Sunday, October 16, 2005

Matters at Casa El Jefe

Some renovations around El Jefe's Imperial casa. A couple of rooms upstairs have had old carpets removed and Pergo put in, including El Jefe's own sanctum sanctorum. This necessitated packing up part of El Jefe's little library. SWMBO tells me that 35 boxes of books were, well, a few too many. (Her description has been edited, after all, this is a family blog). Naturally, I have no clue what she means, but will have to be careful smuggling in new acquisitions in the immediate future.
Last night SWMBO and I joined our friends T and E for dinner at Benjy's. Fortunately, the Astros game concluded before we were due at Benjy's, or it might have been necessary to separate SWMBO from the car radio with the use of explosives. Thankfully, the game ended (well) just in time.

Benjy's has a fun upstairs lounge with a balcony. Houston is presently enjoying its two weeks of fall, so it was a splendid evening to sit outside, drink cocktails, gossip with T and E, and shout imprecations at some idiots down in the parking lot who refused to turn off their headlights. Several cosmos later, we went into dinner.

SWMBO enjoyed Crab Cakes in remoulade, (I got a bite, they were super good), and the Chopped Asian Salad (T and E had the salad also). In addition to the salad, T had the Margherita Pizza, which I shall try on our next visit. E had the Thai Barbecue Chicken Pizza, which really smelled wonderful, although I've never quite associated Thai or Thailand with barbecue. El Jefe had the Snapper, with red wine risotto, sunchokes, tomatoes, and olive oil. Some good wine, and creme brulee for desert finished things off. (E's cheesecake looked good, but the creme brulee was just right). I'm sure my doctor will sentence me to a flogging.
T and E had us over afterwards for a glass of wine, and after that and more fun chit-chat, we finally went home about midnight. A very nice evening.
T sent a reading assignment home: she lent me her copy of Louis Freeh's new book My FBI, which I have wanted to read since I saw the teasers published in Drudge just before the book was released. Got through the first chapter on the Khobar Towers bombing while drinking large quantities of H2O. Looks like a good book.
Back to unpacking books this afternoon. This is likely to be a long process, I tend to graze as I work. My bookshelves in the sanctum are double-ranked, so to speak, I have two ranks of books on each shelf, so stuff tends to stay hidden if on the rear shelves. I keep meaning to catalogue the collection, but that would be quite a bit of work. Fortunately, I know what I've got, so I can generally locate a book, but packing and unpacking tends to lead to a bit of grazing. Suppose I need to be more productive, or at least get the collection out of the bedroom before I get a rocket from SWMBO.
The Heir and I are going camping next weekend with the Cub Scouts, so need to prepare for that also.

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