Category: Family

El Patron Cinco de Mayo Festival

This weekend, you could put on a sombrero and drink a Corona Light like a guero. Or, you could go to the best Mexican restaurant in town and enjoy the widest selection of premium tequila in the area. It is up to you, hombre.

El Patron at 66th and Folsom is one of our few establishments serving gourmet Mexican cuisine, and they will be celebrating Cinco de Mayo all weekend. With more than 40 brands and 100 different 100% agave tequilas, you owe it to yourself to enjoy a taste of real cultura Mexicana. Check out the schedule of events.

Continue reading “El Patron Cinco de Mayo Festival”

Bring on the Big Brains

An intellectual battle of epic proportions will be held Sunday, April 27 at 9pm. A team of ‘Rag writers will take on a team of Bee writers for the title of “Biggest Smarty Pants” at the weekly pub quiz at Streets of London.

Should you wish to witness the epic battle, or pit your own wits against these two towering intellectual juggernauts, or just wish RunnerGirl a happy birthday, drop on by the J Street location of Streets. We’ll be the team with overly frosted grocery store cake on our table.

I Dare You To Be Snarky

I can’t be the only one who thinks of recording family interviews for posterity but is too lazy to follow through on it.  If you’re like me, the super cool StoryCorps Airstream trailer might be just the thing.  It’s part of a national project (in conjunction with NPR) to encourage recordation of family memories, and it’s in Sacramento until May 10.  You simply make a reservation, show up with your loved one, and record an interview.  The suggested donation is $10.  Maybe I’ve lost my edge but I just can’t think of anything sassy to say about this wonderful idea.  Possibly an early Mother’s Day present? An awesome way to propose? Has anyone tried this yet?

The Paper Chase

My day just starts off wrong if my morning paper is not on the doorstep.

As someone who grew up in a multi-paper-reading family (Auburn Journal***, The Sacramento Bee***, The Wall Street Journal*, The San Francisco Chronicle**, The Sacramento Union*, and The Klam-Ity Kourier* — later known as just The Kourier*, which we received by mail long after leaving the reservation), not to mention the newspaper carrying dynasty my brother and I created along the greater Auburn Ravine Road corridor, I can’t not have my actual morning paper.

It’s no secret that readership and subscription rates of the hard-copy newspaper have plummeted. In my opinion, this is not just because people are getting their news online, but also because the concept of what is “news” has changed, so many people have tuned out. (Really? Your breaking story is about Britney Spears?)

In today’s Forum section, Bee editor Melanie Sill talks about the changes coming to the actual newspaper — different size paper will be used for easier handling by readers and also to reduce the amount of paper used. Continue reading “The Paper Chase”

FREE fun & educational event for children next Sunday (3/16)

Bring your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or neighbors’ children to next Sunday’s presentation of “The Tale Spinner.”

This is a musical theatre production by the Junior League of Sacramento (JLS) — a women’s volunteer organization that performs hands-on work and trains its members to be leaders. The JLS has been staging its Children’s Theatre productions for more than 60 years, and the JLS has served the Sacramento community for just over 65 years.

What: “The Tale Spinner” — a musical theatre production for children, geared to Pre-K through 3rd grade, but even adults have a lot of fun.

When: Sunday 3/16 with the performance at 2pm — it lasts about 40 minutes, and there will be activities for children after the play

Where: Hiram Johnson High School Auditorium — take U.S. 50 to 65th Street, go south on 65th, turn left on 14th Ave

About 16,000 school children will be seeing this year’s play, which has been running for the past month during the week. Back when school districts had funds for extracurricular activities, upwards of 50,000 children would see it annually. The schools incur costs to bus the children to the production. In recent years, the JLS has received grants specifically for bus transportation from corporate sponsors.

Continue reading “FREE fun & educational event for children next Sunday (3/16)”

Humbug Willow Creek

Humbug Willow Creek
From the City of Folsom Website

The most fun thing about Humbug Willow Creek just might be that you can tell people it is “out by the soy sauce factory,” because that just sounds so absurd. But there is indeed a Kikkoman soy sauce factory, out in Folsom near Sutter Street. And next to this salty & aromatic spot of industry you’ll find the Humbug Willow Creek Parkway. (Coincidentally it is also adjacent to a Sake tasting room (I am not making this up) which begs the question of whether there are nice yellowtail in that creek, and some wasabi plants.)

Continue reading “Humbug Willow Creek”

Weekend events: Museum Day, Harpeth Trace @ The Firehouse

Tom Brady
A photo of Tom Brady is a blog post’s
ticket to Google success

Two free events coming up this weekend that I wanted to make sure to mention. First of all, don’t forget Saturday is Museum Day. Free admission to 25 local museums from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Forecast calls for rain at least part of the day on Saturday, possibly in the afternoon, so maybe an after-lunch trip to the train museum will be just what the Dr. ordered for your weekend.

Continue reading “Weekend events: Museum Day, Harpeth Trace @ The Firehouse”

Rainy day dos & don’ts

not Sacramento, but doesn't that look like that one building?Hunker down for a rainy week, Sacramento. If you have little kids in your family you’re probably looking for fun, inexpensive activities out of the rain, and if you’re like me you’re finding your choices very limited. It doesn’t seem like those should be too many limitations, but I always find that you have to be pretty creative to find sheltered fun for the little ones. I have a few picks and pans, and I’d love to hear from y’all as well.

Continue reading “Rainy day dos & don’ts”

Stating the obvious

Obvious Point #1

It’s been too long since we’ve had a new post, so here goes the obvious assertion that it’s a great idea to have a moratorium on new construction starts in the Natomas basin.

If you don’t believe me, take a trip to New Orleans (as Sac-Eats and I just did) and talk to some of the locals about some building decisions their officials made over the past couple of hundred years.

Continue reading “Stating the obvious”