For Sunday brunch, David and I decided to try a new place that opened up in our neck of the woods called Crepe Escape. We were hoping for a sit-down restaurant with waiters and water bringers and such, but no, it wasn’t that kind of place.

In fact, it was Crepeville dressed up with a new name and fresh splatter paint instead. I’m not a fan of Crepeville, having had numerous bad-food experiences there to make me realize there are much better places to have crepes, but this wasn’t Crepeville, it was Crepe Escape. See the difference?

Anyway - artistically and aesthetically, the place gets high marks. The texturing on the walls is a pleasing burnt auburn colour, and they have intricate tree art that comes up the wall, out of the wall into a 3 dimensional tree then back into the wall as 2D art. Very slick and you can tell it took a while.

And that’s where the enjoyment ended. For months they worked on this place - we watched them building the facade, the outdoor patio, doing the paint texturizing, etc…and wouldn’t you know it I guess they couldn’t find the time to get a simple credit card machine. That’s right…a hand written sign was taped to the front of the cash register that said:

Cash or checks only. Sorry.

You’re having the same reaction I am right now, right? Checks? Um…CHECKS? Who in their right mind writes checks any more? And who in their right mind stands in line while fifty people in front of them are all writing checks because the place won’t take plastic? Not me, that’s for sure.

Anyway…We had about 5 people in front of us and all of them wrote checks. Absurd. Thankfully I had a $20 in my wallet and we moved ahead. Two crepes, two large house coffees. We sat down at a corner table and waited for our food.

The first problem is that the coffee mugs had no size variation. Whether you ordered large or small - same size cup. When we asked why we paid more, we were told we got free refills. Ok then how do they know who got small which doesn’t get refills and large which does? They don’t. I know this because we never got any refills - and neither did anyone else around us.

Next up, the food. The homestyle potatoes were fine, the crepe was not. David’s was too salty to eat and tasted like it had just been microwaved. Mine was tolerable, but it needed sour cream, so I asked for a side. It never showed up. I waited, and waited, and no sour cream.

We ate half our food then got up to leave. I stopped the manager on our way out and told him we would not be back. I provided specific examples of our food being yucky, no coffee refills, never got the sour cream, and they don’t take plastic. We walked out the door never to return.

If you’re in Sacramento and you want good crepes, don’t go anywhere but Danielle’s at Fair Oaks Blvd. and Watt Ave. You’ll never be disappointed.

*Crepe imagery from Wikimedia Commons

Sacramento has gone from the gloriously crisp 60’s to the abysmally wretchedly hot low 90’s. Granted, this isn’t as hot as it’s going to get in the July/August months but come on. We’re not out of April yet and I had to use the a/c last night because the house got up to 81 degrees.

Who can sleep when it’s 81 degrees??

Thankfully, today is COOLER than yesterday, and it looks like we’re in for a mid-70’s week which I can tolerate. Too bad rain isn’t in the forecast.

In other news…

It’s Monday.

We are having a hot mess of a storm here in the Sacramento area.

They are saying we are having the worst winds in 10 years. Already, our huge butterfly bush in the back yard has tipped over almost into the pond. I’ve got it braced with a chair, but the root ball is up and out of the ground.

Miraculously, the power hasn’t gone out yet…but who knows. This storm is supposed to stick around for a few day. What a joy :-).

Anyway - safe wishes to those of you in storm areas, especially in the Sierra’s where they are calling for 10 feet of snow to dump today.

Yesterday was gorgeous. It was pouring rain in the morning, and wet and misty all afternoon.

Today, however, I have to put up with this crap.

By popular demand, here are 10 posts you have likely not seen, especially if you’re a new subscriber to this blog. When syndicating, I think my setup is configured only to go back 10 posts…so if you’re subscribing from fresh, you’re missing out on a veritable cornucopia of interesting topics from the last 2+ years…

So here are a few things you might want to read and catch up on…

1. Homeless Recycling, Parts 1 & 2
2. Weddings
3. The Gay Agenda
4. Crazy Pills (and dreams about Britney Spears)
5. Migraines
6. Just My 2 Cents
7. Personality Disorders
8. Music Makes a People Come Together
9. Paula Poundstone and Christmas Ham
10. Luxury SUV’s

Enjoy…perhaps you’ll learn a little something interesting about Heath that you never knew you wanted to know before :-).

In celebration of Blog Action Day, thousands of blogs around the world have chosen to write about the environment. The topic is open, as long as you discuss ways that we can protect the precious planet we live on. Here is my submission.

When David and I got home the other day, we noticed a back of plumbing parts hanging on the front door. Apparently the plumbing fairy had stopped by the house with his bag of goodies - and I hadn’t even put an 0-ring under my pillow the night before…

Inside the bag we found two sink aerators, a new shower head, and a big blue plastic bag that sort of looked like a hot water bag you might use if you weren’t feeling well…or if you were constipated perhaps. But I digress.

Opening up the bag we discovered an assortment of inexpensive (and incompatible) goodies. We had the two faucet aerators that I just mentioned, one for the kitchen sink and one for the bathroom sink. Unfortunately, they did not fit. Apparently we have non-standard faucets, even though they are relatively brand new and from Home Depot. Is it wrong for me to assume that Home Depot would carry products with standard fittings?

So as we tried to save the environment in Sacramento, the score started out in the negative. Aerators - useless.

On to the shower head. Miraculously, the shower head fit just perfectly. It has settings for massage, and normal, and because it’s a water saver, it actually gives us more force in the smaller amount of water it sends out -so we don’t even notice that it’s low-flow. This one is a win, score one for the shower-head. Plus, it’s a very good brand - Niagara. That stands for waterfall, so you know it’s going to be good.

Next up, the toilet tank bank. I don’t know why they call it a bank, but the front of the bag says “deposit and save water and money”. I’m not sure if they wanted us to put pennies or water into the bag, but we opted for water, even though the pennies would be put to better use sitting in our toilet tank than at any retail store.

The big blue bag is now full of water and hanging inside the toilet tank, reducing the amount of water in each flush. Another win for the City of Sacramento Department of Utilities. (a quick update - David actually removed the bag after a few flushes because it kept getting caught inside the tank - note, if you have a relatively thin watertank on your toilet, this product wont’ work for you)

Toilet Tank Bank - useless.

If every person in the neighborhood actually uses some of these products, it should go a long way in reducing water consumption in our area - and I am all for it. My part of town isn’t metered at this point, so these products won’t save us any money on our utility bill, but they will help save our environment and provide more water to those who need it (and pay for it).

Note: This post is in the form of a photo travelogue.

On Sunday, 9/9/07, David and I took a mini photography road-trip to Rancho Seco, the former nukular power plant south of the Sacramento area.

The property is owned by SMUD, and includes a recreational lake where you can fish for 8-eyed trout and the like.

Actually, having a recreational lake near a nuclear plant is not all that new or fascinating. My dad often goes fishing at the Shearon Harris plant near Raleigh. I can’t recall ever eating anything from the lake, but it’s very likely that I have a bit of uranium residue floating around in my bones somewhere - and after driving incredible close to the plant yesterday, I probably have a bit more.

This was the second time in my life that I’ve been near a nuclear power plant, which is instantly recognizable wherever you are, by the twin water cooling towers and the main reactor building (which sometimes has a domed roof and looks like a bullet).

I won’t say that these things freak me out, but the hypochondriac side of me could absolutely feel all those little pierces of radiation blasting through the side of the jeep and into my body.

I never claimed to be sane, so just go with me here.

We ventured as close as we could get, which turned out to be a parking lot that was in need of significant repairs - they will eventually get around to fixing it when this place is converted over to natural gas energy (which is apparently the direction, according to David’s research).

We wanted to go visit the recreational lake just to take a few pictures, but decided that we’d rather not spend $5 for 5 minutes of driving around a parking lot, so we u-turned out of the place and drove north into wine country.

Well actually, we didn’t have to drive very far, because the entire area around the power plant is now absolutely COVERED in vineyards. And I’m not talking about 5 or 6 scattered vineyards, I’m talking about one huge one that went on for miles and miles, completely covering the landscape. The vines were so close to the water towers that if they hadn’t been trimmed back the entire side of the thing would have been crawling with cabernet.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I want to drink radioactive wine. This rich, full-bodied Cotes du Seco has all the peppery uranium aromas, black cherry, cassis, and argon flavours and a long half-life complex finish of a fine Seco wine and is a perfect accompaniment to redneck cooking. Mmmm, mmmm good.

We passed through the um, wine country, then up toward Plymouth where the real vineyards are. Places like Montevina, Karmere, etc. reside outside this teeny tiny little town that has exactly one cafe, one carousel, and one truck with a permanently attached American flag.

We ate at a little cafe (I had the vegetarian tamale and a crab cake while David opted for the foccacia sandwich with dead animal).

We both tried, what is advertised (on the label) to be the Great American Root Beer. It was not great; I can only assume it’s American based on where it is bottled; I can attest that it vaguely tasted like root beer.

At this cafe we also discovered (pictured in the background) Frambois. David loves that stuff - raspberry infused port, and it’s somewhat difficult to find. It’s bottled by Bonny Doon and is quite delicious over ice, with cream or on ice cream (which is a combination of ice and cream I just realized). Highly recommended if you like sweet dessert wines.

Just down the street was the coolest part of the town…an old carousel that is now used as a catering spot for your favourite events like wedding receptions and birthday parties.

The art on the interior is of a woman leading her son toward a group of kids who are celebrating a party - a birthday I assume. The decking is spread out with chairs and tables, and it appears to offer a pretty unique location for events - very cool spot.

Topping our trip off as we left the Plymouth area, we can’t forget the permanently affixed American flag on the red truck.

I really don’t think I need to say much more on this one.

Finally, we made our way up toward Placerville, back onto Highway 50 and in the direction of home.


But of course no trip would be complete without a message from Jesus, who has apparently moved on to billboard advertising now as part of his global marketing campaign.