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Sunday, March 18, 2012

One of those days

This is one of those blog posts that people who don't blog are referring to when they say things like "Why would anyone read a blog? Why do I care about some joe-schmoe's day?" This is a post chronicling a day in my life: yesterday, March 17th, 2012, St. Patrick's Day.

Do you ever have one of those days?
One of those days where everything you do is exactly what you wanted to do?
One of those days where besides all the fun you even did something productive?
One of those days where even the things outside your control (like the weather) go your way?
One of those days when you're enjoying what you're doing and then you all of a sudden remember one of the other awesome things you did earlier that you almost forgot about?
Well, I have. I had that day yesterday.
Though, I must admit, it didn't start off perfectly...
Now when I say that, I mean it was still a-okay and even expected. Just not perfect. (It should be very well known to anyone who knows me that I have and have had a pretty good life. Not much goes or has gone wrong.)
The first one awake was Boudreaux, our dog, which is typical on the weekends. I didn't want to get up with him but he was insistent. So I dragged myself out of bed, headed downstairs, fed the dog, let him out, let him back in, and then climbed back upstairs and into bed. After a little while Allison and I finally got up and made ourselves a nice simple breakfast of oatmeal with strawberries.
Then we got dressed and headed out to Old Cedar Avenue near Long Meadow Lake for a hike. Allison had had the brilliant idea that since we had so much fun hiking in Arizona maybe we should just keep hiking after getting back home? And you know what? There are lots of places to do that within or close to the Twin Cities. So the three of us went on a wonderful ~2 mile hike along the lake. There were numerous people out hiking and bird watching (some of the people had some serious scopes on tripods). Boudreaux got very excited when he saw some ducks in a pond and really enjoyed walking up and down a stream.
Something else there that was neat was the Old Cedar Avenue bridge. It is a two lane bridge that used to be the only way across the Minnesota River in our part of the southern suburbs. And it was what my dad took to work every morning from Burnsville to Golden Valley when I was growing up. It is right next to the new 6 lane Cedar Avenue bridge. Whenever I drive over the river and look at that rickety old bridge my mind reels at trying to imagine rush hour crossing the river.
After our hike we headed back home and had a delicious lunch of leftover andoule sausage jambalaya. I had made it the night before (from a box) and it was still quite tasty.
Next came the productive part of our day. Allison and I moved some of the furniture around downstairs so she could paint one of the walls. There are only a couple left and it looks much nicer than the stark white we had before.
While Allison was painting I headed outside with Boudreaux and got out the chainsaw. I cut down a few lower branches from some of the trees in our yard. I was trying to get rid of the ones that really hang down and make it difficult to mow the lawn. I dragged the cut branches back into the woods behind my house and while coming back from dropping off the last couple of branches five white-tailed deer ran by. Boudreaux had been watching me take the branches out of the yard and he was transfixed by the small herd. I then took some pesticide and diatomaceous earth (which is supposed to help with box-elder bugs) and sprayed and spread around the base of our house.
By the time I was done Allison had pulled out our plastic yard furniture bench and started reading her Kindle (she's in the middle of A Clash of Kings, in preparation for the upcoming season of A Game of Thrones on HBO). I headed inside to grab my own Kindle and grabbed us both a nice, cool, Leinies Sunset Wheat and then headed outside to join her.
We sat there for maybe an hour, maybe two. Just reading our books and sipping our beers. The last I had checked the mercury had reached 78 degrees, but it wouldn't surprise me it it hit about 80 while we were out there. And I tell you what, we had zero problems reading our Kindles in the bright sunlight. In fact, it was probably even easier than reading a real book because it isn't the bright white of a page made of paper.
The last time I talked about what I was reading I was soldiering through a fairly poorly written book. Since then I had read a bunch on the plane and also while enjoying myself in Arizona. I finished that book, Fight For the Abyss, the next book, Mechanicum, the following book, an anthology of short stories called Tales of Heresy, and am currently reading the 11th book in the Horus Heresy series, Fallen Angels. I've quite enjoyed everything since Fight For the Abyss.
Around five o'clock I headed upstairs and grabbed a couple of New York Strip steaks out of the frig in preparation for dinner. There was no way I was going to let this day go by without turning on the grill. When the grill was ready I used a little Famous Dave's Burger and Steak rub and threw those bad boys on the fire. The steaks were served with a simple arugula and tomato salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing and an excellent French wine that Allison had picked up a couple weeks ago. It has 50% Grenache and 50% Syrah. I can't describe to you what "notes" it had, or what it "hinted at", but I can tell you it complemented my medium-rare steak excellently. And if I do say so myself, the steaks were fantastic.
We cleared away the dishes and cleaned up after dinner and an odd notion came into my head. The beautiful sunny day harkened back to summer days of my youth and I wanted to something I hadn't done in quite some time. I asked Allison if she wanted to hit the Dairy Queen drive-in and just go on a little drive in the country. She surprised me by saying "Yeah, let's go." And the three of us got back in the car and took off.
We headed out to Rosemount and the Dairy Queen there. As expected the drive-in line was long and there were family's at every picnic table and all over the parking lot enjoying sundaes and cones and Blizzards and other treats. We got up to the window and I ordered a mini Oreo Blizzard for Allison and after a small internal debate I ordered a small Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard for myself. The debate was not over the flavor but the size (I've had a couple medium and even large Blizzards in my day) and by the time I had finished I was happy with my choice.
From Rosemount we headed for downtown Farmington. Neither of us had actually been to our neighbor town to the south. It was not quite what I was expecting, at least not where we drove through. Downtown Lakeville is a cute and quaint little area. "Downtown" Farmington, or at least the main commercial drag through the center of town was anything but cute. A couple of strip malls and a restaurant/gas station. I'm sure we missed other stuff and we'll just have to return again some day. By the way, Boudreaux really enjoyed the drive. His head was out the window nearly the entire time.
We got back after sunset and for our next activity Allison suggested we head down stairs and play a board game. You never have to ask me twice to engage in my favorite hobby so with newly filled wine glasses in hand we went downstairs.
Then the tough choice became which game to play. Allison was debating over whether to play her favorite game, Dominion, or try playing Stone Age again. I got Stone Age for Christmas and we had played it once so far and she opted to bring it out again. Allison won our first contest a few months ago, but I'm sorry to say that I beat her this time. It was another fun contest and I was glad we got to play it.
When we finished packing up the game I didn't even have the chance to ask "What do you want to do now?" when Allison asked "Do you want to watch Iron Man?" Ummm, yes.
I had seen Iron Man in the theater and Allison had not. I have never been a big comic book collector but I've always enjoyed the stories and the heroes. With the Avengers movie coming out in just a couple months I had planned to watch the related movies that I hadn't seen yet. I had seen Iron Man and Thor, but hadn't yet watched The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, or Captain America. When I got Hulk in the mail Allison expressed an interest in watching it with me. She enjoyed it and since I was getting Iron Man 2 next I asked her if she wanted me to get Iron Man first, which she did.
So we poured out the remainder of the wine, popped in Iron Man, and watched a great super hero action flick.
Phew! I think that's it. After the movie, on the way upstairs to bed, I was thinking about what a great day it had been and I suddenly remembered my Blizzard which I had nearly forgotten about. It was then that this blog post started forming.

So let's recap:
Up early with my wonderful dog, Boudreaux
Oatmeal and strawberries
Hike near the Minnesota river
Andoule sausage jambalaya
Chainsaw and branch cutting with a deer sighting
Sitting in the sun and the heat with my wife, my Kindle, and a beer
Steaks and wine for dinner
A cookie dough Blizzard and a drive through the country
A game of Stone Age with Allison with a glass of wine
Watched Iron Man with a glass of wine

Yep, not too shabby.

2 comments:

  1. the only thing that would have added to this day would be a nice Brenden laugh-attack :)

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  2. Ha! You're right, Adam! Thankfully I have one in recent memory...last week in fact. I can't quite remember what Allison did that made me laugh, but it was hilarious.

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