Pins and Needles

I had an acupuncture appointment this morning.  I’ve been going for a while now for neck and upper back stiffness and soreness, and it helps quite a bit.  Today I mentioned that I thought my blog motivation chi might be blocked. He stuck in a few extra needles and VOILA!

We’ve had some fun since my last post, because we are fun people.  The Wigs were in town a few weeks ago and we went up to the city to have dinner with them at Chapeau. Phillipe, the effusive owner, greeted us and made a fine wine recommendation, overriding the standard Zin order I usually place. That was at the behest of The Wig, a former restaurant professional. The Wigs also generously picked up the tab.

This was the start of their SF culinary tour, which I believe was curated by their two SF resident kids. The night after Chapeau they visited Copra, snagging a difficult reservation.  They had to dine at 5:30, but it was two thumbs up. The next night was Osito. Mrs. Wig described it as “Chateaubriandish”, harking back to a Paris meal we shared in 2014 and which I described in my 07/15/14 post. At the time Chateaubriand was named #27 in the top 50 world restaurants, but we came away unimpressed. I was told that you don’t get a menu at Osito until you’re leaving. How droll! I guess that leads to a lot of “I ate what for an appetizer?”

Since we only got to spend one evening with the Wigs, it just left us craving more. Therefore, we accepted their invite to St. John’s next month.  We’ll be joining them along with Wig’s older brother and his wife. I am expected to provide a running social commentary, which will likely lead to no further invites. We’ll also drop in on my in-laws in West Palm Beach for several days. I especially look forward to the plane ride.

Our 30-year-old freezer finally croaked, so I became the chicken man, but not the one blown up in Philly in Springsteen’s Atlantic City. The wife had just made a Costco run so we had a ton of goods to distribute.  I cooked about 10 chicken breasts for our lunches, and we ate some of the seafood for dinner, but we gave away about $400 dollars worth of chicken. I was just glad that it did not go to waste. My wife was Johnny on the spot and got us a good deal on a new Costco freezer that has already been delivered.

I won some dough in my regular season NFL pool, but it looks like I’m sunk as far as the playoffs.  We had #2 over for enchiladas for the Niners/Packers game. Our team did not look dominant, but they got it done.  They’ll most likely have to face the Ravens again, if they get past the Lions. Ouch!

I went up to the city last week to see one of my pals from the old days.  We worked together at a place I’ve referred to as The Edge a few times in this blog.  It’s a treatment center for emotionally disturbed kids where I met my wife. My pal lives in VT but both his kids live in SF, so he and his wife are out a lot. We had an extensive chat about the old days, recalling many of the kids we worked with, who are now well into their forties. We have a lot in common. We’re tall, good-looking, graybeard empty nesters that write fantastic holiday letters and formerly had excellent jump shots. It was a great visit traveling down memory lane. I expect we’ll be seeing more of each other, so I’ll have to work on a blog name for him to add to the roster from my 3/30/13 post.