What we ate this weekend

Hey kids,

Now that I have finally watched the last episode of the first season of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, maybe I can turn my attentions back to blogging. I've been streaming the 13 episodes of that damnable show on Netflix, and that is how most of my after-hours online time has been spent the past week or so.

Made an exciting discovery this weekend: Paul Schat's Bakery in Carson. Yeah, yeah, we've been driving back and forth past the signage for months now, but it never occurred to me to actually check it out until this weekend, when I promised Wavy a cupcake for the grief she incurred whilst getting inoculated against Hepatitis A at the community clinic held at the local high school. I also got you both fluorided, which you already had done at school, but I figured, hey, if fluoride is good for ya, double-fluoride is hella good for ya. I talked to the tech who painted Jake's teeth about why the hell they're so funky-looking (all gums and hardly any teeth) and she was pretty certain it's because you grind your teeth. Now while I *have* heard you grind your teeth at night (a sound akin to stabbing myself in the eyeball with a rusty fork), I had no idea that your grinding was extensive enough to actually wear your teeth down that much. Will have to confirm with your dentist.

There were also a couple of discount-rate clowns with questionable balloon-animal skills in attendance. Their balloons were constantly popping with a retort like a firecracker going off. Every time one popped, the help at the overwhelmed registration desks would pause and wince. It reminded me of the scene in Boogie Nights when the half-naked house boy is wandering around setting off firecrackers with "Sister Christian" blaring on the stereo. The clinic was a badly-organized madhouse. What should have taken half an hour at the most took up almost two and a half hours of our day.

Which finally brings me back to Schat's Bakery. Our original plan was to stop off at the clinic to get Wavy her shot (school had sent a notice that there was a gap in her vaccine history) and then to Reno with a stop at Mix Cupcakes before heading to the animal sanctuary to look at lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

But the cupcake place closes at noon on Saturdays, and the website says that the animals at the sanctuary don't care to mingle in the afternoons, so the two-hour delay at the clinic screwed up our day bigtime.

Too late to make a long story short, but we wound up at Schat's Bakery, which doesn't have cupcakes at all. When I whispered to the counter help through gritted teeth that I had promised you a cupcake, they offered up a lovely strawberry creme puff instead, and that seemed to appease you. You were nice and shared it with your brother, while I got a chocolate croissant [v.g.]. Granted, we needed to discover a decent bakery kinda like we need a hole in the head, but my dislike of Carson City was lessened just a bit by the air of civility that a bakery lends to the town.


Jake and his creme puff and his Avett Brothers t-shirt.


Wavy and the creme puff and her "Stupid Raisins Stay Out of My Cookies!" t-shirt.

The next day, we went to the Carson Valley Chili Cookoff, otherwise known as the Chili-less Chili Cookoff. It lacks chili the way that cheese shop in the Monty Python sketch lacks cheese.

The only chili to be had by the regular chili-consuming public is some sort of canned-tasting stuff at the one and only food booth run by the local Sertoma group. From what I can gather, the chilis prepared for competition are only available to the judges and their families and town officials. What-EV. But... you were both keen to go to the event to hear live music and get a chili dog from the Sertomas, so we went for lack of anything better to do on a Sunday afternoon.



I could go on and on about what else we ate this weekend (dinner specials at Fandango with Fran and Chris, cones at Baskin Robbins, clam strips at Red Robin, etc. etc.) but the hour grows late. Hopefully next weekend I'll be able to tell you all about the healthy stuff we made for ourselves at home. Love you both and good night.