Tony's Birthday Weekend

Well, let's see what's going on...Tony got back late on Friday, but earlier than I thought he was going to. I was still making the ice cream and the potato dish for Saturday when he got here. He's not sure about the job. He got a fairly good feeling from them, but he's just not sure. They're supposed to let him know (hopefully) by the end of the month. So we're going to be in countdown mode until then. He really wants it. It's right up his alley. I hope he gets it.

If he does, then we'll be in scramble mode as we try to get our house ready to sell (and sell it) and find a new place and move to Kentucky (by god).

Saturday he went to play paintball with Pedro, Adam, and Clint. He's got these weird shaped paintball bruises all over now, like some strange kind of paintball ringworm. They look very painful. Vanessa thinks paintball is grounds for divorce. She just doesn't get it. I don't really mind, though I'm not sure I understand the bruises. But I look at it this way, he puts up with me playing computer games. I can put up with him playing war games.

Saturday night we had his big birthday dinner. Le Menu:

Rack of venison with shallots and dried cranberry and juniper berry gravy

Goat cheese scalloped potatoes

Green beans with carmelized onions and wild mushrooms

Chocoloate Souffles with raspberry semifreddo

Assorted cheeses beforehand, and Betsy brought these gorgonzola stuffed mushrooms that were really good. We had the Del Dotto wines we got on our trip last year -- 2000 Cabernet, one from Missouri oak, one from a French oak, and then the blend of the two. The semifreddo was primarily a semifreddo because I made failed homemade ice cream. But it tasted good. We started out with the Darioush Viognier. My favorite (and only) white.

A good night, all in all. I ate way too much though.

Tonight we're going out with Vanessa and Herman to Roy's. Actually got to make a reservation at OpenTable for once. ;-) I checked; Kentucky's got just two restaurants listed there, but one of them is Morton's. So maybe I'll get to have good steak. Or maybe not, since I'll be a starving writer, ha, ha.

I laugh, but who knows.

I did get my office cleaned while Tony was out paintballing, so I have no excuses now. I got part of the Clive Barker interview typed up, but I've definitely figured out that I SUCK at taking dictation. I need one of those machines with the foot pedal so you can start, stop, go forward, go back, etc. I think I've only got about 20 minutes of it down, so I've got like 40 minutes to go. I need to get that done. In fact, I should be doing that now...but I'm not.

I did get caught up on some book reviews though. I got four turned out, so I'm covered until the end of November at least. Still have a stack of more to do.

Man, I hope Tony gets that job.