaking of the lake, we finally took the hike to see the waterfall that feeds into it. Worth the walk. Did it twice so far, matter of fact. I think it dries up later in the summer, as things around here tend to do, so gotta go see it while it’s here. Oh, I’ve been getting the garden going too. So far it’s pretty meager; Three tomatoes, two hot peppers, and two squash. I’ve got a few more pepper plants and some tomatillos ready to go also, need to get those out there. I have to say, I’m getting pretty confident about the garden, given last year’s rather lackluster results. Everything looks very nice so far. But then, it hasn’t gotten crazy hot yet either. It’s coming though.

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Geez, the weather out here has been crazy! I feel like I’m back in the Midwest. Mid-seventies one day, then drops to the forties the next. And, every so often, we’re still getting rain! The rain should be done by this time of year. I haven’t even put the garden plants out because it’s still questionably cold at night. I need consistency!!

Other than crabbing about the weather, I haven’t really done anything worth mentioning. The wife is out of town, so the dogs and I have spent the days foraging for food and doing some light yard work. Speaking of which, I have to say I did a much better job of keeping up with the grass this year. So far, that is. The downside is you have to mow it much more often until it quit raining, but it sure looks a lot better than doing it just once or twice when it’s knee high. I’ve even been keeping up with the weed eating for the most part, which is not one of the more joyful tasks in life. In another major event, I finally started cutting the back yard with a push mower. The hill is far too steep to use the rider, so since we’ve moved here I’ve been knocking it down with the weed eater a few times a year. One year I even just let it go, which turned out to be a horrible idea. The dogs drug burrs into the house endlessly. They have such short hair wouldn’t really get matted in their fur, but that meant they left them on the couch, the bed, the carpet, and everything else in the house. Long summer. So yeah, anyway, I spent quite a bit of time cleaning it up this year so I could use the push mower. Lots of branches, rocks, and other general debris that I wouldn’t want to hit with the mower. And, at the end of the day, it works “pretty well.” I’m not sure it’s any easier than the weed eater but dang it, I did a lot of work so I could use the mower and I’m gonna stick to it. (This season, at least.) It’s really just too big an area for a push mower. I keep having flashbacks to push-mowing the huge yard at the house we lived at in Grandview. Every time I got sentenced to cutting it, it was a whole weekend off the books. I still wake up from bad dreams of that job. (No, really, I do.)

Otherwise, I’ve just been passing the time trying new recipes. The wife isn’t usually too fond of my experimental menus, usually with good reason. I like to try new things though, so while she’s out of town offers a perfect opportunity to exercise my creative passions. (I really don’t have any of those, which could be why the majority of the recipes are abject failures?) This week’s photo album is dedicated to a few of the recent culinary projects.

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Sigh, another lull in updates. This one can be attributed to technical challenges. I haven’t really had any to speak of, but that’s the story I’m going with. Trouble is, when I get so far behind, I can’t remember everything we’ve done over the past several weeks. Suffice to say it’s been super exciting though. (Insert eye roll here.) I did go to KC over Easter, which was great. There is a new nonstop flight from Sacramento to KC, and it gets there in just over 3 hours! That is way better than the usual 7-8 it takes bouncing around the country to get there. I went to Float Trip, visited family and friends, and enjoyed some great food. Other than that, most of our time lately has been spent trying new recipes, and mowing. Yippy.

Oh, also of note: We went to the theater yesterday and saw the 50th anniversary of The Holy Grail! What a great movie. I don’t know what was funnier, the movie itself or listening to the entire audience quote along with every line. Can’t believe it’s been around 50 years, quite the classic!

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