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Today We Finalize Plans!

I’m supposed to respect my elders, but it’s getting harder and harder to find one now.

We need to start the day with a giggle..or at least a snicker! Snicker? Did I mean Snickers..the candy bar? Down Paul…take a deep breath! It’s OK…back in control!

My kinda humor!

It’s Wednesday so we have to go around and clean house because the cleaning people are coming? Does that make sense? Well, anyway, we are having company staying with us on July 4th…

Pete and Lisa are driving up from San Diego on the 4th and staying overnight That allows them to have more than one drink as we live six minutes from the ranch! Plus…we get to visit, swap stories, and a good excuse to change the bedding in the guest room!

We told then “GET A ROOM” and they did… with us!

We decided it wanted to see Brian and Jan as they are departing for the UK early next week so we called and arranged a visit to to the Royal Khyber in Costa Mesa! The term “Royal Khuber” is Punjabi for “burning mouth” we soon found out!

We have known the GM of the Royal Khyber for over 30 years and the waitres for almost ten years. She had an evil laugh when Brian followed suit and had the lamb vindaloo with me.

She was so right!

Asha told us she had to cancel her plans to drive up the coast because the cost was five-times her expected rate at their favorite hotel so, we…mostly Sue with her little head nod, invited her and her husband to join our happy team at Old Ranch tomorrow. She accepted and we all celebrated.

Jan tried a new dish that was supposed to be “not to hot”, the results are shown below…just after flames shot 11.5 feet out of her mouth singing the curtains on the far wall and lighting this evenings dinner candles at table two and four!

Jan returned to normal after we made an emergency flyby at the local Cold Stone Creamery adjacent to South Coast Plaza!

“Wait until I get Paul outside!”

Brian had the medium vindaloo and it was pretty spicy…he never knew little lambs could be so dangerous!

Brian began to sing the song… “Hot Hot Hot”

Did You Know? A standard element of Goan cuisine derived from the Portuguese carne de vinha d’alhos (literally “meat in garlic wine marinade”), a vindaloo is a dish of meat (usually pork) marinated in wine and garlic.

The basic structure of the Portuguese dish was the Portuguese sailor’s “preserved” raw ingredients, packed in wooden barrels of alternate layers of pork and garlic, and soaked in red wine. This was “Indianized” by the local Goan cooks with the substitution of palm vinegar for the red wine, and the addition of dried red chili peppers with additional spices. It evolved into the localized and easy-to-pronounce dish “vindaloo”.

Nowadays, the British Indian version of vindaloo calls for the meat to be marinated in vinegar, sugar, fresh ginger and spices overnight, then cooked with the addition of more spices.

t seen in the parking lot sticking his tongue out at Brian!

We did actually travel 0.6 miles to the “localest” Cold Stone Creamery to the the taste buds back into working order. Great fun!

We stopped by Old Ranch to make sure our reservations were in order for tomorrow.

We are planning for seventy people to join us tomorrow to celebrate the birthday our our great country!

Returning home I headed for the garage and did some more organizing in the shop attempting to put right in front of me the items I use most and relegating the odd tools, seasonal, and speciality tools to the drawers or small boxes and labeling them accordingly. It is beginning to work!

I installed my latest sign!

We watched TV and did tookies before crashing.

We is celebrating tomorrow

About Paul

Just an old retired guy trying to finish out my last years on this planet. I lost my best friend and wife in early 2020. I was blessed again by reconnecting with Dr. Mary Côté, a long-time friend. Mary and I got married July 28th, 2021, and are enjoying life together and plan to spend the rest of our lives being a blessing to our friends and family.
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