An excessively butch day

Of course, I didn't know it was going to be at first.

After the party last night, I got a rather slow start. It was wet outside from all the rain last night (how we can be on a damn drought status is beyond me, my ass is mildewing), and so thoughts of the flea market were less than inviting. There probably wouldn't be anyone there anyway. So I signed on, made a cup of coffee, and worked on the blog for a bit. I talked to Robert on the phone. I put a load of laundry in. The next thing I knew, it was 11:30, and I was supposed to be at Kimbley and Laura's at 4. With dip. Or something.

I started making calls to determine what to bring, where to bring it, etc. I called Miss Kat for her lovely cream cheese dip recipe. Lately, my criterion for any recipe is that it must start with a pound of cream cheese. Plus I just couldn't resist making dip that would look great in one of my Depression Glass bowls. I am now apparently following Justin's model and making food that best fits my attractive dishes. I got cleaned up and went to the store. I was running a bit behind on time from where I wanted to be, but it was OK if I wasn't there for the kickoff.

Then the problems started.

When I took a shower, I noticed the water was tepid. I decided it was from just having washed dishes, and maybe the water heater was still heating water back up. By the time I got back from the store and started on dip, the water wasn't any hotter. I decided to give it more time. I was in denial at this point. I have a quick-recovery water heater, and never have tepid water for long.

Then my dip wouldn't set up. My fault, I hadn't followed the recipe correctly. I had to go back to the store. It's now 3:30pm. As I'm running into the BiLo, I run into Kimberly and Danny, whom I haven't seen in months. I had to just say hi and bye and run off.

I got back to the house, and started trying to fix the dip. I finally got it semi-acceptable as to texture, plated, and garnished. Yeah I know. Not exactly registering on the Richter Scale for masculinity at this point.

My football dip, in a Windsor Diamond pink "boat"-shaped bowl. As soon as I saw this bowl, I thought "Hmmmmm, Superbowl party..."

By this time, I could deny it no longer. The &^%$#@!! pilot light was out on the water heater again. I've been down this road before. This water heater seems to have issues with keeping the pilot light lit for some reason. The last time it was out I didn't know what was wrong. I called a plumber, who charged me $110.00(!!) to come out and light it. I knew at the time I needed to get online and figure out how to do that, but it's one of those things you just put off. So now I was in the soup.

Cursing enough to surely earn me a few more years in purgatory at the very least, I went out into the backyard with the tools and started crawling around in the mud. I have an outside water heater, in a little hut next to my back door. It seemed like a great space-saving idea for a smaller house when I bought the house. I called Donnie, since he used to work for a bathroom and lighting placed, but no dice. I got online and found lovely yet completely un-helpful advertisements for self-lighting pilot lights.

Eventually, I got the cabinet apart and found the instructions helpfully printed on the side of the water heater. I got it re-lit. But by the time I got the cabinet back together and got to the party I was an hour late. But it was OK. Football games last forever.

Left to right: Kimbley James, Matt, and Rick (his head is just above the lamp) watching the game. Kimbely and Laura have a great party house.

Same order, but JB is in the foreground.

We all had a great time watching the game. They have outside speakers set up on their patio, and you can see the TV through the window, so even when you're outside you don't miss anything.

I'm not usually a huge sports person, but watching the game with other people (especially other people who can explain the parts I don't understand) makes it a lot more fun. I usually only watch the Superbowl. The Steelers may make it to the bowl this year. This was a playoff game, and there is another one next weekend, which I am also invited to watch. Apparently the game next weekend is going to be a real knuckle-biter. The Steelers have beaten that team twice, but with difficulty, and they are reportedly playing very well right now. Anyway, it should be a good game to watch.

With all this football and home repair, I sure did feel butch today. I drank beer while I watched the game too. Football and beer just kind of go together. Plus Kimbely and Laura were trying to clean out the beer since they start back on Atkins tomorrow. They kind of cleaned out their fridge of all the frozen snack-type game food today.

So the game wound up around 8. And I headed on home, where thankfully I had hot water. I cleaned up the cream cheese slung all over the kitchen and turned in. It's a school night.