Well, at least Darryl is older than me and his daughter turns 31 this year. I guess in some ways it shows that you survived to get your child through the teen years and through the 20's..oh, Hell, I'm just OLD. At least I've got a young, good looking wife (But, even she is a grandma). Now, I'm all depressed.
Jennifer was out on the town in Vegas last night with dinner at an Italian restaurant and then relaxing at a club afterward. Sounds like fun, but she was with her Mother, who was in Vegas to help her celebrate her thirtieth.
Darla and I went on a river cruise last night to celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary (Aug 23rd). I had won cruise tickets from the Marine Underwriters at Chartis Insurance at one of their Product fairs that they did in Rancho Cordova. The tickets were only good for one year (which actually is illegal in California when in the form of a gift certificate), but the tickets were only supposedly good until April and we wanted to go when the weather was a little nicer. We had a low pressure system over California this weekend with temperatures just in the upper 70's, so we signed up for a cruise. The dinner was actually excellent and the boat, The Empress, out of San Francisco was great. It actually is the same ship that we went on when the Colony Underwriters came out and hosted a dinner cruise in Old Sacramento.
When I called to sign up for the Saturday night cruise, we found out that the gift certificate , which listed two dinner cruises, was actually for $250. The cost of the dinner cruise is only $69.95 plus port taxes, so we had about $110 in shipboard credit. I asked if they had any packages and we were able to get the "sweetheart" package which guaranteed a window seat and came with a box of truffles and a nice bottle of Chandon champagne. We also upgraded one of the dinners and one of the desserts. Darla is not a drinker and didn't care for the champagne, and actually liked the free welcome aboard champagne, which was Brut champagne with a shot of grenadine. She drank both of those, while I proceeded to get plowed drinking the whole bottle of Chandon.
When we drove into Old Sacramento and were waiting to get into the parking garage, Darla nudged me and pointed out a cross dresser, a huge guy dressed like a woman. Hey, it's California. When we got to the boat and were ready to board, they stopped us to have pictures taken. There was a large group of people, including the cross dresser getting their picture taken. It became obvious that most of the crowd in the group were also cross dressers, but some were older couples. It was exceedingly odd and took both of us back to Nuevo Vallarta and our cruise with the lesbians. What is it about boats and short trips that brings out the other element? Of course it turns out that we were seated right next to the group. There were a total of 24 of them, many with their parents and other "straight" friends. We found out after the cruise that it was a meeting of the River City Genes, a support group for cross dressers. Actually it was the "Jims", but I didn't want anyone "googling" the name and getting my blog. It's amazing how often that happens with words like Silpada and Nike, I get hits all the time on my blog. There were some Godawful ugly large cross dressers in the group and one transgender ( I guess) who was a guy with a huge boob job and he/she was putting them out there. There's something about a curvaceous set of breasts with hair on them that's a bit of a turnoff (J/K!)
We were entertained by the group, but enjoyed our night nonetheless. We made friends with a couple next to us and had a few laughs. At one point the dj was asking for song requests and I went up and asked for Aerosmith's "Dude looks like a Lady", but the dj said he hadn't had enough to drink to do that. The evening was very mild and we enjoyed the trip up and down the Sacramento River. It was about 2 1/2 hours and the food, as I said, was great. I had a bacon wrapped filet mignon with mashed potatoes and Darla had a rosemary chicken dish with macaroni and cheese. We split both meals and enjoyed the repast. They also had an avocado soup and a green salad beforehand. Dessert was an apple tart for Darla and a chocolate decadence cake for me. We will go again sometime and maybe take friends. It was a great time. Darla said during the dinner that this was one night she didn't like being so tall because most of the c/ds were over six foot tall. She looked beautiful though as you can tell by the pictures.
I made it out golfing on Saturday, the morning that the cold front moved in. We had an 8:30 tee time and I got a message from Boyd that he was "passing a kidney stone" and wouldn't be there. Bob told Matt (who is 26) that he must be playing with old guys when one of them backs out because of kidney stones. It was windy and cool at the course and luckily, I had a wind shell from Poppy Hills in my bag and was able to put that on and survive the cool start to the day. Matt didn't have a coat and Bob offered him a set of sleeves from his bag. These are just sleeves made by Nike (here comes the Google hit) that you pull on up to your shoulders and are made for golfers who don't like to be restricted by coats or long sleeve shirts in cool weather. Bob claimed he bought them at three in the morning when watching QVC. Matt passed on the sleeves.
Bob mentioned that I had my "winter" swing going and I shot 40+42=82 on Woodcreek, the tougher of the two Roseville courses. It was nice to be back out on the golf course after the trip to Canada. Bob struggled a little with an 85 and Matt, smooth as ever, shot 75.
Another sign of aging, I had my fifth crown put on one of my teeth on Monday. Actually, I got the "bottle cap" temporary put on and get the permanent in two weeks. I don't remember the residual pain from the crowns like I had this time. I felt like I was punched in the mouth my jaw was aching so much after the Novocaine wore off. I mentioned it to Cora, my assistant, and she said "I know how it is". I said, "have you had many crowns?" She was totally confused and didn't know that I had been to the dentist. Now what could she possibly have meant when she said I Know how it is, when I said I felt like I'd been punched in the mouth? My personal lines underwriter and I had a good laugh trying to figure out what she was talking about.
Darla and I were up late today and missed church. We punished ourselves by cleaning the house. I was sandbagged Friday night by my poker group. We had poker lined up at Jon's house and he was not home when the guys started arriving. They called me and I offered to host here if John didn't show up. John is a poker addict and I figured he'd just run to the store. Well, he didn't show up and either had an emergency or flaked on the poker night, just forgetting it wad that Friday. I rushed around straightening up the house and the office took the brunt of things tossed quickly into the room to clean up. Darla and I both work and sometimes things pile up during the week. I ended up hosting four guys for poker on like no notice.
When the guys showed up , we were outside talking about what happened to John and just shooting the breeze when a small Chevy came screeching around the corner with some young kid at the wheel and two girls along for the ride. We shook our heads and went in to play. Later, we heard another screech of tires and an engine revving and then a large "BANG!" We jumped up to see what had happened and one of the neighbor's kids, a guy David's age and size had slammed on the front hood of the car when it went racing past him. By the time we got outside the car had stopped and tow of the girls were running up towards us. The guy in the car took off. The neighbor told them that he had called the cops and they were driving like maniacs. One girl yelled that it was a borrowed car and now it was all dented. The other girl (both twenty-somethings) began cussing and yelling. Big John, one of my poker buddies, told her to calm down and she whirled on him and dropped several F bombs. He was livid, calling her a little "blank" and asking her to hit him in the face that he could use the money. She was totally amped on something and her friend pulled her away. Later, when things calmed down, I told John he was lucky she didn't haul off and break his nose. He said, "Hey, I would have owned her house". I pointed out that she was a passenger in a "borrowed" car. She doesn't have a house or a pot to piss in. Just a show with the card game, I guess.
Well, my pork chops are just about done on the grill, so I better run. Hope you are all well. Ciao.
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