Sorry for the double colon! We’re rounding the corner into August. I like swimming in the morning theses days. I had a nice lunch with former colleagues on Friday at the excellent Kibbitz Room; my low-carb strategy was to have an omelette with pastrami. It was excellent. Rhonda and I spent the rest of Friday having spritzes in the pool and then cooking some nachos and chicken breast with white wine, artichoke hearts, and sun-dried tomatoes. Wine was had–I grabbed a growler of Astraea at Bellview on the ride home.

Here are some other things to check out in these dog days of summer.

Working Dog Winery

Rhonda and I stopped here during a layover between tickets to the Grounds for Sculpture and check in at the hotel. We were quick to select the stainless steel barrel aged Chardonnay out of curiosity; we tend to go for oaked styles. It was great and the staff member who chatted us up was a great source of information about the wine and the local culture. He clued us into the wine menu at Rat’s, where we had dinner after a spin around Grounds for Sculpture.

Fresh Clean Threads

Fresh Clean Threads started out as Fresh Clean Tees, and was a place I could get reasonably affordable plain t-shirts shipped to me. I was in the habit of just getting a few t-shirts from Old Navy or Gap, wherever Rhonda was shopping online at the time, and wearing those until they wore out. The wild variations from garment to garment, though, set me in search of something different. I have tried True Classic tees and Fresh Clean Threads, and I much prefer the latter. I just got three new ones because the last batch were starting to unravel.

Fantastic Four: First Steps

We took the boys to see Fanastic Four: First Steps at our beloved Tilton Square Theater. I am not a fan of the comic so I can’t be critical in a comic-nerd way. Like Superman, First Steps skips the origin story, neatly recapping how the Fantastic Four came to be in a few quick montages; at the outset of the film, they are an established and famous, much-beloved team. The story mixes high tech into the sixties, with the F4 hover car dashing over men in fedoras. Hot-head Johnny Storm longs to be taken seriously, and his efforts to impress Ben and super-genius brother-in-law Reed Richards pay off in the end. It’s a light and quick tale, and sets up the Fantastic Four to play a part in the larger upcoming Avengers film, which will evidently feature Dr. Doom. Exciting reboots all around. The art style points squarely at the older design of the team’s logo, and it’s a feast for the eyes/