Weekend highlights

I had a relaxing Sat morning drinking coffee and watching HGTV while Spouse was at his personal trainer appointment. When he came home we had brunch (steak and cheese omelettes) and then went to a store to try to use a Christmas gift card. Only, I didn't see anything I really wanted, so I decided to hold onto the gift card for another time.

Then we went to the stained glass studio to check in with the artist about the back-ordered glass we've been waiting on for months. It still hadn't arrived so Spouse & I picked a different (in-stock) piece so they could finally get started on the big diamond-shaped window we commission 6 months ago. While there, we worked with the artist to design the 3 rectangle window inserts for the windows over the tub. We are very happy with the way the design came out, and they had all the glass we need in stock. So, hopefully it won't be too much longer before we can take down those temporary paper shades and install our stained glass window inserts.

For my birthday last month Spouse gave me an mp3 player. So Sat afternoon I read the directions and loaded it up with music I already had on the computer from the 1st mp3 player. I had one before that was very inexpensive and broke a month or two later. Despite it being cheap, I returned it and got my money back. My new mp3 player has more sorting/playback options and is much nicer.

Sat evening we met Steven & Thad at Ruby Tuesday for dinner. They are dieting too, so it was a good place for us to have dinner. The salad bar is the best!! Steven also had coupons for buy-one-get-one-free, so that was a nice bonus. Then went to their house to watch "500 Days of Summer". It was pretty good, but one thing really bothered me about the film. The male lead's young sister (probably 12 years old) was completely ridiculous providing her adult brother with sage relationship advice. There was absolutely no need for that character, and giving her wisdom far, far beyond her age was just unbelievable. However, at one point the screen split in 2 and on 1 side the story continued with the word 'Expectation' under it, while on the other side the story continued with the word 'Reality' under it. I found this clever and a very effective way to communicate what sometimes happens in people's heads early on in dating. After the movie we watched an episode of "Jersey Shore", which was incredibly bad on an unprecedentedly monumental scale. But we had fun hanging out with our friends.

Sun morning after breakfast I went to the gym (my 3rd work out this week). Spouse & I went to get his car washed since it was coated in road salt from Friday's snow, but their was a HUGE line at the car wash so we gave up. We did our grocery shopping for the week, and then came home and roasted chicken, steak, and veggies. We really like doing this 'cook on Sunday, heat up on weekdays' kind of thing! We have meals for every day this week, and then some. Despite the temperature just hovering around freezing, we decided to take Jordan for a walk around the neighborhood. The sun was out and we bundled up warmly so it wasn't too bad. Later we went to Bob's for chili and game night. However, our conversations were so interesting that we never played any games! We just talked until after 9:00. We had a good time.

I was looking forward to my weigh-in this morning. Typically when someone starts a diet they have a dramatic 1st week weigh-in. Steven's was 9 lbs and Spouse's was 10 lbs. Mine was very disappointing though. Despite depriving myself of all kinds of goodies this week, sticking to my healthy eating all week, AND working out 3 times, I only lost 2 lbs. Naturally it made we want to immediately order a large meatlovers pizza and eat the entire thing. By myself. But I didn't. Instead I tried to remind myself that my goal was to reduce my portion sizes, eat less processed foods, eat more fruits and veggies, and work out at least twice. So, looking at that, I was very successful. But my expectation was that by doing the above, I would also drop 6-8 lbs, which I did not. Although initially discouraged, I remain committed to my goal.

Crush du Jour: Danny Dyer

Satisfying Saturday

I certainly enjoyed a satisfying Saturday.

Spouse & I slept in until about 9, had coffee and talked about our day. We decided to have a late breakfast out, which is sort of unusual for us, but enjoyable none-the-less. After so much crappy weather lately, it was a welcome relief to find the sun shining brilliantly and the temperature significantly warmer. So, down went the convertible top and up went my spirits!

After breakfast we ran a few errands, then came home and did a little housecleaning. Spouse took a nap and I went to the gym for an hour: 30 minutes of cardio on the treadmill followed by 30 minutes of arms, chest, and abs. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and remember what I used to see and think to myself "Hey, you're getting there!" Other times, like on Sat, I see guys at the gym with nice big arms and pecs that stretch their t-shirts tight and I think about myself "Boy, you've got a long way to go".

Working out has become infinitely more enjoyable since the purchase of my mp3 player. I'm likely the last gay on earth to buy one, but whatever: I'm a late adopter. An hour goes by lickity split when I'm jammin' to Miss Jackson's nasty grooves. (FYI - 'Rhythm Nation' is great for the treadmill.) I also lip-synched along to RuPaul and 80s disco hits. I have to remind myself to only lip-synch and never sing out loud while listening to my mp3 player. Although I have a good singing voice, no one wants to hear a queen singing while pumping iron. Upon returning home I shuffled my music and reloaded the mp3 player for next time, then hit the shower. When I got out of the shower I noticed in the mirror that my face was a little pink from being in the bright sunshine with no sunscreen. I didn't care.

It was so gorgeous I tried to think of any reason to be outside. I took the dog for a walk. I considered pulling some weeds or trimming some of the neglected landscaping but decided against this since I'd just showered. Instead, I took Big Ella out for a little exercise. As usual, I received multiple high-fives, thumbs up, compliments, and questions about Big Ella's birth year. She never fails to make an impression.

Then Spouse & I walked to a local Mexican restaurant to meet up with our buddies Doug & Jim. The restaurant is tiny, with only 6 tables for 4 and 4 tables for 2, so when we arrived at 7:00 Doug told us the wait would be 90 minutes. I thought he was joking, but he confirmed he was not. Normally Spouse & I wouldn't wait even 1/2 that long, but since Doug & Jim invited us to dinner and had picked the place, we just decided to go with it. We sat at the bar and ordered margaritas, which were fabulous, and then ordered chips and salsa and the guacamole sampler, which was also fabulous. The sampler contained 3 varieties of guac: shrimp and garlic, tomato and onion, and goat cheese and pine nuts. Dee-lish! It took every single one of those 90 minutes before our table was ready, but the time flew by since we were eating and drinking and talking with our buddies. We all enjoyed our meals, too.

After 2 large, potent margaritas I was glad we'd walked instead of driven to the restaurant, because I was certainly not fit to drive. Spouse, me, and my tequila buzz watched TV for a little while and then went to bed.

A very satisfying Saturday, indeed.

Crush du Jour: Fred Goudon

Terrific weekend

We had a terrific weekend! We just had a few things planned so much of the weekend was spontaneous.

First, the weather: Sat it was 75 degrees and sunny, and Sun it was 80 degrees and sunny; quite a change from the 26 degrees and several inches of snow we had on Mon! Needless to say, all the snow is gone now.

A month ago I'd taken Big Ella to a restoration shop to get an idea on the cost of a paint job, and was rather shocked at the $18,000. estimate. But our friend Rick told us that he had gotten very good results from Maaco, so Sat morning I drove Big Ella to the Maaco in Salisbury, about an hour away. Spouse followed me in his car. Long story short, the guy at Maaco quoted me under $5,000. for the exact same work. To be sure, I asked him to describe the process to me so I could know for sure that I was comparing the same work. Spouse & I agreed it was the place to have the work done, so I paid a deposit and left Big Ella there. In about 2 weeks she should be STUNNING!

Afterward we went over to our friends Randy & Dean's house. We met their new puppy, then went to lunch at a great little bistro where Spouse had a filet mignon tips pinini and soup and I had ahi tuna sliders and a goat cheese salad. Tres magnifique!

When we returned home we immediately changed into our workout gear and went to the gym. Since it was so pretty outside, we decided to go for a nice long walk (to the beach) when we got back from the gym. It was amazing to have such warm weather in early March, and this just added to our enjoyment of the walk.

We both showered and then headed over to our friend Ray's house for movie night. Once a month a group of guys gets together to watch a movie (the host picks the film), discuss/comment on it afterward, and enjoy some snacks. Ray picked "Flawless", starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Robert DiNiro, which we saw many years ago when it came out, but enjoyed it again.

Sun morning we took Jordan for a nice long walk, which she enjoyed immensely. It was only 9am but we could already tell it was going to be warmer than the day before. After talking for a while and enjoying a nice leisurely cup of coffee, we went shopping. Since it was already in the 70s we put the roof down on the convertible. We saw lots of people wearing shorts, including me, despite my wintry-white legs.

Nick solved the great mystery of why our camera keeps indicating "batteries exhausted". He said we needed to change the battery setting on one of the menus because it was set for a battery that has stronger voltage. Since we were using batteries with lesser voltage we needed to change the setting. I had no idea the camera even had a battery setting! Nick suggested buying a rechargeable battery station, which made a lot of sense, so our first stop on Sunday's shopping spree was to buy the rechargeable battery station. We got one that recharges AA and AAA batteries, since we use AA in the camera and AAA in the mp3 players.

Then we had burritos at Moe's.


At our next shop-stop we saw that the parsons chairs we'd been looking at for months were finally on sale. They only had 2 left, but lucky for us, we only wanted 2, so we bought them. They are dark brown (faux leather) and can be used in our dining room or living room when we need extra seating. As we walked out of the store Spouse suddenly remembered we were NOT driving the CRV, into which the chairs could have easily slid. I laughed and told him not to worry, that I'd already thought of that and knew the chairs would fit upside down in the back seat of the convertible. And they did. I also got an mp3 player for $19.99 so Spouse & I would each have our own mp3 player at the gym.

Our last shop-stop was the grocery store. Nothing exciting to report about that, unless you think getting those 'Steam Fresh' veggies that steam themselves in the microwave for $1. each is exciting.

When we returned home Spouse took a nap and I tried to load a 'workout' playlist onto my new mp3 player. Instead, I accidentally loaded our entire music library onto it, so now I have to figure out what I did wrong.

Since we had a filling lunch we weren't hungry for dinner, so we just had a light snack before going to Rick & Nick's to watch a movie. We had introduced them to the Donald Strachey gay detective film series a while back and they enjoyed "Third Man Out" and "Shock to the System". So the 4 of us watched the 3rd film in the series "On the Other Hand, Death" last night, which we liked, and look forward to the release of the 4th film in the series "Ice Blues".

It was a terrific weekend, which ended too soon. But isn't that always the case?

Crush du Jour: Nick Adams