Wow, we finally got some much-needed rain here.  Unfortunately it all came during my weekend, greatly limiting my entertainment options.  I kid you not:  It started Friday afternoon and did not quit until early this morning.  I heard Folsom lake rose six feet.  (And, unfortunately that only brings it up to 1/3 of where it should be.)  Not a total loss of a weekend though, we mixed in a few new restaurants and such.  Friday I kicked things off with a (very) short happy hour at Ruff Haus.  It was pretty much just to say I went to my standard Friday afternoon happy hour…  I was only there about 30 minutes.  After that I did something remarkably fun and exciting.  The details escape me though.

Saturday the monsoon continued outside.  Thanks to a nasty episode of insomnia, I kicked my day off early watching No Holds Barred.  Widely considered to be one of Hulk Hogan’s finest artistic efforts, it is indeed a true masterpiece of 80’s cinema.  It also features the breakout performance of Tommy Lister, another great American legend.  After a moving experience like that so early in the morning, the rest of the day was rather anti-climatic.  We went to a late lunch at a nearby Thai place, Chantara.  It was very good, if a bit on the spendy side.  (That seems to be a recurring theme at all the restaurants here.)  After lunch we headed back home and I vainly tried to exercise the dog a bit.  The rain made that a bit difficult, limiting us to indoor activities.  Ever heard the sound of a 50 lb. dog playing fetch on carpet?  I seriously doubt the landlord would approve.  A close inspection revealed no damage though, whew.  For our evening entertainment we decided to actually go to the movie theater, a rare occurrence indeed.  After much negotiating, we agreed on Lone Survivor.  All in all, a very entertaining movie.  I had a few titles I’d have rather seen, and I know for a fact she had a few other preferences, but hey, it’s all about compromise.  As an added bonus, I must say that what I thought was an overpriced lunch at the Thai place seemed like a much better deal after I spent the same amount on a tub of popcorn and two drinks.

Sunday, unfortunately, was our declared “shopping day.”  Ugh.  We were dangerously low on food in the house, and it was time for a trip to town for provisions.  We loaded up the car, said goodbye to Teagan and Kane, and set out on the harrowing five-mile trip to Folsom.  After braving the rain-soaked freeway, we eventually arrived in The Big City and set about our errands.  We kicked things off at The Dollar Tree, which has an entertainment factor roughly equivalent to Walmart, and then moved on to the dreaded Costco.  Man I love to hate Costco.  The one in Folsom is perpetually crowded too; it buys you nothing to try and go during an “off time,” as there is no such thing.  And like every other Costco, the aisles are rather narrow and nobody thinks anything of just stopping their massive cart right in the middle and engaging in a 15 minute phone call while you try and maneuver by them.  We survived it all though, if barely, and then wound our way back to El Dorado Hills for a quick stop at the grocery.  For some inexplicable reason we decided to get all crazy and try the Raley’s store instead of our tried-and-true Nugget.  Failed experiment.  Weary from our journey, we made it home in time for dinner, then settled in for a round of Wii Sports to wrap things up.

I thought I was moving somewhere warm, what the heck happened?  C’mon, seriously?  I put my jacket away last week, now I gotta dig through the dang closet and find it.  And they’re calling for RAIN this weekend?!?!?!  Woe is me, WOE!!!!  May have to make the two-hour drive to San Francisco, this will not do.

No wineries this weekend, rats.  (Whew.)  We had plenty of fun though I suppose.  Friday night we kicked things off with a short happy hour at Ruff Haus.  Hmmm, happy hour at the hotdog joint, times are bleak indeed.  I branched out with a scotch egg this time, which is roughly 18 times tastier than it sounds.  I also enjoyed discussing the (de)merits of the local Chicago dog.  I maintain that, while certainly tasty, their $10 offering is not significantly better than the two-fer-$2 build-your-own at QT.  My esteemed coworker insists that oh yes they are.  As he has never actually experienced a gourmet QT dog though, I feel I have a better grasp on the matter.  I win, hmph.  After that we headed home for a round of Wii Sports.  Of all the games we’ve collected, you just can’t beat a round of the free sports games that came with the console.  Plus we’re rather evenly matched;  I usually win tennis and baseball, she wins bowling and golf.  (We don’t box, after one time when she got a little too carried away and…  Never mind.)  After a few rounds of that, we got all melancholy and started dialing up people on Facetime.  It was fun, although that thing still kind of freaks me out for some reason.  We did sort of get carried away and forgot about the time difference.  For that, I sincerely apologize to my KC friends.  Oh, and Cincy.  Oops, and Texas.  I’m so embarrassed.

Saturday went rather oddly.  We had a lot of plans, and actually got in the car and set out to execute said plans.  Somewhere along the way, we noticed an open house sign, and popped in for a tour.  Pretty interesting, so we drove to another.  Several open houses later, we were hungry and went to lunch at El Dorado Saloon, which proved to be a rather lucky guess for a meal;  Quite tasty.  After that we just kept rolling to more open houses.  By the time we were done looking at houses (none of which we could actually afford, not to mention we’re in a year-long lease) it was so late we just cancelled all our to-do’s and headed home.  A day wasted indeed, other than perhaps the delicious turkey-burger.

Sunday was the big game, which we both were thoroughly disinterested in.  Not to miss a chance for a feed though, we threw on two slabs of ribs, a pound of chicken wings, stuffed jalapenos, and assorted other appetizers.  As predicted, the game was entirely lame.  Man them chicken wings were good though.  The ribs…  eh.  Still need some practice there.  I’d have probably done well to fire up my smoker instead of trying to cram everything on my grill.  They were passable I suppose, especially after a liberal basting in Smokehouse sauce.

Another fine weekend in the books.  Looks like it’s a good thing too, they’re actually predicting clouds next weekend, gasp.  Not the case this last weekend though, it was awesome.  Friday, as a matter of fact, it was so nice out that we met up for a pseudo-date on the patio at 36 Handles, one of the few places near our house that we sort-of-kind-of-almost like.  We weren’t there for much besides the weather though, so it was fine.  We had a flat bread appetizer (which honestly was quite good) and some kind of fried jalapenos, and enjoyed the sun for a bit.  On the downside, due to their location we ran out of sun pretty quickly.  We’ll have to take that into account next time, maybe move down the row to Relish Burger.

Saturday was a rather productive day, as our days go.  We were actually expecting company on Sunday;  Big news for us.  The best news was, this finally gave us the much-needed impetus to finish unpacking from the move.  Actually, “unpack” might be a bit of a stretch:  We just moved everything to a spare room, out of sight.  For that matter “We” might be a bit of a stretch too, Donette did most of it.  Meanwhile, I headed to the regular round of stores (Costco, Petsmart, and The Nugget) to do the weekly shopping.  All-in-all, a thoroughly exhausting afternoon.  It’s nice to finally see the living room floor though…  Turns out it’s actually a quite nice room, even if we don’t ever use it.  We decided the house was in passable shape, so we headed out for a late lunch around 3:00 or so.  Based on a recommendation, we landed at Ruff Haus, which opened recently near us.  I was pretty dang happy with our lunch.  The ‘dogs were really quite good, and the fries probably the best we’ve had here.  But, at the end of the day, my deep-seated cheapskate nature just can’t get past the fact I paid $35 for a hotdog lunch.  Not sure it’ll get worked into our rotation, no matter how good the french fries.

Sunday I started the day off with a good long round of fetch up in the park with Teagan.  Gotta get that girl good and worn out now and then.  That afternoon our friends Mark & Barb from KC swung by on their way back from Napa for a visit.  After a weekend in Napa they well may have seen enough wineries for a while, but we couldn’t think of anything else to do so that’s where we headed.  We’d heard good things about a place called Too Good (catchy name huh,) so we started our day there.  It was indeed a pretty fun place.  I’d call it more of an “event” than just a wine tasting, we spent our whole dang afternoon there.  I’m sure we’ll get back there soon, even if it is a whole 30 minutes from our house.  By the time we finally left there, it was actually quite late in the afternoon and we were starving.  We stopped at Village Toscano for our second stop, mostly because we’d been there before and knew they had some good food available.  We absolutely killed a couple of delicious pizzas, which effectively ended our day.  We went from starving to miserably stuffed.  We decided to call it a day, and headed back home.  Fun times though;  The wineries are a good (cheap) way to pass the days out here!

The storage caves at Too Good winery

We got mildly more adventurous this weekend.  The weather helped I think;  It was simply too nice to sit around inside.  Friday, for instance, it was a solid 72 degrees after work.  I wasn’t too particular about what we did, but it was gonna be outside.  We ended up just hanging out on the patio at the house, listening to some music.  Hey, works for me.  A few neighbors were drawn over by my impeccable taste in tunes and joined us for a while.  We sat around until it started getting dark, which is entirely too early these days.  After that we headed “to town” and had dinner at Casa Ramos.  That place reminds me a lot of our neighborhood Mexican-food place in KC:  Don’t really care for it, but it’s cheap and close so we go there.

Saturday we got so crazy we actually left the city limits.  Whoa, pump the brakes there, Kenagys.  Indeed.  We headed “up the hill” to nearby Camino to check out some of their numerous wineries.  I tried taking copious notes on the trip so I could relate the day place-by-place here.  Alas, all I ended up with was a bunch of meaningless (and not particularly interesting) photos on my phone.  Have to work on my documentation techniques I guess.  Here’s a pic of Doni tasting a glass of wine…  I don’t know when or where it was taken but I’m nearly certain that’s what she is doing.

Somewhere in Camino, CA

We ran around for a while, probably enjoying the weather more than the wine.  It was fun though.  After that we somehow ended up at some casino.  I despise casinos so that wasn’t exactly the highlight of my afternoon.  It pretty much matched the profile of every other casino in the world:  Smoky, noisy, and boring.  I feigned interest for a while though, and actually DID enjoy watching a poker game for a short bit.

Sunday we both had quite a few things lined up on our calendars.  Predictably, that means we did a whole lot of nothing. I headed up to the park with Teagan and played an extended game of fetch, as she’s been a bit bored lately.  Then, we both took a short, if physically exhausting jog around the neighborhood.  After that, well, it was football games on the couch.  As good a way as any to wrap up the weekend I guess.  I fired up the grill and threw on what I felt were a quite passable attempt at burnt ends, ALSO a fine end to a weekend.