We Have a Winner!

The bad news is that I was sick last Tuesday, really sick Tuesday night, and sick again on Wednesday. So it was not a great week.

The good news is that I think the worst of the stress at work is over, so hopefully we'll have some relative quiet time for a few weeks.

We had a really good weekend.

I called Debbi Friday late afternoon to tell her I expected to be a little late. She said, "Well, I have some ideas for a date night, but we'll see how much we can do depending on when you get home."

I paused and then said, "You want to go play minigolf, huh?"

Pause. "How did you know?"

"I know you."

"But do you know where I want to play minigolf?"

"Sunnyvale?"

"Hey!"

Heh-heh-heh.

Okay, the real reason I knew is that she'd mentioned wanting to play there last weekend, so it seemed like a good guess.

I didn't come home too late - I think I got home a little after 7. We got gyros for dinner and then played minigolf. It was a warm, pleasant night. The minigolf course in Sunnyvale has re-worked one of their courses to have a Hawaii/tiki theme, which is pretty fun, though the course itself is basically the same. Then we came home and drank port while sitting on my patio with the lit candles in the votive stakes I bought at Illuminations last weekend. Very pretty!

Saturday was highlighted by going to the 50th anniversary celebration of Kepler's Books in Menlo Park. They're probably the best independent bookstore in the area (I distinguish "independent bookstore" from "used bookstore", by the way; I'm just talking new-book retail here). They're the store that hosts the monthly book discussion I attend.

The celebration went on from 1 to 4 pm. We arrived around 3, in time to sign up for the raffle (proceeds being donated to the Atherton library), and to have some cake they passed out. The raffle was efficiently done, with people writing their names on the backs of their tickets, making it move right along. Only problem was I suspect they didn't effectively communicate that you had to be present to win, so a couple of people missed out on that score. Oh well. On the bright side, Debbi won something! Seven of the prizes were anniversary book bags with books. Six of them contained five of the store's favorite books from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s. Debbi won the seventh bag, which contained one book from the store's selected author from each decade. So she won Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, , David Sedaris' Naked, and David McCullough's biography John Adams. That's a pretty good haul! I'll probably borrow at least the first two of those to read myself!

I grilled hamburgers for dinner, and then we drove into the city to get sundaes and Ghirardelli Square, as Debbi had a half-off coupon they sent her for her birthday.

Today was comparatively sedate. We did some shopping, spent some time sitting around at home, and went for out first bike ride of the year. I tried out the new shoes I bought last weekend at the Supergo store in Mountain View. (I checked a couple of independent bike stores first but I had trouble finding shoes I wanted, and they were really expensive. I don't really feel the impetus to patronize independent stores if I have to spend twice as much to buy shoes I don't really like. So, there you go.) Anyway, the new shoes work great. Next, I'll put the clip-on pedals on my bike and practice falling down riding with them.

Dinner tonight was home-made salad with chopped grilled chicken breasts. Mmmm.

A good weekend. I rate it a 9. (Debbi's been asking me lately how I rate our weekends. So now you know.)