Piccata Again?

We had The Banker and Tina over for dinner Saturday night.  This was to celebrate The Banker becoming part of the 60+ club. They brought a bottle of Sodaro over to share.  Sodaro is the winery they took us to when we visited their Napa home.  I made chicken piccata.  I let them know that I was doing some research on my famous “chicken sushi” that I served the village years ago, in the pre-blog days. I came across my 12/01/08 blog, which told the tale of them coming over for dinner featuring – that’s right – chicken piccata.  I guess once every 14 years is OK.  The Sodaro was outstanding as was my wife’s almond torte.  The piccata? Ah, it was pretty good.

Sunday was a big football day for me to lose big on.  In my playoff pool I went with KC and SF for a double whammy.  I prepped for a day of watching by going to do an executive workout at the posh club.  I’ve referred to this as the tribathalon: hot tub soak, steam room and sauna.  I threw together a chili recipe we got from the NYT.  It has about 20 spices in it, as well as maple syrup, soy sauce and cider vinegar.  Sounds like a disaster, no?  Well, it came out pretty good.  We had the Hoteliers over for the game.  We were watching the AFC championship on tape delay when they arrived, so we told them not to tell us anything about the game.  With a couple minutes left in regulation, they ask how much time left.  I told them.  Then they asked, regulation or overtime?  I filled a container with chili and sent them back home.

Do any of you folks have a facialist? As I’ve mentioned before, I have a fascial stretch therapist, aka the personable trainer, but no facialist.  I’m in the market.  Let me know if you have any recommendations.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/jennifer-anistons-facialist-divulged-facial-195003578.html

Per the last post, we had to head to Home Depot to return the defective potting bench.  We accomplished that task earlier this week.  My wife and I created a shared calendar about a year ago and it helps keep us organized, both for our social whirl as well as tasks we need to do.  I made sure we nailed down a time for HD by putting “return shitbox” on our calendar.

SF vs. KC Super Bowl?

I got pasted in the playoff pool on Saturday, losing 11 points on GB and 6 on TEN.  Having been a brie and Chablis Niner fan for 30 years plus, I should have known better than to go against the home team.  I made a rebound yesterday, picking both winners.  The Rams seem to have a problem with letting teams catch up on them, so my dough is going on the Niners this week.  I had to forego the second game as we were invited to the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society in HMB by members of Unc and Mashie’s Belmont mafia.  We saw a great jazz septet as the sun set over the ocean. We did catch just the end of the KC/Buffalo game afterwards, and what an end it was.

My wife bought a potting bench that she asked me to help her put together Saturday.  We opened it and found a pile of broken sticks with nails sticking out of them.  So later this week my wife will be asking me to help her return this pile of detritus to the Home Depot.

I headed to the posh club yesterday morning, on the outside chance I’d be able to grab a lane.  To my delight, there were only two swimmers there, so I was able to do my laps.  I then took a soak in the hot tub.  As I was walking to the locker room, I tried to put my ear plugs in the suit’s rear pocket as usual, but something seemed off.  I arrived in the locker room to find a large tear in my trunks, which must have at least partially exposed my right butt cheek.  This was disappointing not only due to my modesty but the fact that my left butt cheek is the better one.

In case you didn’t know it, Adele is sad.  This time it is because her Vegas concerts were postponed.  My sister wants her to quit her whining, but I cannot get enough of all things Adele.  I’ll be in line for tickets when they get this all hashed out.

Peloton has run into a rough patch.  Their stock tumbled last week and now they are pissed that a character in Billions had a heart attack on one of their bikes.  Also, activist investors are calling for the head of the CEO.  You know what all this means, right?  PTON PUTS.  Get yours before the February 8 earnings call. 

You Deserve a Post

I don’t have a ton to say, but that has never stopped me before.

Alas, I came in tied for 31st in my regular season NFL pool.  You not only cannot see the money from there, you cannot even imagine it.  I get to try again in the playoff pool, which has 35 contestants.  Since there are 13 games, including Super Bowl LVI, you assign a unique number 1-13 to each game.  For this week, I put 13 on KC, 12 on TB, 4 on CIN, 3 on BUF, 2 on LAR and 1 on DAL.  If you need more details on the mathematics involved, call me on my disconnected home phone line.  Regardless, like Hillary, I’m in it to win it.

We had a little back and forth via What’s App with the Foster City boys recently. We do this to supplement our riveting Tuesday evening video chat.  As Bob Saget had passed, The Belgian referenced him, as his wife had met Saget in a NYC restaurant years ago.  She was apparently not shy during their encounter and The Belgian joked of her affair with him.  The Exec bought this hook, line and sinker, so I started busting chops that The Exec was having an affair with a telenovela star, as he spends several weeks in Mexico during the winter.  I also said that #1 was schtupping Flo the Progressive Lady, whom I should mention is a proud Binghamton graduate. Gosh, the fun badinage we have!

I had a chat with The Wig this week as well.  He told me he will be spending all of February in Palm Springs and he graciously invited us down for several days.  I’ve hung close to the Queens boy for over forty years, due to his fierce loyalty as well as the fact that I can live rent-free, both in his head and at his many vacation locales.

Another bud, The Wolv, checked in also.  He sent me this pic. I decided to block out his face to spare him any embarrassment when this blog finally goes viral, which I’m expecting to happen in the early 2040s.  I was impressed with his funky fresh outfit, especially the support hose and the hat’s jaunty angle, but I’m unclear on his affiliation with Colorado College.  Maybe he’ll let me know if he ever speaks to me again.

My bud The Banker has a birthday today, one he shares with MLK as well as my old man.  My dad, whom I jokingly called Papa Doc on occasion, would have been 101 today.  Below is a video I shared with the FC boys.  I’m putting it here as it was one of the few off-color jokes that Papa Doc heartily approved of.  Happy birthday gents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdrqY3V8H50

Back to Back

I had it on my crowded calendar to do my Medicare registration paperwork today, but I felt it was more urgent to provide you another post.  I’ll face the bureaucracy tomorrow.

#1 told me yesterday that, going forward, he will only read posts that have him in them.  I hope he enjoys this one because I’ll bring him up again in 2023 if I’m feeling particularly charitable.

I had planned to mention in my December recap yesterday that #1 invited the villagers to a private screening of Spider-Man: No Way Home at Tanforan.  We watched Spider-Man: Far from Home the night before at home in preparation.  I caught about a half hour before hitting the sack.  We did have a good turn-out at Tanforan and I’d like to thank #1, especially since I don’t expect to be speaking with him any time soon.

He also sent me a note about this particular social phenomenon, which signals that the end of days is not far off.

https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-star-who-sells-her-farts-in-jars-starts-selling-1g848305521

This reminded me of the time many years ago that this song came on the car radio.  I was with my wife and daughter, and I soon began singing “Jar of Farts”, which they surprisingly did not appreciate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v_4O44sfjM

I just heard the term “flurona” for the first time today.  It is a combo of COVID and the flu.  This is what came to mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbr60I0u2Ng

Trump has yielded to sanity and called off his 1/6 press conference.  His toadies were able to convince him it was a bad idea. Maybe they could suggest he take a long walk off a short pier.

That’s all folks.  I’m off to the posh club to do my laps.

Happy 2022

I usually have a germ of an idea or two when I start one of these messes, but I’m going to wing it today since it has been almost a month since you’ve heard from me.

By now you have received and framed my Christmas letter.  I hope it was all you had expected and more.

We have had a very busy holiday season, with the kids coming home.  Right now, SB1 is down in Monterey at the family of his betrothed.  We are looking forward to his return so he can get the Christmas tree out of the house and get the house lights down. I got up at 4:15am Sunday morning to get the girl and her girlfriend out to SFO.  I figured an Uber ride at that time would be at least $50, so that is what I sent her a bill for.

We hosted several super spreader events within the last month.  We had my brother, his kids and their significant others along with sister and LA over on the 23rd.  We did a chili cookoff featuring beef, chicken and vegie versions.  The desserts were provided by my elder niece, a professional pastry chef.  It looks like she will be supplying the goods for SB1’s wedding.  We like to keep it in the family.

On the 24th we had the usual Christmas Eve village party.  This had started as a celebration of the Exec’s birthday, but since he has abandoned us to the high life in Sonoma, we carry on without him.  Each family was tasked with bringing a lasagna and my daughter made a killer tiramisu.  #2 was supposed to bring the salad but he was snowed in in Tahoe, so the duty fell to SB1.  He did a good job, making a dressing from scratch and washing a ton of romaine lettuce which he stored in a garbage bag until it was time for his presentation.  We’d like to thank the Hotelier family for providing half the guests at this event.

On the 29th we had an engagement party for SB1 and his fiancée.  We all got tested the day before, but the results did not come in in time.  We therefore did our rapid home tests, as I believe all guests did, and we came out negative.  We had several dropouts, which was expected, but we had a great time with the free-flowing champagne, catered food and the tasty salmon sandwiches that our soon to be in-laws prepared. 

As far as politics goes, Donald J. Trump still walks freely among us, so the wheels of justice turn slowly or not at all.  His offspring recently got subpoenaed, so that’s a start.  And Devin Nunes has resigned from Congress, improving the institution significantly. In other Trump news, Don Jr. announced his engagement to everyone’s favorite virago, Kimberly Guilfoyle.

America’s Sweetheart Marjorie Taylor Greene had her personal Twitter account permanently suspended.  What took you so long?  Of course the yammering about First Amendment rights kicked off immediately. Lauren Boebert came to her defense with some well thought out tweets.  Someone put a chart together so these toxic twins had a visual to help them figure things out.

The celeb news still has tons of of toned abs and legs items to discuss but that is so 2021 as far as I’m concerned.  Kim K. and Pete Davidson are still a thing and so is Kanye’s whining that he wants her back.  In the interim he finds vacuous hotties to go out with. It looks like Miley Cyrus had a wardrobe malfunction which she handled with aplomb.  She's a major talent!  We watched a shit-faced Andy Cohen ranting about DeBlasio on his CNN NYE broadcast at our get together at TCG’s house.  What a schmuck.  Lastly, I see that Tristan Thompson has apologized to Khloé Kardashian after fathering another child with someone else. Oops, sorry Khlo, my bad.

COVID madness continues.  A 46 year-old deputy DA in Orange County, who was a vocal critic of vaccine mandates, has passed away.  And these guys, who came into the world together, have bid us adieu. Their plastic surgeon is grief stricken.

https://deadline.com/2022/01/grichka-igor-bogdanoff-die-age-72-1234904213/

The NFL season is coming to a close.  I’m currently tied for 28th in my pool so I’m looking to make up for my poor showing in the playoff pool. Hope springs eternal. Here’s my picks for week 18.

KC, Dal, WFT, Cin, Bal, GB, Ind, Min, Ten, NO, AZ, Buf, TB, NE, LAR, LAC