The Borings Strike Again!

Or, What We Did Last Weekend.

Well, it wasn't the weekend but we did go to BJs for dinner for my birthday where I ordered my salad, totally forgetting that I have one tooth on one side of my head that they keep telling me there is nothing wrong with but I know there is because anything cold or crunchy makes my tooth hurt, and on the other side of my head is my new crown, which also hurts when something cold hits it and I can't eat cold salad without one or the other tooth hurting. It's hard to chew salad with only your front teeth.

Just another benefit of getting older, sensitive messed up teeth.

Keith's brother had called him (at work where he doesn't like to get phone calls because he is trying to, you know, WORK!) on Thursday inviting us to come down on Labor Day for dinner or something. We thought about it and really didn't want to face that long boring drive down there and Labor Day isn't like Thanksgiving or something where you really have to accept any invites, so didn't really want to go all that much. Then on Friday there was a near miss on Keith's hand getting broken by his co-worker who is notorious for unsafe work habits and Keith was so upset by it all that he just drove home. I thought he had gotten fired or quit, but he was just too angry to try and keep working. He talked to the big boss on the phone who was all mad at him for not resolving the issue with his yard boss, so he went back to work and kissed a$$ and then was worried all weekend that he would get fired when he went back to work on Tuesday. Savage is all let's be safe but this one individual has been written up many times and has broken equipment and almost hurt other people on the job and is still working there. I told Keith that they were not going to fire him since nobody else ever gets fired there for their screw ups. He was still worried and not in a real good mood so when Bruce called back about us coming down he told him that he really wouldn't be good company and really didn't feel like driving anywhere. Plus, on Saturday morning I drove down Rosedale Hwy and saw big flashing signs about delays going south on the interstate, so it probably would have taken an extra hour or two to get over the mountains. No thanks.

So, Saturday and Sunday were spent in our usual dull ways, errands and cleaning and Keith messing about in the garage building a gate out of old lumber, a gate that we really don't need and it turns out can't be set where he wants it to go because there is a bunch of cement from when the slab for the house was poured where he wanted to set the gate. He has done nothing further inside the house where things really need to be finished. I still don't have doors in the kitchen where the washer and dryer sit inside their cupboard, and the trim in the kitchen still isn't painted, and the back door screen has still not been fixed so we can't open the sliding glass door to let some air in.

Anyway, we did do something on Monday but you are probably totally bored with our boringness by now so I will write about that tomorrow.

What We Did This Weekend

Holiday weekends always confuse me and I always think the Monday is the Sunday and then I never know what day it is for the rest of the week.

We didn't do anything fun like some people do on holiday weekends, like going camping or on a road trip or having a barbecue or anything like that. We are so boring and didn't have any money to go on a road trip and don't have any camping equipment and it was way too hot to go camping around here anyway.

But, Keith did get one project done this weekend. My bench for my plants for outside the bedroom window.

Please disregard the rest of the backyard. It is very messy with wood stacked up for the patio project and weeds and other odds and ends.

And a cat sitting on the stacked up wood.

See how dark the one half of the window is? That's the new screens that Keith put in last summer, they really help cut the sun and so far the cats haven't been able to tear them up.

Here is the outside view and the bench made totally out of wood that has been laying in the side of the yard for the last eight years.


I think he did a pretty good job. And I'm still kind of surprised that he actually finished it.

And what did I do this weekend? Shampooed all the carpets and did the usual cleaning stuff and worked on new things for the shop and did some grocery shopping and laundry and stuff like that. SO EXCITING!

Whew!

Well, one holiday down and one to go. Then it's smooth sailing until tax paying day, not that tax paying day is a holiday but it's way more stressful than any holiday possibly could be.

We drove (and drove and drove) down to Ventura on Thanksgiving for dinner with Keith's brother Bruce, his wife Carolyn (who likes to cook and is really good at it), their big tall teenage sons Jesse and Asa ( I don't know how they got so tall since Carolyn is really really short and Bruce isn't all that tall either), Keith's mom Cleta (yes, she is from Oklahoma and has a sister named Jorene, those Oklahoman's like unusual names) Keith's daughter Katie, and her boyfriend John. It's a long drive to Ventura and it's really boring for the first hour or so, a very straight road through farmland from Bakersfield to Grapevine, then up, up, up the Interstate and lots of barren hills and mountains with not much to look at but barren hills and mountains, then down, down, down into Castaic, and a right turn onto the 126 and at least that road isn't quite as boring because there is green stuff to look at and a couple of towns to go through and then you are in Ventura.

We ate the traditional turkey, no potatoes and stuffing for me, but I did have a little sweet potatoes (with marshmallows) and some really good fresh green beans with almonds and some kind of seasonings on them, and a salad with sliced pears and walnuts and a pomegranate vinaigrette dressing on it that was homemade and really delicious except for the bleu cheese sprinkled in the salad (gag). Then two kinds of pie, pecan and pumpkin cream cheese with an oatmeal cruncy topping on the pumpkin and yes, I had a piece of the pumpkin pie and it was pretty darn tasty. Then after eating and visiting we stopped by the ocean to say hello and we miss you and the sun was going down so we drove home in the dark which is even more boring than looking at barren hills and mountains.

Then on Friday Keith wakes up with a sore throat which quickly develops into a full blown cold, something about being the fresh air in Ventura and then going back to the not so fresh air in Bakersfield seems to always make him sick. So he kind of laid around all day Friday and Saturday, and then yesterday we got in the car for another road trip down to Castaic to John's house for another sort of Thanksgiving dinner. Meghan and Ryan (niece and niece's boyfriend) were down for the week from South Lake Tahoe (what a lovely place to live!) so she wanted to get a chance to see everyone that she hasn't seen for quite a while. So we had all the family that we didn't see on Thanksgiving all together for second Thanksgiving, and had a traditional meal of tri-tip, baked beans, salads, and brownies, cupcakes and lemon cake for dessert.

We were a little nervous about going over the hills, the forecast had been for 70% chance of rain in the valley, meaning snow on the mountains, and as we were driving towards the mountains the flashing road condition sign was warning of icy roads, but even though the clouds were dark and threatening as we headed through the mountains, no rain or snow and by the time we got to the other side, the sun was shining and later when I checked the weather report on the internet, the chance of rain was down to 0%, so no worries on the way back home.

But, when they tell you that Thanksgiving weekend is the busiest travel weekend of the year BELIEVE WHAT THEY SAY! The interstate was bumper to bumper going through Castaic and up the hill and stayed bumper to bumper crawling along until we got past the part of the road where it goes down to three lanes because of the never ending construction there after the road fell down the hill years ago during heavy rains and hasn't it been at least 10 years now since the road fell down and they're still not finished yet? Anyway, once past the part where the road narrows, all the cars spread out and no more problems. Lots and lots and lots of cars on the road, though, and by the time we got to the other side of the mountain it was getting dark and you could see the ribbon of headlights stretching for miles and miles on the interstate and hwy 99.

So, one holiday over with for another year and Keith says we are staying home next Thanksgiving. Will I cook dinner? Um, no, we will go to a restaurant for our Thanksgiving dinner, thank you very much. Although I think he is losing part of his mind because he was talking about having a Thanksgiving dinner for our cats. With little pilgrim hats and Indian headbands for them to wear. And little tables for them to sit at. Seriously. Maybe it was the copious amounts of cold medicines talking, though.