I was supposed to go out tonight with Loony to a show at The Laughing Goat, a coffee shop and venue around the corner. I think the evening was doomed at dinner.
We went to a newish place down the street that people rave about – The fried chicken! The handheld pies! I have always been suspicious about this place or any place that smirkingly serves pretentious poverty food.
For instance …
Don’t be deceived by the photo, that’s 1/2 of a deviled egg. AND IT COST $1.25.
A DOLLAR TWENTY-FIVE FOR A HALF OF A HARDBOILED EGG AND SOME MAYO! The happy hour price was $1.50 for a chicken wing. ONE WING!
WHO EATS ONE CHICKEN WING?!?!
This place, this kind of place, is everything that is wrong with Boulder. But to be fair to restauranteurs, I’m sure the price of rent is so high that in order to make it they have to charge five-star prices for county fair cuisine. It’s unbelievable.
And the way people gush about it, I wonder what the hell they have been smoking …
Oh. Right.
I’ll tell you what, I’d take a bucket of KFC any day.
Even though we didn’t actually pay for our meal (we had a gift card) I felt ripped off. Then we went home and I kind of got mad at Loony because he got mad at me for buying a bottle of bourbon for a friend when he (Loony) criticized me for pushing this guy’s buttons at a party. AND THEN HE GOT MAD AT ME FOR GIVING THE GUY A THOUGHTFUL GIFT AND AN APOLOGY!
I swear sometimes I can’t win for losing.
Needless to say, I didn’t feel like going out even if it was just a little jazz at The Goat. So I’m here, blogging, because I said I would do it more often and since Loony is taking the boys to Cal-Wood tomorrow to do the 4th of July butterfly count, I am planning to bliss out at home with no one around and bunch of freshly rolled porcelain to play with.
And season eight of Shameless.
Why taint my day with guilt over not writing?
So here I am.
One of the things we just did was have a cherry pie stand. My neighbor’s trees are bursting with sour cherries so they asked me to pick their tree since they are gone all summer. Don’t worry, I’ll give them some pie filling.
I kid you not, I picked and processed 60 cups of cherries and made six pies and put eight pies’ worth of prepared filling in the freezer. And the trees still have more fruit on them.
I was running out of space in my freezer so I decided to have a cherry pie stand. After I subtracted out the price of ingredients, I split the profits with the boys.
I don’t know how many times I paid a dollar for a lukewarm, half-full dixie cup of Country Time, or $1.25 for a half of an egg, so I figured that $5 for a slice of homemade, handpicked cherry pie, with vanilla ice cream and real whipped cream and a cup of coffee was a pretty good deal.
Plus, you can enjoy it on my porch with cloth napkins and conversation.
It was a fun thing to do and it made people so happy. One person came back the next day to have pie for breakfast. And he sent his wife and kids over.
I would love to do this more often and not only serve pie. I would serve one thing a day and only on days I felt like it. I would serve fried rice and eggs, mashed potatoes and gravy, shrimp and grits, curried lentil soup, baked potatoes, red beans and rice, hot bread with honey and butter, grilled cheese and tomato soup, casseroles, and all manner of soft, comforting food.
Casserole is my favorite food group
They do this in Cuba; people pay to eat in private homes. I would do it except if children’s lemonade stands get shut down for failing to have permits, inspections, blah, blah, I don’t think I’d last long. But it was really fun.
We all went camping at Vedauwoo in Wyoming and nothing went wrong, as I worried it might.
Yeah, I like trailer camping.
I heard Vedauwoo was a great place to camp but I wasn’t prepared for HOW GREAT IT WAS!!! Imagine Moab rock formations in the midst of a aspen forest. And it’s only two hours away!
And you don’t need reservations which makes being spontaneous possible.
The only drawback is that there is no water but IT’S NO BIG DEAL WHEN YOU HAVE A CAMPER!
The area was gorgeous and perfect for kids to run around in.
I made a list of all the things that would make trailer camping even more effortless and I stocked her up when we got back. I can’t wait to throw a couple clean shirts and underwear into a duffel, transfer some food from my fridge to another fridge that stays cold without ice, and hit the road.
The only thing that wasn’t perfect was Scheissehund. He had to be on leash or in the camper at all times or he’d run away. He ran off three times because someone would set him down for a second or not guard the door.
Here he is being a total dick by sitting in Pamcakes’ lap and disrespecting me.
Tabby is thinking about moving to a farm and I’m totally locking him in a horse stall with some food while I’m out of town. He’s such an asshole.
Speaking of Tabby, since she might be moving to a farm she’s getting ready just in case. She got a dumpster (the Brits call them skips) delivered to her house. For $300 you can get a large dumpster delivered and then hauled away after you fill it up.
She says she wants a dumpster every year for her birthday. Come to think of it, so do I.
Speaking of birthdays, yesterday was Chief’s birthday and I gave him what all Golden Retrievers love best …
There’s a Chuck-it and balls in the camper ready to go
And we did this …
It was really lovely taking him on a short road trip; it was a redo of our first road trip where I had hoped we’d spend the eight hour drive bonding but I think he was freaked out.
The Vedauwoo trip was more of the total lovefest I had been hoping for.
Happy one-year birthday Chief! You are the cutest splooter in the world!
What else? Oh! Loony and I went out with our usual crowd to a show at The Fox. It was one helluva epic night and I’ll just say that I was happy to be able to sleep until 9am and get 6 hours of sleep. My friend who had to be at work at 7? It sucked to be her.
We went to the usual random show (Defunk) and had a great time.
We weren’t even close to be ready to leave but the show ended around 12:30 and we were nowhere close being done so we went to No Name bar and I couldn’t believe how lovely it was.
It’s in a junky strip mall that was dated back when I moved here in 1991. It is in a corner next a Cosmo’s Pizza and Doozy Duds and while I’d heard about it, I wasn’t prepared for how warm and cozy it felt.
We shut that place down, ended up walking to someone’s house and then there was the incident with the snowboard bridge and the frozen berries.
Here’s something funny I found on the internet.
I just love all the posts these days with hot women talking about how they have come to love their bodies after years of negative self-image … never mind these are always women with near perfect bodies … and everyone congratulates them for being brave enough to love themselves.
I am happy for them – truly I am – but the plain truth it that it is much easier to feel great about your body and love it just the way it is when it is pretty fucking perfect by most heteronormative standards.
As usual, the Onion cuts through the shit.
And I’m just jealous.
Oh! Someone left this on my doorstep!
It’s a picture of my house pre-fire, you can tell by the railings on the 3rd floor and the color of the shingles.
It’s a pastel signed by George Goode and dated 2001. Short of the Boulder creek running past our door (a nice bit of artistic license putting our house truly in the center of Boulder) it is a pretty accurate representation of the house, quirks and all.
I’m not sure how it came to be here. Did the original owner get tired of it and drop it off? Was it picked up at a garage sale? Whoever left it, thank you. We love it.
And speaking of love, I saw this gorgeous photo, I wish knew who took it.
