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Archive for February, 2013

Good Old Friday Night

Posted in Everyday, tagged , , , , , on February 18, 2013| 4 Comments »

Happy President’s Day everyone!  Counting today I’ll have spent a week away from the day job.  Seems like it’s been forever; I don’t know if that’s good or bad.  The week in review:

1.  Husby and I spent two days at a retirement seminar offered by my day job.  Yes, that’s right, I’m gearing up for retirement.  It won’t be for a while yet but it’s smart (and exciting) to plan early.  I started my work as a public servant when I was very young so it follows that I will be able to retire when I’m very young.  Throughout the seminar I was reminded of all the great benefits offered to me which will be continued even after I stop working.  I guess all those years of getting up before the crack of dawn and trudging through the dreary and sometimes depressing days at my job are finally going to pay off.  Free at last, free at last.  Thank God Almighty I’m free at last.  Well, not quite yet, but the light at the end of the tunnel seems a lot brighter now.

2.  Day two of the seminar fell on Valentine’s Day.  I hope it was a lovey one for all of you.  Husby and I don’t make too big a deal out of the day ~ we exchange cards and either go out for dinner or make a special meal at home.  As we were out at the seminar already we decided to stop and have something to eat after we were done for the day.  We beat the Valentine’s Day rush and had a very satisfying meal at Joe’s Crab Shack.  Nothing says love like a big pot of shellfish.

3.  I took Friday off from the day job because it just didn’t make sense to go in after being away for two days and having a long weekend ahead of me.  My boss agreed it would be foolish to break up so much away time.  (I like a boss who thinks like that.)  I did some laundry, and of course some house cleaning.  The day was also filled up with lots of donking around on the computer.

4.  I felt like cooking up a pot of chili and some cornbread.  My mom made some cornbread for the Mardi Gras party she hosted the weekend before and it was so good I wanted some more.  The chili turned out pretty good, but the cornbread?  Yuck.  I used a recipe in one of my oldest cookbooks and it turns out they didn’t make sweet cornbread back in the olden days.  It called for only one teaspoon of sugar.  I thought that was strange when I was making it, but then thought my trusty book couldn’t be wrong.  Come to find out most other recipes call for at least one-quarter cup of sugar.  That’s what, twelve times more than I used?  What were you thinking, Miss Crocker?

5.  I got caught up with my magazine reading.  The issues went all the way back to September, and now I’m in the Christmas spirit for reading the December issues of my favorite publications.

6.  I did lots of writing.  I’m doing that a lot these days, mostly in the form of rambling nothings on my super secret private blog, but also the beginnings of a story.  I also started a few posts for this blog.  Husby and I shared a most delightful evening this weekend sans TV or even music, quiet except for the ticking of the cuckoo clock and the crackle of a fire in the fireplace  He read a book and I wrote.  I imagined that’s what we’d be doing if we lived in a little shack in the middle of Alaska, or if we lived a hundred years ago.  It seemed so contrary to what we normally do during the evening hours, but it was also a relief in a way.  Quiet, still nights are my favorite.

To keep you from being too bored with the trivial details of my weekend, suffice it to say I did what anyone would do with lots of time on her hands ~ anything I wanted.  After spending two days learning about retirement I spent a lot of time wondering if my retirement days would be like the long weekend had been.  I kind of hope not, because I wasn’t too productive.  On the other hand, I was very relaxed and didn’t bother to feel guilty about not being productive.

It’s back to the old grind tomorrow.  Back to serving the public and feeling like I don’t have enough free time to do the things I really want.  It won’t be long though, before every evening will be “good old Friday night.”*

*”Good old Friday night” was something my dad used to say when he was working full-time.  In my mind I hear him saying that almost every Friday when I drive home from work for the weekend.

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Wordless Wednesday

Posted in Wordless Wednesday on February 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

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Monday

Posted in Everyday, tagged , , , , on February 12, 2013| 4 Comments »

You know how Mondays can be.  I had a hard time leaving the weekend for another five-day work week.  It was a weekend filled with satisfying housekeeping, festive party-going, and relaxing leisure.  How can one be expected to return to the dull beige of government employment after the color and festivity of a Mardi Gras/birthday party?

The day was cold and damp, the streets and sidewalks were covered with slush and ice.  A coworker spent a lot of time venting to me about the stupidity of a new program we’re using, instead of telling someone who could do something about it.  Not only that, after the day job I spent an hour in a cold car dealership waiting for routine maintenance to be done on the Space Pod.  All in all it was a very dreary day.

When I got home Husby had a cozy fire burning in the fireplace and supper ready for us.  The crackle and glow of the fire and the delicious meal made me forget all about the discomforts of the day, and after the fire died down I went to bed early to embark on a new book. 

It turned out to be a pretty good Monday after all.

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Dive Night ~ Beartown Bar & Grill

Posted in Dive Night, Food, tagged , , , , on February 11, 2013| 15 Comments »

It was a cold and snowy night.  The dive was to be chosen by me and Husby so we decided to keep it local, avoiding a slippery and treacherous ride for Ruthie and Ray.  We chose the Beartown Bar & Grill, or Beartown Lounge, or whatever it’s called.  They don’t have a website but if you Google Beartown you can find some stuff on it.

Those are snowflakes you see glowing against the dark sky, not orbs from beyond the veil.

We walked in and saw on the floor a sign that said, Please wait to be seated.  So we did.  It didn’t take long for someone to come and greet us and she asked, “where do you want to sit, bar or dining room?”  We all kind of looked at each other, then let her know we would sit anywhere she decided to put us.  She hesitated.  I turned to Husby and said “if we can sit anywhere we want why did the sign on the floor say to wait to be seated?”  Well, someone spoke up and said dining room so that’s where she took us.

This is the bar, the place we didn’t sit.

This is the dining room, the place we did sit. It’s like we were put in the room of shame. Weren’t we cool enough to sit with the regulars?

We started out with some cocktails.  I must say the drink specials were hard to resist.  Buy one get one for $1.50, except for tap beer.  Ruthie and I got a couple of wines each, Husby got a couple of Greyhounds, and Ray got a tap beer.  The waitress asked if he was sure, because he wouldn’t get the deal with that.  Yes, he was sure.

Even though we were set away from the crowd in the bar the service was pretty good.  We actually had three people checking in with us throughout our visit.  So once we got our cocktails we ordered appetizers.

Ruthie and Ray got chips and salsa. The chips were pretty good. The salsa was more like picante sauce, not chunky, and not really enough was supplied for a whole basket of chips. It was all pretty good though.

Husby and I ordered the cheese quesadillas. It came with the same “salsa” as the chips, and also a couple of tubes of sour cream. Tasty and cheesy.

In case you’re new to the dive night reviews, each couple orders an appetizer and we all share.  So far you might think this is going to be a Mexican meal considering the appetizers we chose, but that’s not the case.

I ordered the fish fry special and I totally forgot to take a picture of it so you’ll have to rely on my description.  The waitress said “sometimes they give you a choice of cod or pollock but I don’t know if you get a choice tonight.  If you had a pick which one would you choose?”  I told her it really didn’t matter, and I have no idea what kind of fish I got because I’m not a fish connoisseur.  It was white and flakey.  However, the batter was pretty greasy and was pretty nondescript as far as flavor is concerned.  My dinner came with waffle fries and seasoned sour cream.  I also got a side salad which was also pretty nondescript, but salads are always pretty nondescript to me.  I ate it all up so it must have been good enough.  And now on to the other meals I remembered to photograph.

This is Husby’s French dip sandwich with onion rings. He liked the onion rings because he could bite them without having a string of onion sliding out of the batter. He didn’t have much to say about the sandwich. “It’s okay,” he said.

This is Ruthie’s chicken with waffle fries. The cup of white stuff is seasoned sour cream for the fries. She said the chicken was okay but “it could have a little more seasoning.”  The dinner allowed two pieces of chicken and she got her choice of what pieces she wanted.  She chose two thighs.   She also had a side salad with her dinner.

Ray ordered the meatball sandwich with onion rings. The sandwich looked great with its toasted bun and six meatballs with sauce and cheese. When I asked Ray (whose mother is an excellent Italian cook) how the sandwich was he responded “it’s kind of bland.”

It was very clear that none of us was overly thrilled with our meals.  We came to the conclusion that seasoning is not high on chef’s list of priorities.  The appetizers were fine, so we decided that if we had been sitting in the bar and were half in the bag with a big case of the munchies the appetizers could satisfy a need for food.  Going for dinner?  Never going to happen again.  I was extremely dissatisfied with the food at the Beartown Bar & Grill, although as I said before the service and drink specials were good.

I can’t close out this post without mentioning that this restaurant used to be called Big Ben years ago and served the best pie in town.  Like, the best.  The Beartown doesn’t even serve pie.  Although if they did they’d probably have canned filling and soggy crust.  None of us was happy with our dive experience at the Beartown, but we all agreed we’ve been pretty lucky over the past few years with the other dives we’ve tried and we deserve to come across a clinker once in a while.  Beartown is definitely that clinker.

Ruthie says, “Not.”

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Bizarre Inspires Me Much More Than Sap

Posted in Blogging, tagged , , , , on February 8, 2013| 4 Comments »

My latest obsession is with writing.  You’d never know it from my blog, but there’s another blog that’s hiding, filled with all sorts of musings and ramblings and even the beginning of an actual story that could eventually become novel-length.  I’ve also been reading a book on writing.  I’m not going to name the title or who wrote it because I don’t have very many nice things to say about it; however, every once in a while I get an insight from something mentioned in the book, so it can’t be completely discredited.

I shared with Charlotte some of my responses to the writing exercises in the book.  She laughed at them.  Don’t feel bad for me, they were supposed to be funny – actually a mockery of the exercises and the book as a whole.  She told me that if I wrote that way all the time I’d be the next Bloggess.  I’m sure she was being overly generous with her compliment, but even so it was high praise.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, by Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess) has been my bedtime reading lately.  I just finished her book and I wish it hadn’t ended so soon.  I wonder if she’ll be publishing a second part of her memoirs.  I can see where Charlotte might see similarities between my writing and Jenny’s as we both tend to write really long sentences and often go off on tangents when telling a story, but I’m not nearly as funny or colorful or imaginative as Jenny.

I loved the book and will continue to be a loyal follower of her blog.  If you want to read something totally bizarre and funny, you should get her book.  It was much more to my taste than the book on writing I’ve been reading ~ less sap and sugar and more eccentric and ridiculous. 

I’ll continue with my writing adventures to see where they’ll lead.  I’ll probably never be as famous as The Bloggess, but I may have been inspired to write a little more boldly because of her.

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