Wow, I had quite a streak of 3-day weekends lately.  Now they are over though…  Back to the real schedule for a while.  In retrospect I should have moved my day off from last Friday to today so at least I’d have a short week to buffer things.  Oh well, hind sight.

We actually didn’t do much over the weekend so the best I can come up with is an exhaustive list of what I had for dinner last week.  Exhaustive and boring, all right here in one posting.  We went out every single night though;  Maybe that’s why I sort of shut down Saturday & Sunday.  Monday night we went over to our neighbor Brooke’s house.  She cooked up some homemade chorizo sausage for tacos.  We were quite excited about this.  Not only did I not know you could make your own chorizo, it’s not even that hard.  We buy it quite a bit at the store, but have always found the ingredient list a bit “unsettling,” shall we say.  So, just mix it up yourself at home and you’re a little clearer about what’s going in your gullet.  So tasty was it, as a matter of fact, we had her over for dinner the next night.  We made some stuffed peppers with the left-over chorizo, which came out well.

Wednesday we went across the street to Bill & Trish’s house for corned beef & cabbage.  Little early in the season perhaps, but I like that meal a lot so the “standard date” isn’t too important.  Thursday we actually took things out of the neighborhood, and met some friends down at the Flying Saucer for happy hour.  We hung out there for a few hours, but when they went to the UMKC game we scurried back to our circle of safety.  Our plan was to have dinner at 75th Street, but that got derailed when we showed up and they had no water.  They were unphased by my perfectly logical train of thought that I didn’t want water, I wanted dinner.  We ended up just crossing the street to Chipotle and going home.

Friday night we went to an auction event at Donette’s school.  It was catered by B.B.’s Lawnside, so we totally gorged ourselves on ‘que.  I really just went for dinner, but we were having a good time so we ended up staying until the very end, which was sometime around way-too-late.  What can I say, I sort of like auctions.  What I found interesting is that every now and then they would break into rounds of auctioning off just donations.  Nothing in your hand, just a “donation.”  I saw several people put out rather large sums of money on the donations parts and never bid on a single item.  What’s the fun in that??!!  To each their own I suppose.  Crazy do-gooders, I say.  We didn’t go in for the live auction, but did score a backpack and a SWEET disco light out of the silent auction.  We absolutely stole the light for a mere $7.50;  A bargain at three times the price.  While her co-workers may have questioned her judgement, they obviously know nothing of interior decorating.  The Rock Band game room has just received a key upgrade.  For our part, we donated a BBQ brisket dinner, and I was pleased when it brought in $250.  Didn’t hold a candle to the $400 fried chicken dinner though;  Dang, that must be some good fried chicken.

Saturday and Sunday, well, not much to tell.  We had a nice little Rock Band session Saturday night, and Donette made some awesome mac ‘n cheese for lunch…  That about covers Saturday.  We did go on a city-wide search for a cast iron griddle, but couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for.  Sunday brought even less activity.  Poor Gabe was so bored he was about 1/2 crazy all day, but aside from a few games of “tug of war” he didn’t get much entertainment.  Donette went to an Oscars party last night over at her friend Susan’s, but (thankfully) guys weren’t invited.  So, for my part I stayed home and worked on my solo career in Rock Band.  I feel the new disco light adds mightily to my already prodigious skills.

Wow the big Valentine’s holiday has come and gone.  It’s not totally over yet though, I get today off to celebrate it.  At least I assume that’s why we got today off;  I’m not asking questions.  Don’t have much planned though.  Go to the gym and maybe cook some dinner.

Well that weekend didn’t come together quite as planned.  Friday we were supposed to go bowling with a bunch of friends, an annual event sponsored by the Belangers.  I was even planning to roll a few games this year.  As it turned out though, neither of us were feeling very well.  I don’t know if we just had the beat-downs from the week or what.  Plus, I was on call so that always cuts into my plans.  We ended up staying home and going to bed around 7:30.  Weak.

Saturday we were still kind of shaky.  We finally got up and around at ten o’clock or so, and headed down to Sharp’s for breakfast.  It was ridiculously crowded as always.  It reminds me of Jalapeno’s;  It’s good but not great, yet there is always a 20 minute wait for a table.  Odd.  We stood around and scored some chairs at the bar finally.  Breakfast revived us somewhat but we still took it easy the rest of the day just in case.  We didn’t do much for Valentine’s either.  I’d planned a big dinner of grilled tuna, but that menu got re-worked real quick when I saw the price of fresh ahi.  Instead we went with eggplant parmesan, which was still good and much more budget friendly.  We had some steamed mussels too, which came out quite nicely.  I’d been wanting to try cooking them since we had them at a bar in Dallas recently.  Kind of an odd pairing with eggplant, but oh well.

Sunday was similarly boring.  We slept in, and then Donette went out with Anne & Susan and I did a whole day’s worth of nothing.  Other than taking the dog for a walk I really didn’t accomplish anything.  We did go out to dinner at 75th Street, which was fun.  That place has been growing on us.  It ranks pretty high on the list of “new places” we’ve been trying in our semi-successful attempt to go someplace besides the Brooksider.  Not that there’s anything wrong with the ‘Sider, just need to branch out a bit.  After dinner we went home and fired up the Rock Band game.  The neighbor came over for a while to help play bass, and that pretty much wrapped up the weekend.

Note the weekly poll on the side of the page.  I need to learn to play some kind of instrument so I can try out for “the band.”  These are my top choices so far, but feel free to add suggestions.

I hope everybody enjoyed the brief respite from winter;  I don’t think it is going to last long.  I’ve lucked into a streak of 3-day weekends lately, and that was the case this past one too.  Friday was a premium day to have off too.  You don’t get too many 60+ degree days in February.  We went to the gym and kicked around a bit, then took Gabe on a nice long walk, then just sat outside and enjoyed the sun.  For dinner we met up with the Munkirs and Martins at a place in the southern-most tip of civilization.  It was cleverly named “The Wine Bar.”  Sounds like something I’d come up with.  We shared a nice bottle o’ red and a bunch of appetizers, which made for a solid enough dinner.  After dinner we went over to the Munkir’s pad and annoyed their dog for a few hours, then made the trek back to midtown.  Although I was stuffed when we left dinner, I must have digested somewhat because we had to make the dreaded run to Taco Bell on the way home.

Saturday, by the time I finally dragged myself away from the morning news and the computer, it was about seventy degrees out.  I took advantage of the rare weather by meeting up with “the team” over at Brice’s for a little BBQ practice.  In a recent effort to add a little interest to the coming season, we’ve switched up cooking responsibilities so we all have some experimenting to do.  Brice is stuck with chicken, so he was hard at work trying new recipes and techniques while the rest of us sat back and enjoyed the sun.  The bird came out good;  Not quite competition-ready perhaps, but it must have tasted OK because we devoured it all.  The sun was going down by that time, so we headed out to entertain ourselves at the nearest pool table.  After a rough start, Martin & I warmed up and thoroughly thrashed the Brice-Fahlstrom team.  I think the final score was around 13 to 3, although there was some dispute over the exact numbers.  As a side note, I forgot my cell phone at home that day, so if you were one of the bitter horde that tried contacting me I’M SORRY!!!  Good grief.  I don’t think that many people have called me in a week, much less all on the same day.

Sunday could be classified as a non-event.  The three-day weekends are a good thing, but they take a toll on an old man.  We went to lunch at Jalapeno’s, took Gabe for another long walk, and then I settled in for a few hundred rounds of Sudoku, interspersed with worthless television shows.  I feel rested though.

So no more football on Sundays huh?  Somebody send me some new Sunday hobbies, pronto-like.  I’m thinking maybe something along the lines of laying on the couch watching synchronized swimming or rugby.  Cartoons?  Outdoor soccer?  Whatever it takes.

That weekend wasn’t all bad considering I was oncall.  We started off Friday stopping by the Brooksider to say hi.  That entertained us for an hour or so, then we walked down the street for dinner at Jalapeno’s.  I was moderately fired up for this excursion, as the last Friday of the month is “chicken verde burrito” day.  As I’ve probably mentioned before, I’m not a huge fan of the menu at Jalapeno’s, despite the fact that I eat there once or twice a week.  The chicken verde isn’t on the menu though, it’s a once-a-month special that I rather fancy.  Apparently I don’t fancy it enough to wait in line though, because when I saw the crowded dining room and the waiting list, I turned back around and left.  Mexican food still sounded good, so we headed to option B, which was Cantina Del Rey up the street from our house.  I like the food a lot better at that place than Jalapenos, yet I’ve only been there twice since it opened several months ago.  Go figure.  Apparently lots of people like it, because it was even more crowded, and the wait even longer.  We were getting hungry though, so we decided to hunker down for the 20-minute wait the girl quoted.  After 30-35 minutes we went and checked on our spot, and got the uncomfortable blank look that said we probably had gotten lost in the shuffle.  She guaranteed no more than 10 more minutes, but we’d kind of lost our appetites by that time so we called dinner a bust and went home to round out the evening with a few sets of Rock Band and a bag of chips.

Saturday we didn’t have a lot of qualifications around the day’s activities, just that they be outdoors.  So determined were we to take advantage of the forecasted 60-degree weather, we even conceeded to crossing the river to join the Northlanders for some entertainment.  Kevin was debuting his newly-completed smoker, so we threw a few slabs of ribs in the car and made the arduous trip up I-435.  We finally arrived at noon, and were pleased to find that the smokers were running, and Carol had a spread of snacks out that would have kept even Todd happy.  We threw the ribs on, made a plate of nachos, and spent the rest of the day sitting in the driveway watching the flesh cook.  Around six, we started pulling ribs and doing some taste-testing.  (Not of consequence, but definitely of note, our elected onsite judge ruled one of my slabs the #1 entry.  Just thought I’d throw that in there.)  As to the performance of the new smoker, well I must grudgingly admit it turned out some good product.  It is a super-duper bleeding edge pellet fired machine, as opposed to the traditional off-set wood burner we’ve used for the last several years.  We had both of them running, and I did one slab on each;  The slab off the pellet smoker was undoubtedly better.  But, that said, there is an underlying feeling of “cheating” when you flip a switch, go play cards for 5 hours, then come back to a finished product.  We’ll just have to see if my morals hold up when it’s 3 o’clock in the morning, freezing cold, and I’m faced with throwing a log on the fire every hour or flipping an “on” switch and going to bed.

Sunday afternoon we were still sort of hungry for some Mexican food, so we went back to Jalapeno’s again.  Alas, they were closed.  Geez, who closes for Super Bowl Sunday???  Not like it’s a freaking holiday or something.  We rather dejectedly walked up to the Brooksider and narrowed the arteries on their deep-fried offerings, then went home and waited for game-time.  For the big game, we headed South to our friends the Johnsons.  So far South is this trip (like 15 miles MINIMUM) that we only see them twice a year;  The Fantasy Football draft and Super Bowl Sunday.  I must admit the game didn’t hold a lot of interest for me, but the promise of more BBQ certainly did;  There was a fine spread of smoked ribs and sausage, as well as the various side dishes that everybody brought.  We tore up the buffet table, then settled in and watched the first half of the game with the crowd.  We left at half-time though;  For one thing it was time to get back into our well-defined one mile circle of safety, and for another thing the little people were making me nervous.  I’d say, conservatively, there were at least 10 party-goers under the age of 3 in attendance.  Might have been more, but it was hard to get a count because they wouldn’t quit moving.  Well enough behaved lil’ urchins, but I was sure I was going to turn around and accidentally punt one of the munchins sooner or later.  You just don’t want to be between me and the rib platter, especially when you’re only knee-high;  Dangerous situation.  So, for safety’s sake, we headed back home and watched the second half on the couch.

That was a nice three-day weekend, although I will quite likely have some moderate to severe motivational issues around Wednesday this week as a result of the back-to-back long weekends.  I took off Friday for no particular reason;  Just seemed like the the thing to do.

Friday I went to the gym…  And that was about it as far as productivity for my day off.  I probably should have had a little better plan for burning a vacation day, but it didn’t work out that way.  So I spent a little time goofing off there, then took the dog for a walk, then went and met Martin & Brice up at the Waldo Bar.  We played several games of pool, of all things.  Haven’t done that in a while.  Donette & our neighbor Brooke joined us after a while, and we got down to some of the more competitive games;  The trusty Photo Match game.  After we’d fed enough quarters to that game, we headed down to Brookside and met David for some dinner at Carmens.  We adequately stuffed our bellies on pasta, then headed back home to play a little Rock Band.  I’m not sure what time we started, but I was rather shocked to look up and see it was 1:00 in the morning when we called it quits.  I don’t think I’ve seen midnight in the last six months, so that was something of a record rock-a-thon.

Unfortunately, the expense of staying up so late Friday night was the the total loss of my Saturday.  I got out of bed at a reasonable hour and Donette made us a solid breakfast of corned beef hash, eggs, and hash browns.  But, then I hit the couch in front of the TV and never moved again.  Well, I take that back;  We did make a rather “interesting” pot roast for dinner so that provided a short diversion.  We used an Alton Brown recipe, and it came out rather well.  (Minus the raisins…  That just don’t sound right.)  Other than dinner though, the day was a complete waste, consisting of basketball games, bad movies, and a few Wii games.

Sunday, after reading the thoroughly uninteresting newspaper, my day started shaping up much like Saturday.  I blame the cold;  I just don’t really feel like getting outside when it’s so miserable out.  Luckily though, Martins came down later in the day and saved me from another wasted day.  The girls went down to the Plaza for a short shopping trip, while Martin & I headed out in search of a pool table.  (I rather enjoyed playing Friday, so it sounded like a good thing to do.)  The place we went Friday was closed though, and so was every other usual haunt in the area.  We ended up sitting at 75th Street and watching something or another on TV.  After wasting a few hours in that fashion, we headed back home for dinner and then closed out the weekend with more Rock Band.