Deb took me out to Longhorn Steak for dinner on Saturday night, but the experience wasn't the usual fabulous. They've renovated the restaurant, and while most of it looks fine, the smokers' area has been partitioned off in a cafeteria-like gulag. No booths, just tables. Too brightly lit. One window into the rest of the restaurant, but with blinds on it, so you can't really people-watch. A hideously ugly fake-paneling accordian partition across the back of the room. There was too much pepper on my Flo's filet, and the waitress never brought the beer Deb ordered. We may have to move on to a different standard restaurant. It was nice not having to wash dishes, though.

We picked up the bleary-eyed girls at the airport on Sunday morning, and discovered they had brought an unexpected houseguest to stay with them for a couple of weeks, Joey, the Uncle's Monkey. He's a world traveller with a taste for the ladies and the social life. I'm not sure how much he's going to get out of a stay at Rancho Lesbiano. Well, we did have a bit of fun on Sunday afternoon while the girls were napping, but I have to give him a chance to write that up in his own online travel diary before I spill the bananas.

So, you may be hearing about him a bit in the next couple of weeks before he has to be on the road again. Here we are relaxing after breakfast.

I spent most of Sunday afternoon doing some Photoshop magic on a picture of our kitchen so that Deb could decide what wall and cabinet color she wants. It's a pretty cool file that I put together. I have different blending layers that allow me to mix and match whatever colors I want. I think the favorites were cornflower blue walls with yellow cabinets or yellow walls with white cabinets. See for yourself.

How it looks now.

Option one.

Option two.

Deb made a wonderful green chili and cumin meatloaf with mashed potatoes, green beans and cucumbers for dinner (see Comfort Food). It was not only wonderful in itself, but it was followed by chocolate-brownie ice cream. Oh, yeah. A great end to a great weekend.

I don't know how long this has been going on, but I've noticed that guys are wearing their sneakers without socks nowadays. As if guys' feet aren't skanky enough when they do have washable socks to blot up the extreme potential skankiness. Who thinks it's a good idea to let guys put their naked feet into sneakers, which leads to an even more profuse production of foot sweat?

*shudder*