The Daring Adventures of Diefenbaker and Damned Rodan

Ms. Brugger went to another artsy-craftsy retreat this weekend, so friend and longtime geocaching partner Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) came up from Newbern, NC, for a long, bachelor-oriented geocaching weekend. He arrived early Thursday evening to find a rack of slow-cooked pork ribs with corn on the cob and cole slaw I'd made waiting for him. He brought with him some marginally fiery ghost-pepper infused vodka and a bottle of mezcal; I introduced him to my version of the Botanic Martini, which I had originally experienced at Nord Social in Midland, Michigan, last month. There may be a new convert to the cause. We sat out on the back deck with massive quantities of food and drink until quite late, and enjoyed the required, semi-inebriated phone conversation with Ms. B., which happens whenever we have one of these get-togethers. Fun was had.

Early Friday morning, after a breakfast of bacon and eggs, we departed for a long day of it on the geocaching trail, beginning with Rocky Mount, Virginia, at Bald Knob, a unique rocky, cactus-crowned ridge that rises above the town. I'd been there numerous times over the years (see "Number One and Driving High" for an example), but a new trail system was completed this past May, and several new geocaches awaited our attention. We found them without difficulty, but I also took Scott to an older cache I had previously found, and negotiating the intense terrain to reach it from where we departed the trail left us just about spent by the time we returned to the bottom. Silly me, I took no photos during the hike, but here's an older one:

A view of Rocky Mount, VA, from Bald Knob's summit

From Rocky Mount, we drove eastward to a spot along the Pigg River in Franklin County. During my days at Ferrum College, I spent a lot of time at the Pigg River (though much closer to Ferrum), frequently in search of various altered states, which I usually found. This time, there weren't any altered states, but we did find a very creative geocache.

 

From there, we drove on to Gretna, Virginia, for a quick park & grab hide. Then down to Danville, where we found a late lunch at the fairly new 301 Tavern on Craghead Street. The braying country music was a bit loud, but the food and drink (cheeseburger, fries, and Pernicious IPA) certainly hit the spot. Then we roved around Danville for a bit to complete the stages of a nice Adventure Lab cache created by friend Skyhawk63 (a.k.a. Tom, with whom I've recently shared some awesome geocaching adventures).

 

It was a lot of driving (about 150 miles) for a relatively small number of caches, but damn, it was satisfying. After returning home and making ourselves reasonably presentable, we headed over to Hamlet Kitchen, which is a regular hangout for Kimberly and me, but on this day, I had to make do with Scott. Hey, no complaints from this quarter. We had a couple of glasses off wine and then ventured over to Yamato Japanese Restaurant for sushi. As we wandered in, we ran into friend Anne, with whom Ms. B. and I had enjoyed a fantastic Thai dinner (along with Anne's sister, Mary), a few weeks back. She joined us for dinner and some very fun conversation, and then Scott and I (after a brief liquor store stop) returned to Casa di Rodan to test a few spirits. I'd say they tested satisfactorily.

 

Interestingly, as we sat out on the back deck in the dark, something big, heavy, and quite angry-sounding went thumping and huffing through the woods right at the edge of the driveway, just beyond our line of sight. We have tons of deer, foxes, and coyotes in these woods, but whatever it was, I've never heard such a thing before. Wampus cat, I'd say.

 

Another shared call with Ms. B., and then... a good night.

A theme, perhaps?

An interesting view from my phone camera, facing upward to the underside of our deck umbrella

The view on our side of our phone call with Kimberly

The view on Kimberly's side of our phone call

Saturday morning, Scott and I got up early again. I made blueberry pancakes, and then we set out for very long walks on a couple of different legs of the roughly twelve-mile-long Dick & Willie Trail. Many of the caches along this trail belong to either me or friend Fishdownthestairs (a.k.a. Natalie), but since Scott had never found these, I was happy to go along and offer either help or heckling, whichever I figured would be more entertaining at the time. We put in about six miles of it, and then found lunch at Don Pepe's, a Mexican restaurant that's been here for a while, though I'd never tried it. Damn if it didn't turn out to be excellent—very authentic. We ended up having a mellow afternoon (I mostly worked on the blog) before I cooked up some BBQ chicken wings, which turned out better than satisfactory, I'd say

 

For the evening, we again sat outside, told stories, listened to music, and waited for our big huffing friend to come stomping through. It never did, though a rather cute little possum wandered by. We had a brief, enjoyable chat before he waddled off again.

L: A couple of wacky gentleman on the trail; R: Diefenbaker trying to extricate himself from the depths of hell

Chorizo street tacos at Don Pepe's

Scott and Rufus engaged in a serious tête-à-tête

And, at last, Sunday morning, I made coffee and some very good egg bites for breakfast, and then Scott hit the road to return home. What a nice weekend all-around, though I certainly missed Kimberly, as I always do when she's gone. Scott's hoping to have us both down to their place in Newbern in the not-too-distant future, and to me, this sounds like a winning plan.

 

To old friends...

Birthdays, Broken Ribs, and Broken Teeth

Kimberly's birthday and mine are (a few years) and one week apart, so after celebrating mine last week, it was her turn. Sadly, after the festivities last Saturday night, she tried to wrestle with me and fell off the bed, striking the corner of her nightstand and breaking three ribs in the process. So, she's had a rather painful week of it, though she's definitely improving.

On her birthday eve, we ventured to our regular Friday afternoon hangout, Hamlet Kitchen, where our friend Yvonne popped in to visit with us. Then we went for an excellent sushi dinner at Yamato Japanese Restaurant, which really hit the spot since it's been a long while since either of us have had sushi.

 

Yesterday, to begin her birthday festivities, we went up the street to visit briefly with friends Joe & Callie, who had helped celebrate my birthday last week. They have this thing called "Meat Day," for which they open their doors to just about anyone who dares enter, and Joe grills a variety of meats all day long. Brugger is not much of a Meatosaurus, but I am, so we sampled a few of the treats, which were awesome, and even Ms. B. approved.

 

From there, we headed to Greensboro, first to our regular hangout from our days in North Carolina, State Street Wine Company, and then for dinner at Pangaea Bistro, which we'd never tried before. Here, we met friends Terry & Beth, Joe & Suzy, and the "other" Mark & Kim. Yep! We definitely enjoyed the dining experience here...except, right at the end of the meal, I took a bite of very soft potato and broke a fucking tooth. Lower molar, busted right in two. So a trip to the dentist will be on the menu very shortly. Uggh.

 

To finish off the evening, we decided to return to State Street, where we hung out long enough to have another drink. We mellowed there for a good while so we'd have no worries about heading back home.

So, apart from unexpected body parts breaking, Brugger and I had damn nice celebrations this year. After all these years of birthdays, I think she's finally older than I am. Cheers!

What? Another Barfday?!

Oh, come on. No way is it birthday time again. I'm pretty sure I turned 66 only a few days ago, and now I'm turning 67. What the fook? Yeah, I know, getting older is better than the alternative and all that, but the increasing speed at which these years keep zooming past is staggering. At this rate, I'm going to be a pile of cremains as of yesterday.

A few days back, I vaguebooked about certain hard times that were sucking out my very soul, and while I'm not entirely free of those issues, things are better. A lot better, for which I thank Yog. I'm going to say that my Birthday Eve last night was the best ever. No shit! Lately, Kimberly and I have been regularly spending Friday afternoons at nearby Hamlet Kitchen, a lovely local wine spot three minutes up the road, and so yesterday, we made it a little birthday celebration—just the two of us, but damn, it was nice. And tonight, we had good friends Joe & Callie over for dinner, drinks, and what amounted to a raucous rumble that almost resembled dancing. 

Kimberly very kindly gave one of her beautiful handmade cards for my birthday, and just above, you can see it on the living room bookcase, with a wee bit of support from Gabora and Baragon. Splendid! 

Her birthday is next Saturday, so we'll be celebrating that in some fashion as well. As you can see in the photo below, she's getting really, really old.

Oh, wait, that's the guy behind her. Sigh.

Brugger and Old Dude having a birthday eve celebration at Hamlet Kitchen

Old folks prior to the shenanigans

Made lemon-garlic shrimp for dinner

Old Dude, Brugger, Callie Hietala, Joe Keiper getting ready for dinner and whatever the hell it was that came afterward.

The whatever-the-hell-it-was that came afterward

Be Wiched to Save the Day

This morning, the timer on the coffeemaker was one minute from going off when — ZZZZT! POW! — out goes the power. We're having major winds, with gusts up to 55 mph, and they hit us early.

If you've had the misfortune of experiencing morning Mark before he's had coffee, you are aware that this is a horrid state of affairs. After several hours in this state, we hauled ourselves into town and found coffee, plus a really fine breakfast, at Be Wiched, in Uptown Martinsville. Thus, I am marginally alive again. Be Wiched owner Kathy Kitzmiller also owns a brand-new boutique — The 9th House — and today was its grand opening. There were mimosas and other treats, so Brugger was ecstatic about finding such a cool place in town.

Happily, we made the best of an increasingly uncomfortable situation, and the power came back on a short time ago. It's freezing out there, and it was getting that way inside. So, we're hoping the wind dies down, and we don't go dark again tonight. Temp is supposed to be 13° F, with a wind chill below 0°.

Ironically, we're about to have a generator installed, but alas, too late to help us this go-around.

 

Last night, though, was an enjoyable time. Lately, we've been spending Friday afternoons at Hamlet Kitchen, right up the street from us. They have a good selection of their own wines, and some decent food you can get for take-out. Last night, we spent an enjoyable couple of hours with some wine. Our regular hostess brought us a couple of glasses with "personalized" napkins — a party theme for Brugger (naturally!) and a semi-humorous Hemingway quote for me (even more naturally!). For afters, we watched Alien: Covenant, which really isn't a favorite, but we've been watching others in the Alien franchise, so we figured we otter.

 

In the immortal words of the late, great Dr. Franklin Ruehl, it was better than a slap in the belly with a wet trout.

"It's Pitch White Outside!"

Our solar lights are wearing little Cossack hats

Indeed, in the immortal words of The Peanuts' Linus Van Pelt, "It's pitch white outside!" While last week's winter storm didn't bring much snow, it left a two-inch-thick sheet of ice all over everything, and almost none of it has melted. Currently, at just past noon, we've got about six inches of the white stuff on top of the ice, and it's still coming down hard. I reckon we're gonna be holed up here until the temperatures rise sometime next week.

 

Yesterday afternoon, before the snowfall began in earnest, Brugger and I went out in her car (mine has been garage-bound since the ice storm and probably will be for a good many more days) to run some necessary errands and have a couple of glasses of wine at nearby Hamlet Kitchen. It was nice to have a brief spell out and about before we're completely snowbound—and, to our surprise—our friend Yvonne popped in and had some wine with us. Back home, we again had to park Brugger's car at the bottom of the driveway, since it was still a solid sheet of ice, and unfortunately, on the way up to the house, I took a spill and banged up one knee pretty good. I'm fine, if a little ornery; mostly, I'm glad our neighbors weren't out to witness the brief comedy sketch (though they might have heard some colorful descriptors of the situation wafting skyward).

 

As with last week's storm, I very much hope we don't lose power, as there won't be any quick fixes under these conditions. The snow itself is just fine powder, and there are no cars out there—at least not nearby—likely to knock out any power poles. I'm X'ing all my appendages.

 

Till laters.

Solar light starbursts last night before the snow covered them over. Below, some photos
Brugger took of the white outdoors and a couple of pics after dark