Oh, what a lovely day we had! Oh, how I fell off the calorie-counting wagon!! But one can always have an extra penitent walkabout, to make up for chocolaty sins, right?

We had such an all-around great day. A super 5-mile walk in the morning, when it was still cool, but sunny and gorgeous. While walking, we had a very interesting discussion about an idea, which had been swirling around my mind much earlier in the morning. It had been such a persistent nag, not allowing me to go back to sleep, that I had to get up before dawn, shoot a sunrise picture, alter it into a Valentine’s Day card and post it on Facebook, all before I was really awake. Should this idea develop into the interesting topic, I hope it might, I shall report further.

During the next several hours we were able to nail down the logistics for my nonagenarian in-Laws’ upcoming move from Florida to Wisconsin, go grocery shopping, get gas, drop off a silk vest with balsamico stains at the cleaners and evaluated the possibility of having one of my pictures hang in the new, expanded gallery space of my printers. Naturally, you might think ‘big deal, she got her dry cleaning dropped off’, but, if you live two plus hours round trip from town, you better be organized! Not too long ago, we drove all the way to San Antonio, which is roughly a five hour round trip, only to discover that we had forgotten an important item at home. You feel pretty darn dense, let me assure you – even when you’ve plenty of other errands to run!

Among all those other errands yesterday, we also mailed a royalty check to the bank for a picture, I sold to an ad agency last month. Feeling flush, I invited my Valentine for a special dinner at our favorite restaurant in Kerrville, Rails, a former railroad depot. The only problem, we had no reservation – on Valentine’s Day. We usually stay the heck out of restaurants on days, when everyone and their grandma eats out, but we were in town … Fortunately, as it was still early, five-ish, they could squeeze us in, but sadly, our usual table was reserved. As it turned out, ‘our’ table was in due course occupied by our postmaster Stan and his friends from Junction, Texas! The whole restaurant was soon filling up and vibrating with great conviviality.

Instead of the elaborate Valentine’s Day special, we chose to stick with tried and true favorites, enjoying every precious bite. For a first course, we split a queso fresco dish with chile flakes, spicy and invigorating.

 

The main dish selection was, don’t laugh, a panino imbottito – let me rephrase that: THE best grilled sandwich ever. To up the ante, we asked the kitchen to double the filet mignon content. The rosemary flavored bread is spiced with a mouthwatering chipotle aioli, fabulous!

 

It being Valentine’s Day, we splurged on desserts. Before we ordered our sweets, we asked the solitary resident of a neighboring table, if he’d like to join us for a spell. Fred, as his name is, did join us for dessert and we had fun getting to know each other a little, while slowly savoring our treats.

 

 

 

 

A funny thing happened on the way to chocolate decadence, Fred turned out to be an estate lawyer, exactly the type of professional we had been planning to find for will updates and related lawyering! He left ahead of us to attend a performance at the Hill Country Arts Foundation, while we lingered a little over our wine. When we headed home, we passed under this decorated tree, with the solitary moon peeking through the branches. Such a lovely evening!

It goes without saying that one has to pay for one’s sins. We walked a whopping six miles today, burning 505 of yesterday’s aioli and chocolate calories. I do want to point out something important. It takes less than five minutes to swallow 500 calories’ worth of delightful morsels and one hour and fifty minutes to walk it off. Remember that, my dear friends!!