Welcome to the Non-Working Week

Well, dear readers, I have not been in much of a blogging mood lately but the spirit has hit me this morning.  Count your lucky stars!

We just had a nice visit with my sister and LA yesterday.  They were in town to see LA’s mom and for a Napa event with their old Oakland pals. It also happened to be our 35th wedding anniversary so it was great to have them here to celebrate with us.  They brought a couple fine Pinots and spent the night before heading back to the East coast today.  I made my Coq au Riesling, which several of you fortunate folks have probably experienced before.  This morning I eschewed my usual healthy breakfast of Bob’s Red Mill oatmeal and had the tasty pastries my sister brought.  I’ll probably have my usual salad for lunch in case you are wondering.

The weekend before this one we had a fun get-together on Gull for the newest member of the village, the grandson of The Banker and Tina. The cute little guy got a stroller and a cool seat that can stand alone or attach to a table.  My wife and Katie put together some excellent finger foods.  Later on, a few of the stragglers decided to go outside for a cigar, so we turned the heaters on and made an evening of it.  The topic veered towards our kids and how we were going to handle whatever money is left after we have 20 years or so of a partying retirement.  Those with older parents still around discussed the fact that everything is all lined up and they can write checks on their parents’ accounts etc.  I chimed in that nobody is putting me in a room with my kids with them expecting me to sign anything over.  The dough is mine and I’m still working on angles to take it to the grave with me.

I donated blood last Monday afternoon, after taking care of my volunteer duties for a local food bank. I’m expecting canonization soon.  The guy drawing the blood told me to squeeze gently, not hard, while they were taking it.  He said he wanted to stress that because I’m “on the muscular side”.  He was a slight, yet perspicacious, phlebotomist. 

As usual, I am keeping up with the celebrity news.  There seems to be a cheating kerfuffle involving folks from Vanderpump Rules. I’m happy to report on your standard D lister but these chuckleheads don’t even make that level, so I’m more focused on Olivia Wilde showing off her butt tattoo and her ex Harry Styles making out with Emily Ratajkowski.  Don’t worry, the Kardashians are still taking pictures of themselves.

In politics, I’m getting tired of waiting for the hammer to come down on Trump. That guy would burn everything down to save his orange skin. The KFC and Coke will catch up with him before the law does. And it was lovely of him to hold a rally on the 30th anniversary of the Branch Davidian fiasco in Waco. Yet Meatball Ron still doesn’t stand a chance against him. In that vein, I wanted to let everyone know that I was geographically raised in upstate NY but culturally my upbringing reflected the effete snobbery and San Francisco values of the Bay Area.

It looks like my Michigan-bred Massachusetts-based bud The Wolv is branching out.

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165765068/wolverine-oregon-habitat-mountains

I missed a call from my pal The Wig yesterday.  I’ll need to check in with him later, but I think he understands that I need to get this blog out first.  Hey, it’s my passion, at least a couple times a month.  Maybe he wanted to discuss the NCAA tourney.  My wife’s alma mater SDSU goes up against FAU in the semis. And I’d like to congratulate Z, son of The Exec, for already wrapping up the win in the Extended Village pool. He leads by 14 points and is the only one with potential for more.

I shared this with my high school bros.  I was thinking it might be a good fit for my old school.  The UK and I have already contributed articles to our alumni newsletter and we could maybe get something like this launched.

https://www.theonion.com/catholic-high-school-newsletter-has-updates-on-which-al-1850218796

OK folks, I gotta go. Rick Ross’ buffalo just got into my back yard and I have to give it a carrot.

Stuck Inside of Kingman with the Utah Blues Again

I was going to title this one On The Road but that has been used before.  We got back last week from our road trip and I’m here to tell you all about it.

We set out Thursday 2/23 to Palm Springs.  We took 101 over concerns that they would shut down the Grapevine, which they did. We hit lousy weather on the way down but since my wife was a part-time big rig driver in her younger days, all went smoothly. She used to do runs between San Diego and Tahoe when she was dealing blackjack up there. I contributed on the PS drive by spelling her for a few hours. The shitty weather was waiting to greet us as we pulled into the Wig’s winter palace. We had planned to have dinner out, but the restaurant actually called to recommend against it as it was all outside seating.  Fortunately, the Wig has a strictly enforced “bring your own brisket” clause in all his invites, so I fired up my signature dish and had it on the table, with enticing sides, within an hour.

We lazed about for most of our first full day there, soaking in the heated pool.  A double decker tour bus drove by, and we waved to our newest fans. We then headed to Paul, a joint in a nondescript strip mall next to a defunct reefer dispensary.  We put our name in and then headed to Escena Golf Club for a pop since we had a bit of a wait and no room at Paul’s Bar. The wife and I had a bucket o’ martini.  He was out of Tanqueray so I opted for Plymouth, at the bargain basement price of $12 per.  The bartender forgot Mrs. Wig’s drink. I was almost apoplectic, but the Wig calmed me down and we got her taken care of.

https://www.thepaulbarps.com/

Dinner at Paul was excellent. Paul worked in the restaurant biz in NYC for many years, as did Wig for a bit, and they chatted about the old days. The next day we hit Sherman’s for lunch.  This NY deli is always packed. On our way out of town the next day we stopped at Joshua Tree and fortunately had a little sun.

Vegas was next.  We almost ran out of gas before hitting Barstow, so we spent the rest of the trip topping off a half-empty tank .  We decided to google “best salads in Barstow” to try to eat healthy on the road. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant in a hotel. But we had a full tank of gas.

Vegas was interesting. You see all sorts of humanity there.  Our arrival was impeded by the LV marathon. Google Maps and Waze had us doing all sorts of weird things that didn’t pan out.  After driving in circles for an hour or so trying not to yell at each other too much, we arrived at our hotel. We had great dinners at Bouchon and Piero’s. We took the new monorail to Bouchon but chose Piero’s because it was within walking distance.  It is an old time joint with a lot of class. We also hit the downtown Grand one afternoon.  They still have $1 blackjack tables, so our losses were limited. We got an Uber ride back to our hotel from a scary looking dude that didn’t respond to my “how ya doin”.  The wife and I sat in fear in the back seat and agreed upon our arrival that it was fortunate that we did not get murdered.

We were supposed to be heading towards Utah next but the weather reports had us changing plans and going to Arizona. We took in the Hoover Dam before ending up in Kingman.  We googled for salads there and had a nice one at Sirens. And since the snow was coming down heavily, we purchased sandwiches for dinner to take back to the hotel. We had planned to say for only one night but road closures kept us there for second, which gave us chance to check out the Route 66 museum. Here’s DJ as he prepares for our departure to Prescott.

Prescott has a cute downtown and we had an excellent meal at Papa’s old timey Italian restaurant, but we didn’t do much else as this was just a short stop on our way to the Grand Canyon, which we got to via some very winding roads. We had a nice cabin there and I was awed by the site of the canyon. We got several different views and horned in on a presentation being given to a group of Minnesotans.

Our last stop was Peoria, AZ, outside of Phoenix, to see one of my wife’s college friends.  They spend half a year in CO and the winters in AZ.  We met some of their snowbird friends from Canada and Omaha that live up the street.  The highlight of this leg was our first ever Giant’s spring training game in Scottsdale. The weather was just right for this event. I paid about $15 for a 24 oz. can of 805.  That’s how they get you.

We broke the trip home into two parts, with a stay in Pasadena. The Grapevine was open again, so we had an uneventful ride home.