March 7th and 8th

Saturday, I drove logan to the highway that the ski resort is on. I dropped him off and he hitchhiked the 27 miles to the lifts. It only takes a guy with a snowboard about 3 minutes to capture a ride from fellow snowboarders. Nothing like my younger days hitchiking around Texas and England.

I ate a bagel with lox at Einsteins, and it was pretty good. The bagel and large cup of excellent coffee was about 7 bucks. I could get a cheaper cream cheese and fruit bagel for 3 dollars less. It was my first time at the bagel place, and it looks like a great place to hang out and read the paper for an hour or so. Lots of cool cheap coffeehouses to go to around here. In Texas I mainly hung out in bars, now I do the laundromat/coffeehouse thing. Life is good here.

I drove home and slepped the bagle off for a couple hours then decided to take Freddy with me and run some errands. Some dum ass (me) left the headlights on and the truck would not start. So I put the Volvo's new battery in and had to back up through my snow covered front yard at a good speed so the wheels wouldnt get stuck in the hard crusty snow, in order to avoid the big truck that was now blocking my driveway.

The shop I had the Volvo at a few months ago said that "all the car needed was a new battery and it would run good again". He was mistaken. Freddie and I drove north for a few miles and I stopped for gas and a well needed carwash. My engine died in the carwash, but I managed to get it restarted and after an hour I got it running good enough to crawl out of the gas station and try to make it all the way home. While coasting in neutral, while applying the gas in order to keep the car running, while modulating my speed with the hand-held emergency brake, I was able to cough and slink my way home.

So now I have the Volvo in the street and it really can't run, and a truck in my drive with a flat battery, and my battery charger and extension cord in my other truck, which sits in a field 7 miles away. I was down to the motorcycle for transportation. It got me through the not so warm day.

That night I drank a little tequila and lime, while cooking rib-eyes on the grill at 22 degrees, while watching the star filled sky. Logan caught a late movie, so I ate two 12 oz steaks, which reeked havoc on my too full stomach the entire night. One should only have so much protein I guess.

Sunday,

Logan and I walked to another coffee place (and one of the few places open downtown on Sundays. The singer/guitar player sounded like a bucket of cats in a clothes dryer so we ate outside in the balmy 35 degree weather. No wind as usual, and we never got cold.

Hung out in the house the rest of the day, doing nothing, a little cleaning maybe, till I spent 2 hours making grilled pork chops and my special baked beans.

Bean recipe: chop up an onion into long narrow strips. Spray oil in cooking pot, grill the onions slowly until brown. Add crushed red pepper and a tea spoon of curry powder. Add a can of Bushs origional recipe and pour 4 tablespoons of dijon mustard, and pour a bit of A1 Steak Sauce into the mix. Stir and simmer for an hour. We marinated the pork chops in italian dressing the night before and let it sit in a ziplock bag until ready to grill. Damn good dinner we all agree!