The Weekender
On Saturday I made the grave mistake of thinking I'd do a little shopping before meeting up with Z for dinner.
First I stopped at TJ Maxx. After circling the parking lot several times, looking for an empty parking spot, I ended up parking a foreverlong walk away at the end of the strip mall. Naively, I thought, Surely all of these people aren't in TJ Maxx right now!
Then I walked inside. And they were all in there. People everywhere, pawing everything. Screaming babies, women with overloaded carts, terror-stricken men, bad haircuts and dye jobs and even worse winter jackets. My eye started twitching, so I cut short my ambitious browsing goals and made my way over to the kitchen section for the one item I actually needed - some airtight plastic storage tubs for my flours (white, wheat, whole wheat pastry, bread, plus oat bran, wheat germ, and corn meal, and I still need to get cake flour). I found a few, snatched them up, paid, and scuttled out with a sigh of relief.
You'd think I'd have learned my lesson at this point. But no. I decided to go to the M A L L. The mall is appoximately 1 mile from TJ Maxx and it took me 20 minutes to get there. I pulled in. There were no parking spots. Anywhere. Even next to the crappy stores. Cars circled slowly, like buzzards above a sick animal, just waiting for some sad soul to vacate his or her spot. I stuck a mental middle finger up at the teeming Idahoan masses and left.
I was running a little late at this point, but I wasn't worried. Z and I have yet to do anything anywhere close to the time we say we will. True to form, when I arrived he was just setting out to take a jog with Cali, the dog. I contented myself with talking to M, his housemate, and toying around with M's fabulous Nikon digital SLR. Then Z came back and showered and we sat around in the living room for a while, shooting the proverbial shit with M. 2 hours after arriving at Z's place we left for the grocery store, speedily bought dinner goods, and headed to the house where he was house-and-pet sitting, home of a three-legged husky and 2 lovey-dovey cats.
The plan was to make shish kebobs (kabobs?) with peppers and onions and squash and tomatoes and chorizo plus mashed potatoes and salad. I set Z to work chopping veg and started working on the potatoes. Once I wrested him away from his beloved teriyaki sauce (seriously, I'm going to have to hide that stuff) we settled on olive oil, lemon juice, and a liberal application of chili powder and cilantro. Soon, M arrived, we tossed everything on the grill, and commenced sampling beer.
The selections:
My (rather unsophisticated) thoughts:
Grotten - serviceable but unremarkable brown Belgian-style ale.
Ommegang - excellent! nice fruity finish, super smooth. Belgian.
Imperial Extra Double Stout - tasted like tar and licorice. blackest liquid since crude oil. an acquired taste, perhaps?
Dinner was excellent, as was the conversation. M is one of those people who's blessed with a phenomenal storytelling ability - and the life experiences to match. I don't know exactly what he does for a living but it involves filming sporting events like international rodeo championships. Turns out there's some crazy stuff that goes down on the international rodeo circuit.
Next morning we made pancakes and eggs and puttered about and I got to hear some cool sounds on the horn and then I had to leave to drive to Bend. Which I'll write about soon.