Roll-out Day: Things are Happening.

It was an unusual Friday, with my wife and I both telecommuting today. It threw me off my routine a bit, admittedly, but also enabled me to get quite a bit done.

~~WAIT! There was yesterday! And yesterday, journal-wise, wasn’t much different than any other day, except that it WAS date night, and for date night we went to Roxy, and Thursdays at Roxy is Bottles and Burgers night, and on Bottles and Burgers night they have a couple of wine specials (we got a bottle of zin for $20) and you get to build your own burger. Now, building your own burger might not sound that great or unique. I mean, you don’t actually build it. But you get a sheet with all these options and you choose everything you want your burger to be. Again, that might not sound so unique, except Roxy has their very own beef ranch (and that beef is GOOD, which I know because I’ve had it before but I didn’t have that last night), and the other options are…probably some kind of veggie burger (which I would never pay attention to), turkey, and buffalo. Yes, I went for the buffalo burger, medium-well, with aged white cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, lettuce, mustard, and ketchup. Thin-cut lightly garlic…ed fries on the side. Man that was good. And then we went to Cold Stone and I had a Like It of coffee ice cream with some M&Ms mixed in there. I also drank a lot and then didn’t feel like blogging. I also took the day off exercise. I also stared at a book for minute then decided not to start reading it and went to bed.~~

Waking up today was weird because, as best as I can piece it together, I dreamt I was waking up about 3 or 4 times before I actually woke up. And each of those times I dreamt I woke up, I looked at the clock (which doesn’t actually exist in our room) or I asked my wife the time (which she may know if she happens to have her cell phone nearby), it that dream clock was progressing into the future: 6:37, 6:48, 6:54, and that’s when Liam woke up, which seemed fine enough, so I got up and grabbed Liam and changed his diaper and we went out into the kitchen to get him some milk…and it was 6:11. Huh.

Okay then. I put pants and sandals on him and to the garden we went. There isn’t much excitement in the garden. I keep complaining about it. It’s not that we’re getting nothing from it, we’re just not getting what we got last year. I’ll figure it out. It’ll be okay. Just not this summer. And I’m not yet optimistic about winter, but we’ll see…

We came back in and we were both getting hungry and since we knew Angie was going to be around, we’d planned to go to Bella Bru because Angie never gets to go with us. And then none of my special folks were there. Regardless, muffins were bought, three different muffins for the three of us, mine of course being lemon poppy seed, and I got a mocha. I’m so routine.

Home again and the work started. I have some work stress, but I think I gave someone I work under the wrong impression and she thought I was way over-stressed when in fact I’m just frustrated with a few work things, but it made for an interesting day overall. Work work work.

I had no fruit. I had no almonds. I snacked on some corn chips. Lunch time rolled around and Liam was sleeping and I made the grilled swiss on double fiber bread with some mustard and sided that with more corn chips. I drank water.

Work work work.

Work day done, I hopped on my bike for a quick but intense out-and-back. Wanna know what Garmin says that looked like? See below. A bit under 12.5 miles in a bit over 36 minutes, averaging 20.5 miles per hour and topping out above 30, but that was surely on a downhill. I’m not as strong at the biking as I was a few years ago. This is expected.

I love living near the American River. I love biking on the American River Parkway.

Bike ride done, handful of blackberries picked and eaten, my wife left for a ride of her own and I sat and stacked some blocks with Liam, goofed around with him a bit otherwise, folded some laundry, and did some kitchen cleaning. It was my night to cook, but I used a combination of excuses: Liam needed milk, we all needed bananas, I needed apples, a lot of the dishes were in the dishwasher, and “I’m pretty hungry right now.” It’s not like it took a lot of convincing, but I had my reasons lined up, and we made it a Whole Foods dinner night. I drank an Inversion IPA while I showered. I put on my kilt. We left to get some foodstuffs. (I can’t believe Word accepts foodstuffs as a word.)

I made myself a small salad with mixed greens, carrots, beets, broccoli, onion, cheese, croutons, and Italian dressing. (I had the croutons and dressing at home.) I ordered from the cold food section and got three fried chicken breast tenders and some garlic pasta. We got a six-pack of this Four-in-Hand IPA: simple and tasty.

~~There was a beer I’d not seen there before, and I’ll call it ridiculous. There are some really good beers out there. Two examples of good beers I rarely ever drink because of the reason I’m about to mention: Dogfish Head and Green Flash breweries. They make GREAT beers, but they sell them in four-packs for the same price or more than most six-packs (that I’d buy, not a six-pack of Bud or Natural Ice). Green Flash really pissed me off when they made that switch, because I used to love to drink them, but I’m not going to pay the same for four of your beers that I was paying for six of them two years ago. And anyway, those beers in the four-packs tend to be some pretty strong brews with lots of alcohol. Well, there was this new beer there tonight, and it was a four-pack, and its labeling was declaring it to be something great and it was $12.49 for the four-pack, so I figured it must have been loaded with drunkability (not drinkability, although at that price it MUST be tasty), but that shit only had 6% alcohol! Right: I’m gonna pay $12.50 for four beers with 6% alcohol in them. Kiss my ass, whatever brewery you were. I don’t even remember, because that’s just stupid. Maybe you’d be the best beer I ever tasted, but I’m not gonna find out. I have principals.~~

I ate my dinner. It was good. I poured another beer. We’re watching Bachelor Pad, because it’s important to…aw, hell, there’s no excuse or justification. We just love the crappy hate-worthy people that make up the cast and all the silly drama that goes along with them. It’s paused right now. We’ve been working on the first episode for the last 3 nights now. We don’t watch much TV. I’ve mentioned this.

I fed the dogs and accompanied them outside while Angie bathed with Liam. I nearly killed my older girl with negativity when I caught her in again eating fertilizer from the base of one of my plants, so now I may have to make bits of portable fencing to shield these poor vegetables from the beasts that are my fertilizer-eating dogs.

I’m on my third beer of the night, but the first one was at 6:00, the second was with dinner, and now it’s 9:49. I reconceptualized my blog today. I had new ideas. I renamed, added things, built in some tabs. It doesn’t function exactly as I’d like, but it functions. You can see some of that. I need to reach out to you for help. I will.

My wife and I gave the first bit of a silly idea we came up with out to the facebook public today: we’re making some t-shirts, and we’ll probably end up with them all stuck back in our closets after they don’t sell. Whatever. I could justify it here, but that’s not the point of this blog.

I’m gonna slug down the rest of this beer and probably poor myself a glass of wine, because that’s how I like to end my nights: with wine. It may be a barbera because that bottle has a screw top and it’s easy, but maybe I’ll go for the petite syrah. I do love a petite syrah. Actually, that decision has now been made: the petite syrah it will be. Concannon, I think. Sure, I could check the bottle, make sure I spelled it right, all that. Nah. I want to get away from the computer. I’ve been here too long today.

So good night, small can of tomato sauce that’s inexplicably sitting atop my computer desk. I see you there, I guess I could probably come up with an explanation for you, but it really makes the scene no less odd. I’m gonna go read some Brett Easton Ellis.