Cabin Weekend

Undisclosed Sierra City location.

Shooter has connections. Mainly to his family that has a cabin in Sierra City. Not just any old cabin - a kick ass Norwegian stacked log cabin. That's right, it's down right beautiful! And we had it for 5 days.

DAY ONE: Thursday was a small crowd of Shim, Caddy, Nairb, Shooter, TheJenny, RobotGoBen & me (Scribby). We started drinky around 2pm, cause we could. Hung out in the sun, walked to the river, ate some pizza, looked at the view, ate Nairb's freshly made apple pie...yeah, it was about as terrible as that sounds.

DAY TWO: Next day consisted of a day at the lake. Activities included hiking, swimming, kayaking, sitting and napping. Also sucked balls. Every else showed up Friday night to a meal of burgers and hot dogs. Walked to the river, some Rock Band and hung out by the fire. There was lots of burning of things, including some leg hair and for some reason Bump & Crabby couldn't use their hands when they were lighting things on fire.

DAY THREE: Boys played a 5 hour game of Talisman and the girls "got the hell out of this nerd hole" There was some biking, some hiking. Tonight was our Thankskiester celebration - full turkey dinner in the spring, just cause. Boys decided to take on making a Turducken (duck inside a chicken inside a turkey). Bump & Crabby rocked out the deboning of the birds, (you can do that?), and we basted the damn thing in a huge portion of butter. We ate a little late, but it was extra delicious with lots of buttery goodness. Also played a rip-rousing round of pictionary with our own clues - always good!

DAY FOUR: French toast breakfast followed by some folks leaving. Girls went hiking while boys recovered from finishing the kegs. By the afternoon, only Shooter, Nairb & I were left. We went over to Shooter's Great-Uncle's house and hung out, listened to stories and visited his own personal portion of the river. Had some dinner in town and watched movies.

DAY FIVE: Mostly just packed up and headed home. It was all so lovely and so easy. We are hoping to be invited back again, because I really can't explain how awesome this place was! Thanks Shooter for having kick ass family!

Hot Italian

1627 16th Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 444-3000

This place seemed to take forever to open, then we took forever to get there! It's on a great corner of 16th & P (old fireplace building, anyone remember?). The outside is a very graphic black on white, large graphic kind of look with awesome bike racks.

It's half store, half gelato cafe, half bistro/restaurant. The wine list is great (Nero d'Avola with dinner, Moscato d'Asti for dessert) they have Peroni on tap and they have the best bellinis in the area! Actual crushed white peaches in prosecco. Nice! RobotGoBen & I showed early and got drinks at the bar (very uncomfortable stools), and a salumi plate that had a nice light selection of meats and cheeses. Smaller portions than other places, thank god!

Dinner was a group of 12 of us which was a little bit of a tight fit at the tables meant for 8, but we made it work. Menu is refreshingly simple. Pizza had good quality Italian options with dough that is thin but a little chewy. You love it in the first couple of pieces than your jaw gets a little tired. They also had a very traditional white bean & tuna salad that was super tasty!

For the first time ever, every drunk ordered dessert - very good gelato! Tastes ranged from the mint chocolate to orange chocolate. I got the vanilla gelato, espresso gelato served with a shot of fresh espresso over it. As I said in the journal "Holy crap on a cracker delicious!" I would get that any day of the week.

The older Italian guy that works the crowd is great and adds some class to the joint.

They also have the Dyson hand dryers in the bathroom - they rock! Super high powered hand dryers. NakedBob would like them to have a pivot point, some rock climbing hand grips and have a courtesy *ding*. Example: *ding* Your junk is dry *ding*. Yup a Junk Dryer - we could be rich.

Moral of the story - go here. It's great.

Stripper Charity Car Wash

Yes, you read correctly! It's 109 degrees outside on a Sunday, what to do but go get your car washed by strippers, for charity. What? It's for the kids!

So you might have read in our Shady Lady post that we met a dancer last week and bought advanced tickets for the car wash. They were raising funds for a freakishly tragic story of a kid (Baby Angel) that was attacked by his dad while pepped up on PCP and is now blind and in child protective services. It's a terrible story, and I think only strippers would be bold enough to take on such a gruesome story for their charity. It's a messed up world, and thank goodness someone is helping this kid out.

Okay, so back to the ladies! They had a great setup with a water slide, drying station and about 20 girls washing cars in bikini's. I really don't know what else you could want.

TheJenny brought her car, NakedBob rode his bike, RobotGoBen & Scribby came in the Smart Car and Gavin was in his truck. (By the by, having girls along helped the whole thing from just being a creepy sausage fest).

Our friendly dancer from last week was there and did some nice scrubbing with her booty. And they totally washed NakedBob's bike...and NakedBob.

TheJenny hung up some $1 bills in her back windows and that was a big hit, those girls worked for it. All in all, a great way to spend an afternoon.

The Boxing Donkey

300 Lincoln St
Roseville, CA 95678
(916) 797-3665

Back at the Boxing Donkey! Their happy hour is awesome with $3 proper pints of Guinness and half price appetizers, it's always worth showing up early. The fries have some sort of savory seasoning on it that we couldn't place but are good. The Irish eggrolls are fabulous, what a great idea to do corned beef and cabbage in an eggroll form.

We claimed the only booth in the bar area and packed it full, than got some chairs from the dinning room and took over half of the other area. There were some coworkers of TheJenny & Jarla that showed and were fun to hang out with. Bumpy finally made an appearance as well.

With a nice big group, there was Shepard's pie, burgers, potato skins, and of course mac & cheese with dogs. Yum. Lots of Guinness and Blue Moon were ingested. Their soda machine wasn't working which is a bummer if you want jack & coke, rum & coke or anything like that. Their waitresses are just so damn nice and helpful, it's hard to get mad.

It was pretty hot, so we keep trying to steal the large fan to point in our direction. As for the topics of conversations, you guessed it. Michael Jackson. Poor bastard died today, and that only allowed a few hours for Farrah Fawcett to get a little glory after she passed away.

It's been a weird week for celebrities!

The Shady Lady

1409 R St
Sacramento, CA 95811-6615
(916) 231-9629

Ohhhhh, new place!!! It's shiny and new, let's go tarnish it a bit!

So here is the skinny. Speakeasy feel, decor, servers and lots of gin drinks. Lovely tin ceiling, booths, velvet and risque women on the walls. U-shaped bar, open layout, dark colors and old tyme music. Opened by folks who have been in the industry in Sac for quite a while. (you will recognize the staff if you ever go out after midnight in Sacramento). Bar first, food second. Not to say the food isn't good, it's freaky tasty... it's just the vibe. You come here for cocktails and get some food to go with the drinks, not the other way around.

There isn't really seating for a group of over 8, so we were split up between the largest table with some stragglers at the bar. S'okay though. Thank god, someone can make a gin gimlet without rose's lime juice. They don't use any of that kind of thing, even make their own tonic. Lots of rum, whiskey and gin drinks - you know, like the 1930s (see the pattern here?). Vodka and tequila are relegated to the back page...order your cosmo somewhere else please. And they have $2 Olympia as well - boys were happy.

Food was all super yummy. Small plates means a small amount of food, also refreshing. I don't need a giant pile of cheese covered iceberg. A lovely small pile of crisp french green beans with a light vinaigrette is just fine with me. Cheesesteak and meatloaf were well received as well.

The "Lone Wolves" at the bar were having a fine time. Nairb and NakedBob struck up a convo with some dancers. They were selling tickets to their charity carwash on 6/28 at Deja Vu Showgirls, yes, it's a stripper, charity carwash. Did we buy the $10 advance tickets, why yes we did! BTW, you should totally go support them on Sunday, they start up after noon. $15 day of tickets.

Our guest dancer wrote this in the journal...
"I love Nakedbob and here's why: His bike is like a Ferarri. He high fives me sideways. He hold intellectual conversations, has the hottest husband ever, hangs with hot middle eastern friends named Nairb and asks me to draw pictures like this" (pic of bike & Sweet Melissa)

Two questions: Why are strippers so good at remembering names? And when did Nairb become middle eastern?

Overall, we love this place. Granted, we really wanted to love this place. It's a nice chance from a lot of the douchy lounges that have been popping up over the past years. The vibe is more classically stylish and the clientele isn't offensively dumb. Three cheers!

Gavin obviously hated his food

Samarai Sushi

12251 Folsom Blvd
Rancho Cordova, CA 95742-6305
(916) 353-1112

You know, for a sushi place that is a renovated Denny's/Lyons/Eppies sort of building, this place is pretty darn good. Plus it is one of the few places in the middle of our very spread out group. Cameron Park, Natomas, Rancho Cordova, Roseville - yeah, this is the most equidistant place we can find.

And, they have the shortest urinal the boys have ever seen, 1 foot off the ground. Something to be proud of.

So, there was lots of fish, sake and beer. Plus a baby Fussarella that entertained us all by loving and hating lemon slices. They had a nice selection of specials that were cheap and tasty rolls.

Really the quotes set the mood...

"Like you need a kid to use a bib. Since when has that stopped you before?" Shooter to Crabby
"Sluggy has 'Penis Flair'" -Scribby
"You don't want to be sandwiched between NakedBob & Capt. Crabby?" -Sluggy

Annnnnd.... Scene!

Giovanni's Pizzaria - Natomas

2701 Del Paso Road

Sacramento, CA 95835

Back for pizza! NakedBob wore his very short tennis shorts and then commented to the girl behind the counter on how tight her jeans were. (actual quote, "Damn girl!...those are some tight jeans!") He figured if anyone could comment it would be the wearer of tight, white shorts. She didn't take it very well.

We ordered pitchers of beer, carafes of cheap wine and a large pizza. "Would you like a large pepperoni pizza with that for $5?" Why yes, we would! Their pizza is nice and thin, with good quality toppings, their meats are especially delicious and their salads are big enough to share.

The Icelandic travelers returned bearing gifts - we had a nice full house with a guest apperance by Caddie, all the way in from Walnut Creek.

You could tell we were having fun because one beer and one wine was spilled across the table. When I walked up to ask for a towel to clean up the wine, the guy peeked out from the back and asked, "Again!?". Yeah, sorry about that one.

Caddie share stories about her dead cat, Cujo and proceeded to describe him as a fur-covered, drooling, water weenie. That's a selling point!