This & That

We had a snow overnight--2-3 inches perhaps. Made a pleasant mess in the morning. Oh, what fun to drive with studded rear tires! Had a fine Staff Meeting this morning. Normally, I hate Staff Meetings. This one was truly fun and memorable and people said nice things about me and welcomed me back. I really appreciated it a lot.

Had a lunch date to discuss the Bluegrass thing. Walked over in the snow and sheet ice--wore the Yaktrax and used a tungsten-tipped stick. I think The Falls are more beautiful now than anytime I can ever remember--the ice is exquisite.

Not sure if my presence @ the lunch was worthwhile. I had a good time and learned that Mike V. is doing OK. That's big news. Anyway, the upshot of the meeting is that we three attending somehow realized the Rotary would be the best potential savior of the bluegrass thing. Wonder why we didn't think of that sooner?

The rest of the day ripped right on by like a fast freight on the Santa Fe tracks past The Jackrabbit on Arizona's Old Route 66. Most of my errands were food-related but I did manage to squeeze in a Water Heater Caper visit to Home Depot. Chapter 3 is just about finished "in the wild," so to speak. That means I will have to write it up this weekend to stay current. We have BIG plans to tackle the water heater this weekend.

We're getting close to the middle of Season Two of Northern Exposure. Yep, the episodes are getting weirder by degrees. Not too weird, mind you, but pretty danged weird enough. I now doubt that we will be watching all 110 episodes--I think they will get too weird for us by the end of Season 3. I'm pretty certain already that we won't be watching Seasons 4 & 5. They were stretching the envelope pretty thin with the dead guy last night. Some guy expired while waiting in Joel's Office. The people of Cicely wound up burning him on a pyre set up in a vacant lot next to Joel's office. Um....well, OK. The other subplot was Holling's circumcision. Um..well, Oooh, kay! What the heck, it's Northern Exposure--what can you say?

We're coming up on a 3-day weekend here--MLK Day is paid holiday at my outfit. We were thinking about taking a trip on Sunday but inertia is setting in. (Inertia is a lot like rigor mortis, only different.) Something tells me that we are going to kick back and do battle with a Big Round Thing. (AKA: A Water Heater.)

Made a pot of Old Style chili tonight. We once made this type of chili all the time. It was a dietary staple for us for years--maybe decades. In the last couple of years, the Old Style chili kinda faded away. I had a yearning for it tonight. It takes a pound of really high quality ground beef--at least 93% lean.
It's called Two, Two & Two Chili or "Two-fer chili" for short. After you brown the beef, you slice up two medium onions and brown them, too. Meanwhile, you drain two cans of kidney beans and rinse then well. Meanwhile, you add 2 cans of diced tomatoes with green chile and jalapenos. Add a couple tablespoons of mild pure Hatch ground chile pepper powder, a teaspoon of Hot Taco Mix and two tablespoons of Herdez chipotle salsa. Let it simmer for at least 30 minutes, preferably 45. Serve with your choice of various condiments, etc. Tonight we had it with sour cream.

The heat level of the chili was right on our edge. Any hotter and it would not have been fun. It was perfectly hot enough without being overwhelming. As I told Susun, if we would have had that type of chili up in Clayton last July, it would have been a hands down winner.

Speaking of which, we're booked back as judges this coming July 24 in Clayton. That's a nice compliment and we are looking forward to it. We're going to hotfoot it back to River City that day, though. The Blue Angles are performing over the city that weekend and we have to see them!!!! Heck, you can see mountains and rivers and that sort of stuff all the time around here. But the Blue Angles? Not so much.

This is the time of year to book stuff. We're already booked into Old Faithful Inn on May 8th--the weekend of Mother's Day. And we're waiting on the six month advance booking window to open up for late July and early August dates for Riverside Campground and Squirrel Meadows Guard Station. Right now, you can book only up to July 14. Give us a week and we will begin booking our summer camping.
In this day and age it's the only way to fly.

Tomorrow morning, we have to rally up real early and go get a blood draw at 7 am. It's the annual $15 chance to get the HDL/LDL readouts once again. Cain't have no food or milk tonight--just water. Dang, no coffee in the morning, just water. Not much else on tap for tomorrow. Susun will be pretty busy but not me.

Thanks for reading and CHEERS! jp