11 years, fixing, rubbed

Saturday was our 11 year anniversary.  Besides a dinner that evening and the 25 roses on the kitchen island our Saturday was not that out of the ordinary. Well I did get a massage Saturday morning, I guess that is not very normal.  Ali met up with Michelle and went running together which was cool.  I left before Ali got back.

The massage gift certificate that I got last Christmas was due to expire on 12/1 so I figured I better use it.  I had the same woman I always do.  She does such a good job.  She rubs pretty much everything you can legally and does a very thorough job of it.  During the massage we talked through a lot of it but there were times when I was just enjoying it too much to talk.

She said that times have been tough during a down economy and luxury items like massages are going to be one of the first things to get trimmed off the to do list. She is a single mom with three boys at home, the oldest being 23.  I felt bad for her. 

Somehow we got into talking about age.  She was surprised when I told her I would be 42 in December, she guessed I was safely in my 30’s which of course made me feel like my work in the gym pays off.

After I got home Ali and I jumped into cutting the grass.  I had hoped to keep the Sunday to do list light.  After I got done weed whacking I decided to try to fix the spare tire assembly on the party van.  I had inadvertently twisted the fitting off the end of the wire that held the tire in place. At Home Depot I picked up a couple fasteners that I figured I could use to make a replacement fitting. 

I backed the van up onto the ramps and slid underneath.  First I had work the winch to drop the cable closer to the ground.  To do so there was a tube that is designed to have a handle inserted into it.  Since I was doing this myself I just held on to the wire with one hand to keep downward weight on it it and turned the tube with my other hand.  It was a slow process but I finally got enough wire out to work with.

The first fitting I tried didn’t seem fool proof enough for me.  I had visions of it breaking loose and the tire dropping out from under the van while I am doing 80 on the highway.  I opted to use the other fitting which looped the wire around a small frame and used three clamps to hold it in place.  In order for the fastener to fail all three of the clamps would have to blow out which is very unlikely.

With the weight of the tire on the wire I couldn’t just crank the tube with my hand.  I got out the tools that came with the van.  Unfortunately it looks like some dumb ass, probably Erwin Tonch, at one point squeezed the tube with a pliers to turn it.  As a result the tool designed for the job was unable to fit correctly.  I wound up using a tire iron to do the job.  Again it was a slow, forearm burning activity but eventually I got the tire winched up into place and tight against the frame.

I spent some time on Saturday trying to track down some missing timing chips.  This is one part of the race timing process which is a pain in the ass.  The last race which was filled with first time runners was worse than normal in terms of missing chips.  We had half dozen chips that were not collected after the race.  So I get to email/call these people to ask them nicely to return the chips.  It’s a hassle.

So Ali and I got ready for our anniversary dinner.  We were going to someplace we never went before called Vincenzo’s on the Bay.  My mom had been there and recommended it. On the way to the restaurant we drove by the Delorean office in Bonita.  Yes there is a Delorean office in Bonita. The Delorean came to fame in the early 80’s when it was the focal point of the smash movie series Back to the Future. 

Unfortunately the stainless steel skinned car itself was not destined for long term success.  Well imagine my surprise when I saw at least a half dozen DeLoreans lined up in their parking lot.  I was half tempted to swing a u-turn to pull in to take a closer look.  I never saw one in person, but I didn’t want to be late for dinner.   

When we pulled up for our 6:30 dinner reservations I was surprised/pleased to see the parking lot was not full at all.  This was obviously an older, established restaurant, which I liked.  Sometimes you get tired of eating in chains where everything is rubber stamped to meet the standards established by some customer focus group.  We had a table right along the windows that looked out on the bay.  It was a beautiful view.  We were treated to fish jumping out of the water during the entire meal it was pretty cool. 

As the wait staff walked past you could feel the wooden floor move along with them.  Ali found that a bit disconcerting, I liked it.  Although I thought the place was charming, it wasn’t quite as high end as mom made it sound.  The plates were made of plastic and the prices were no more than most places we frequent.

There were some negatives.  I brushed off the short black hair that was in the butter, I just used my knife to remove it instead of making a scene.  However the biggest negative was Ali’s meal.  First off she ordered something with gnocchi.  About 10-15 minutes the waitress came back and was told they did not have any gnocchi which was a bit annoying that it wasn’t brought to our attention immediately.  So Ali ordered some other pasta meal.

Well her dish was VERY spicy.  It had some sort of pepper in it that if you got a chunk of the spice, would have you reaching for the glass of water quickly.  If you were lucky enough to get a spice free forkful it tasted ok but more often than not your luck would run out.  Ali at first didn’t make a big deal of it.  As time went on she was giving me some of it.  We considered asking for something else but we had eaten probably half of the meal so we didn’t want to appear to be idiots, if you didn’t like the food why did you eat half….  We never have been the type to send food back.  So instead Ali went through lots of water as she ate a few more forkfuls. My meal was fine so I felt bad that Ali’s was less than stellar.

We did get to enjoy some beautiful views as the sun went down.  The colors reflected off the water were awesome.  We tried to get the taste of the spice out of our mouth by splitting some key lime pie for desert.  We left Vincenzo’s with mixed feelings.  I would go back again because I liked the location, view and ambiance.  Ali was feeling more negative because of her tongue burning pasta.   I think we would give it another visit although Ali would definitely be ordering something different.

The Eagles game end result was good although there was some very annoying aspects to it.  WTF is up with the penalties?  There was over 100 yards of penalties called against the Birds, mostly on defense.  That shit has to get cleaned up. Luckily the Bucs were bad enough that it didn’t matter all that much. The defense also at times made the no name Buc QB look like a star for much of the game and they had NO answer for taking Kellen Winslow out of the picture, he burned the Eagles D again and again… 

Jeremy Maclin had a HUGE day which was cool to see. Unfortunately for me, apparently there is no room for two Eagle WR’s to have good days.  DeSean Jackson who was starting on my fantasy team did NOTHING, zero points, a fantasy back breaker.

 McNabb also looked great considering he still has two injured ribs. His stats were stellar, although the Bucs did very little to pressure him throughout the game.

Michael Vick played much less now that McNabb was back and once again he did next to nothing.  He seems to be mostly used as a decoy at this point.  So far, this dynamic, explosive aspect he was supposed to bring to the team has been nothing but hype.  He has not showed me ANYTHING yet. 

The rest of our Sunday was pretty laid back.  Ali buzzed my hair back to my military motif, I played WoW and later grabbed the Wii remotes for some Top Spin tennis.

I just love the Iron Chef show. I don’t love to cook or have some sort of adoration of food like most of America yet I never miss an episode if it pops up on the bedroom tivo.