cocktails make us do weird things

After a few cocktails the other night, we decided to do an interpretation of the American Gothic painting. Resembles nothing of the original, I realize this, but I thought one was in order.

We finally got our mailbox sorted out, and it was fun to get our first couple pieces of mail, even if was just the local grocery flyer and the form that we needed to fill out for the postmaster confirming our delivery information.

Jaybird cleaned the 12-gauge after a few squirrel expeditions (scored some beer coozies at the local DG, which have been used a lot since because it's been pretty toasty out).

I made some red potatoes for dinner last night based on some vague recipe I remember seeing in Sunset. I quartered and boiled them mostly done, then smashed them on a baking sheet in groups, then seasoned each serving with butter, salt, and pepper, and threw them under the broiler for about 15 minutes. The nice thing about our place is that regardless of how hot it gets during the day, it almost always cools down to a comfortable temp in the evening and at night. Even so, broiling things in the oven is a little much in late August.

The animals have become fleabags, so we had to resort to fumigating the house. I don't like the idea of everything being covered in chemicals from a Raid fogger, but I dislike sleeping with fleas even more. Freshly laundered bed linens make me happy in ways I cannot fully express.

Faucets are something that I also get really anal-retentive about. The previous one pictured was mounted very crookedly, the two handles were installed backwards, and it had a separate sprayer instead of a pull-out, one-piece unit. Jay was kind enough to install a new one for me today, but we couldn't do the bathroom faucet I picked out because there is no shut-off valve there, and it would require us to drain our water lines, which is a ridiculous waste of water. So that will need to wait until we get some more rain first.

After it cools down in a little while, I'm going to attempt to make my first loaf of crusty bread based on this recipe. The really awful cuts of steak I bought a while back were too tough to eat last night after grilling them up, so I sliced them paper thin after we decided they were not worth the vicious steak knife action and prolonged chewing required. They will make great sandwich fixings, but we need some bread on which to place said meat.