Our Rather Simple Yet Chaotic Life: Mother's Day 2011

Last weekend was busy but nice. On Saturday, we headed toward Cleveland to spend some time with my Mom for mother's day. The weather was pretty nice so we ended sitting on the patio watching the wildlife in Mom and Ron's backyard. Its unbelievable what you can see in such a tiny backyard. My Mom has set up the back yard as a smorgasbord for birds. In the couple of hours we sat there, we say woodpeckers, finches, doves, blue jays, the occasional squirrel and to much our surprise a rather large raccoon climbing down a tree from his nest. I've been told they've had as many as 8 deer in their backyard in the early morning. The entire backyard can't be much more than 3 feet deep by 60 feet wide. It does however back up into a ravine and is pretty close to the Metro-park.

For lunch, we took Mom to Michael Symon's B-Spot. Michael Symon is one of the Food Network's Iron Chefs and is from Cleveland (born and raised). He has several restaurant in the Cleveland area and the B-Spot is his newest concept. The B-Spot is a high end burger bar with a great beer selection and also offers several fried bologna sandwiches. Of course I had a burger....girth control took a little break for the day! Although, it was the only meal I had on Saturday and some of it was tasty beer. I had the Yo burger and washed it down with a Hopslam, an Arrogant Bastard and for desert a Bourbon Barrel Ale. The burger was pretty good and the beer even better. I think Mom enjoyed the lunch choice as well.

After leaving Mom and Ron's I took a trip back in time to my childhood. We had ice cream at the Malley's chocolate shop in North Olmsted. I remember my Grandmother taking me to Malley's the first weekend I spend with her and Grandpa (AKA old fwaz as my Dad would call him). I remember having dinner at Arby's, going miniature golfing at the old putt-putt course at Great Northern that is no longer there and heading to Malley's for ice cream. Malley's hasn't changed a bit except for the prices. I had to go and have desert on the giant slower than molasses merry-go-round that graces the center of the shop.

Finally, no trip to the Cleveland area can be complete for Lisa if she doesn't hit at least two Marc's stores. We also stopped at a close out store call Ollie's. Ollie's is very similar to the closeout section of Marc but much larger. Matter of fact, Ollie's website looks oddly familiar....almost like Marc's website. I wonder if the two stores are connected in any way. Lisa wasn't all that impressed with Ollie's but I ended up finding a few cook books and other odds and ends. I would stop there again and probably will.

Sunday, I spent some time in the yard, preparing for the 7 yards of mulch that arrived on Monday as well as cutting the lawn. Bev and Ted came over for dinner and I grilled Fillet Mignon, skewered grilled shrimp, cheese veggie stackers and tossed salad. We also discovered grape vodka! I'm not sure how low calorie the grape flavoring is but vodka is a pretty low calorie drink as far as alcoholic beverages are concerned and the grape vodka is delicious. Lisa will even drink it straight! Lisa also baked some pretty nice looking red velvet mini-cupcakes. I'm sure they were delicious but I had grape vodka for desert.

Monday, I took the day off work and spread the giant mulch pile I had delivered and took our dog destroyed patio screen in for repair. Yesterday, I disassembled the front end of my yard tractor and figured out how to adjust the valves. I was having problems starting the thing all spring. I found out from some research that the valves could have some maladjustment causing my problem. Unfortunately, the valves aren't all that easy to get to and I had to do it twice to get it right. Stupid me couldn't read the simple directions too well and it caused me extra work.

This weekend entails a piano recital for Shawn and a trip to a gigantic beer festival with Todd and my brother for me.