A sunny Saturday (for a change)

Well, the weather finally took a turn for the better. It’s supposed to be in the mid-fifties and sunny, with just a light breeze. I am hoping this will dry out the leaves so I can mulch them on Sunday.

I did check the rain gauge and found that this last three-day storm had dropping just over two inches of rain at my place.

My cold is still lingering, but my shoulder and neck feel much better.

So, I showered and shaved, got dressed and headed out on my Saturday morning errands. First I got my hair cut and then filled up my car’s gas tank. On the way back home, I stopped at Kroger’s and picked up a few items I needed. Then I hit Westborn for two lemons, some mini-sub buns and a can of beef broth. Finally, I went to Home Depot and bought an inexpensive electric heater.

I need the heater for work, for a while. It’s usually 62 degrees when I come in and, if the sun is out and we’re lucky, it gets up to 70 degrees by the time we leave. So, I finally put in a Maintenance Request to check out the system (the roof top unit only feeds our room, you see, so nobody else was complaining). It turns out that the “inductor motor” (?) was burned out in the roof-top unit. So, they ordered a new one.

I bought the electric heater for Michelle and I to bridge the gap between now and when the furnace gets repaired. After that, I’ll use it back home in the office when Lu and Sadie are here. They always close the door (to keep the cats and my snoring out) and then mention how cold it gets overnight. So, this will help.

I came home just after 11:00 AM and thought I’d take a break. So I laid on the bed and read for a bit. Instead of popping up, alert and refreshed, I fell asleep.

B___’s call woke me up at 2:30! He apologized after asking me what I was doing and I said taking a nap. I told him not to worry as I had a long list of things to do this weekend and taking a 3-hour nap wasn’t one of them.

Once we had hung up, I got started on projects. First on the list was to fix the bed frame. It is bowing out at the foot and I have caught me leg on it more than once. I’d like to think it’s from all the wild sex (boy, I’d like to think that) but I think it’s just age.

So, I got the mattress and box springs off and checked it out. I tried beating on it with a hand sledge, but that didn’t work. So, I finally got the come-along (I used to have a real good one that I bought when I owned the VW Thing, but that disappeared in the move from St. Clair to here). This one is a cheap Chinese-made on I got at Harbor Freight. But, after some messing around, it did the job! I put everything back together and remade the bed.

Then I went back to working on the computer. I discovered that the anti-virus software I’d downloaded from my ISP was not allowing the email through. I tried to “create a rule” to let the mail in, but couldn’t figure it out (the program gives you no help, BTW). So, since the results of its scan were the same as my Symantec anti-virus program (no viruses) I uninstalled it. Hurray! I get mail again!

By now it was getting late so I started making my supper (the one I was supposed to make Friday night). I made a Tyler Florence recipe for spaghetti and meatballs. I won’t bore you with the recipe (you could look it up on the Food Network website if your interested). But, I will tell you the results:

1. The “Pomodoro” sauce recipe did not make enough sauce.
2. Putting the spaghetti on a platter, adding the sauce and then the meatballs (finished in the oven with half the sauce and torn up mozzarella) was a total mistake. I’m not sure what size “platter” he has, but mine were too small. I ended up making a mess and then putting everything in a large bowl.
3. The meatballs were too big (think about it: 3 pounds of ground meat, with other ingredients, including two slices of milk-soaked bread, divided into just ten meatballs?) They were each as big as a baseball!
4. The meatballs were under-seasoned. Now, I could probably fool some of you and say there is no way to taste-test raw meat. But any foodie worth his or her salt knows you are supposed to take a small bit of the mixture (whether its meatballs, meatloaf or any other recipe that uses ground meat), form it into a patty and then fry it. When it’s done, you taste it and adjust your seasoning accordingly. But, I hadn’t eaten all day and, in my haste, forgot that step.

So, the next time I make this recipe (and I will, it did taste good) I will:

1. Double the amount of sauce I make.
2. Forget the platter idea and use a bowl first off.
3. Check the seasoning of the meatballs.
4. Use my biggest ice cream scoop and make smaller meatballs (I can always freeze any I don’t use.

I ignored the mess in the kitchen and ate my supper watching some TV (adding a little table salt to each bite of meatball). Then I ignored the mess in the kitchen and went to bed, knowing full well I’ll pay for all this “ignoring” in the morning.