Mama-Birthday Celebration, Day 3

Why "MamaBirthday"? I'll get to that later.

The day started the usual way with me having my coffee and playing on the blog. Then I went fetch Dad for the day. We made a run to the border:



Fatass just luvs her Taco Bell. She only eats it on special occasions though. Burrito Supreme and a Double-Decker Taco Supreme. NOM!

From there, Dad and I stopped into my favorite market, Food Town...Okay, Oceana Market, but it'll always be Food Town to me. I got a couple of grass-fed ribeyes for the dinner. I wanted those cause we have this nice bottle of Mourvedre that we've been saving and this was the night it was gonna get opened.

Then to the house where Dad got to try out our new hammock (aka The Sling):



I also brought Dexter McLovin home with us. Here he is being frisky:



Okay, because it's a violation of the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to receive packages at work, Shoppy-Poppy and I have all our stuff delivered to Seester's house. Why? Because folks would steal stuff if we had it delivered to Kasa Kecky.

Anyway, when I went to fetch Dad, there were two boxes at Seester's house both addressed to me. Now when Shoppy-Poppy orders stuff she usually has it delivered to me c/o Seester. When I have stuff delivered there I have it just sent to me. I knew one of those boxes was from Very-Long-Time-BFF, Jeannie. I couldn't remember what was in the other one, so I opened it. Uh oh...it was my Mother's Day pressy from Thoughtful-I-Love-A-Celebration-Poppy. Now what do I do?

I emailed Disappointed-Poppy and gave her the news. I told her I would put it away for a few weeks and act all surprised when she gave it to me on Mother's Day. She said no, that I should go ahead and use it. Aren't you dieing to know what it is???



That's right; A fizzy water maker!!! I'm so excited. For just $.25 per liter I can drink fizzy water until I drown. The carbinator is 60 liters worth of fizz. So now it's part Mother's Day and part Birthday. That said, it doesn't mean I'm going to keep celebrating until Mother's Day, cause I'm starting to get tired.



I just luvs me lots of fizzy water!

As for the other box from BFF-Jeannie...I figured it would be something Minkey related cause she's the one that tortures me with everything Minkey; well, she and Seester. So I open the box waiting for some live Howler Minkey to jump out of the box and throw some poop at me, but no...



Yeah, a Giants Gnome! No garden should be without one!

So now for the dinnah. I bought those two grass-fed ribeyes. Grill-Master-Poppy fired up the little grill. No wait, I started the grill cause News-Junky-Poppy needed to get her fix. Anyway, we served those steaks with a salad of the arugula from our garden, blue cheese and apple. I made a simple dressing of olive oil, white wine vinegar and some pepper.



The Mourvedre was a perfect pairing to the meal!

The rest of the evening, we relaxed and watched the Food Channel.







Happy Saturday!

Birthday Celebration, Day 2...

Let's see, I got up, took Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer to the beach where she lost her ball. Then came home and enjoyed my coffee. Then it was out to the backyard...

We had a big bucket of sand leftover from our fence project, so Thrifty-Poppy thought we should add it to part of the garden and then we could use it as we please for other projects. My idea was to make more of a sand box for Senior-Alley-Cat-Roger so she'll stop doing her thing in my garden.

Here's how it turned out:



She's not quite getting the idea:



So here is how the garden is shaping up...

My Padron Peppers have sprouted:



I tried growing these in my cube/office some years back because it got about 90 degrees in there. I had a few but I want more. We'll see.

I've got some buds on the tomatoes, this is a good sign.



And finally, Poppy's Poppies:



These poppies are from seeds that I've harvested over the years. Started with some poppy seeds that Bro-In-Law-Green-Thumb-Darryll gave me, then I kept up harvesting what I grew. Poppies make Poppy very happy.

After spending some time in the garden, it was time for Birthday-Fatass and Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer to relax. Poppy recently bought Dad, me and Jax a portable hammock. Me likey; okay, so does Jax!



But then Jax got overheated and had to move for a minute:



What a life!

Let's talk about the dinnah...we had some leftover Mexican from the night before; enchilada, some carne asada and some rice. Waste-Not-Want-Not-Poppy had this idea of putting it all in a pan and giving it a quick fry. So that's what she did.

Behold the Mexican Slurry:





It may not look very appetizing, but what a tasty treat sensation! Along with that, I made some beans.

Here's my Mirepoix of red onion, shallot, garlic, yellow and red bell pepper and celery. This was leftover from the other night's chicken salad we had.



When the beans were just about done cooking, I added my:



We had the Mexican Slurry in tortillas with some sour cream and feasted on Mt. Rushmore:



It was a good day!

Birthday Celebration, Day 1....

Well, day 1 of my Birthday was just too much fun. So much fun I accidentally deleted half of the pics. Oh well, here we go...

The day started with dropping off our scooters for their first services. Scooter-Poppy also wanted to get some accessories on her Stella so we were there for almost 2 hours. But, her scooter is all chromed out now. She's very pretty. Check out that hubcap!



After we picked up the scooters that afternoon and were driving away, one of the caps to the chrome pieces fell off. Hmmmm.

Back to the day...from the scooter shop we headed on foot to Union Square. We walked around the farmer's market at the Civic Center. Nice looking stuff there! Then for snackies at E&O Trading Company. Corn Fritters and Salt-n-Pepper Calamari. Okay, Boozie-Kelly had a couple of cocktails...Hey, it's my birthday!

Off to get the GoCar. So this is the "Mr. SF tour". Local stuff that's not on the standard tour. Mr. SF is evidently some internet expert guy on San Francisco. Nothing all that new. Although, the Union Square underground parking garage is the very first one of it's kind. Who knew? I didn't.

So the little GoCar is a rattle trap. It tops out at 30mph, but we couldn't get it much past 20 and barely 15 on a hill.

Here we are trying to get up Arguello:



You felt every little pothole and bump in the road...and there were lots. Got to the point where Pothole-Poppy was hitting them on purpose.

Okay, here's the tour...

The weather was awesome!



Transamerica Building and the Condor Club. I'm sure there was some story about the Transamerica Building, but I don't remember what it was. However, most of you probably know that the Condor Club was the home of Carol Doda, but what you probably don't know is that she was the spokeswoman for Channel 36 many years ago "Carol Doda, the perfect 36". But you know she was way more than a 36! See, I know more than Mr. SF!





City hall, the old Alhambra Theater on Polk and the Exploratorium:







Then we went to a bunch of other neighborhoods; those are the pics I accidentally deleted. I'm sure it was all interesting.

We dumped the little GoCar back at the barn and then walked over to the Chieftain. It's a bar on 5th/Howard. It's historic too but I don't remember why. As it happens, Traveling-Poppy will be going to Europe this summer with MomJean. One of the stops will be Ireland. Butinski-Poppy overheard the waitress talking about some area of Ireland which happens to be one of the areas that Adventure-Poppy and MomJean will be visiting. Social-Butterfly-Poppy struck up a conversation with the gal and got all kinds of intel on where to go. Yay!

From there it was time to pick up our scoots. Along the way, we saw this display in the window. Poppy thinks this looks like a decomposing Burt Reynolds:



This guy was just funny looking:



After we got the scoots, we headed to the Misson. Stopped in at the Lexington for a cold one:



Then headed to the West Portal area and found a cute little Mexican place for dinner. I don't remember the name though...El-something, I think.

The end of Birthday Celebration, Day 1.

It's A Bacon Birthday-Eve!

Well, it would seem my birthday is starting today and will head into the weekend. Today is also my Friday! Here's what FFM-Laurie gave me...it's all about the bacon!



I'm even going out to lunch today!

It would seem we have a new pet in our house. Not a friendly one either.



Oh, Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer got herself a new scooter jacket:



You can't tell by here worried little face, but she actually likes this one.

Guess that's it.

Farm 'em in and farm 'em out...

Very, very fun weekend so far. Had a few folks over on Friday night for dinner and a slumber party. Friend-Family-Member-Lori (hahahaha), Seester, Dad and a couple of other folks from work. This had been planned for a while. FFM-Laurie, Seester and I were to get up on Saturday morning and head to the Farmer's Market only we were a little, um, well...we had a headache.

Here's some highlights from the party...

Our becoming famous spit-roasted chickens:



Pin The Tail On The Gerber:



Don't ask.

Like I said, we'd had this planned for a while. Party-Poppy and I received an email from friends Cathy and Reiner that they were coming on Saturday for the Gigantes game. Cathy and Reiner are the folks we went to visit in Germany a few years ago. They have since moved to Hawaii. Anyway, to keep it easy on ourselves, we decided to make the same thing for dinner as we did on Friday night. So in total, we roasted four chickens. I marinated a bunch of red bell peppers, zucchini, onions, asparagus and carrots in balsamic, white wine vinegar, olive oil, Italian seasoning, Kecky's Chili Salt and some pepper. Grilled those along with those chickens. So good. Reiner loves gravy on everything, so I also made some mashed potatoes and gravy.

For the gravy, I browned some of those chicken innards. I also rehydrated some mushrooms. Chopped all that up and set it aside. I strained the mushroom liquid and added that to the milk for the gravy. For the fat, I used two parts butter and one part apple wood smoked bacon fat, then added those browned bits to the mix.

Guess what I'm having for breakfast??



I'm excited for this week cause I'm taking three days off work starting on Wednesday. I'm not big on the whole birthday thing, but decided I'd like a little time off work. I'm not complaining, mind you, but my (and FFM-Laurie's) extra added job duties has been a challenge. We've had some really good feedback, so at least folks are liking what we've been doing.

Anyhoo, Scooter-Poppy is also taking Wednesday off. Poppy loves birthdays and thinks they should be celebrated all month long. We'll start the day by dropping off our scooters for their first services. We're also going to get a couple of luggage racks installed while there.

From there we'll probably get some coffee and then walk around town. We'll end up at Union Square where we have a reservation for the little tourist GoCar things. It's a GPS-self-guided tour of the city. After that, we'll go get our scooters and then head to the Mission for brewskies and tacos.

Hmmm, I want rabbit for dinner. Oh, Happy Easter!

Pickle Juice!!

As you know, I love the pickle...and the pickle juice. Well, last night, Parched-Poppy and I stopped in to the neighborhood bar after a grueling grocery shopping trip. They had something called a Pickle Back for $5. Poppy asked what it was. The gals said it's a shot of Jameson and a shot of pickle juice. My mouth started to water...I want one. She said she'd give us each one on the house cause it's not for everybody. Obviously, she doesn't know us and our love for anything pickled.

So she poured it for us, one for herself and one for the gentleman sitting next to Pickled-Tink-Poppy. The only bad thing is that you had to shot the whiskey and then the pickle juice. I like to savor, but she was buying and it's her house so we shot 'em back. So good!!! I found my new drink! I had another one. I want one now! I'm going to have one when I get home tonight...

Check out the sunset in the Sunset:



I love living here!

Have great weekend!

The Big Cheese...

and I ain't talkin Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer either! Well, that will come later...

Most of you know President Obama was in town yesterday. Well, not only in town, but he landed here. Take a look...

Landing:





De-Helicoptering (obviously not my pic):



Going bye bye:





Pretty exciting stuff, but not as exciting as when Clinton landed here!

So speaking of Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer, I tried to take her picture this morning. She no likey...



Okay, let's talk about my nagging affliction...Carpal Tunnel. I don't care if you don't want to read about it. This is about me, not you! My affliction has continued to progress. I've been getting about 3-4 hours of sleep a night in say, the last month. It's mostly my left hand. It goes completely numb with the pins and needles every night...only now it feels like nails and chisels. Yesterday morning I was trying to use my left hand to take off the right wrist brace, only I couldn't feel what I was doing (plus it was dark) so I had to use my teeth. I was also thinking, in the wee hours of the morn while I wasn't sleeping, that my thumb was so numb that I bet I could cut it off and I wouldn't feel it.

I guess it's time for the inevitable...surgery. I have an appointment on May 11 to talk to the hand surgeon. Sounds good only he's the only hand surgeon for San Francisco Kaiser so who knows when I'll get the surgery. In the meantime, I bought some heavy-duty braces. These are for advanced Carpal Tunnel...check them out:

Meet THE MAXAR 1000:



You know, I hate being "one of the injured". I used to make fun of people that had this...As they say "payback is a bitch".

Later!

My New Oven-Hero...

This is John of Lee's Appliance. I love him. He fixed our oven.

Here's our new safety valve:



I think I mentioned Fidelity Home Warranty Company got sick of us and gave us the option of sending the safety valve back to A1 Stove Hospital in Inglewood or giving us the cash value of the part; $256. After I sicked Poppy on them, it became clear this will never be made right. On Friday, I called Fidelity and told them that I wanted the cash value and let them know how unsatisfied we were and that I was severing our relationship. Not that they cared.

Research-Poppy found Lee's Appliance. They come highly recommended on Yelp and Angieslist. It's a family run business. John's Dad started the business but has since passed and now John and his wife run the business. Oh, and they're headquartered in Brisbane. So I called them; they were so nice to me. It was strange. John came out yesterday and knew exactly what to do.

I can't even explain all this, but he replaced the valve with a new one. Moved it to a better location, set the screw in the thermostat so the fire would remain steady then did a bunch of other neat stuff and showed me some hints on keeping the burners from clogging.

All that, plus he's a native San Franciscan. His Dad started out working for Wedgewood and John loves working on them. He said "You have to respect the old stuff." I sent Poppy and email saying I've met the male version of her! He was there for over three hours fixing my stove and telling me stories about his Dad. Loved it!

I'm very happy!