As I mentioned, I was left to fend for myself.  In greater detail, Donette had driven to St. Louis to attend our niece’s graduation ceremony and the accompanying festivities.  I’d have been there, but the dreaded oncall precluded my attendance.  So, I sat home and did a whole lotta nothing.  Got a good 1/2-dozen more foreign language action movies under my belt.

Saturday I got some exercise in.  Munkirs came over and we rode our bikes down near the Plaza to participate in the Tour de Nicu ride. We opted for the 45 mile route, which we completed without too much trouble.  Honestly, it was a rather marginal ride though, not sure I will do it again next year.  The route covered all the local Neonatal Units, which is certainly a worthy enough cause.  However, this resulted in a 45 mile ride with all the rest stops squeezed together in about a 10 mile span.  Good idea, just not very practical as it pertains to a bike ride.  The route seemed to be mostly uphill too, and most definitely spent too much time winding through neighborhoods.  Geez, I felt like I’d ridden around the block 80 times to get the miles in;  One stop sign after another.  Add to that a good stiff breeze in our faces the majority of the time and it just didn’t make for an entirely enjoyable outing.  After that I laid around on the couch the majority of the remaining day, with the exception of heading over to Leawood to attend my cousin’s baby shower.  (Well, not really a “baby shower,” because guys don’t go to baby showers…  She’s already had her baby, so it was a “meet our little girl” party or whatever you call that.)

Sunday I walked Teagan up to the nearby school for some fetch, then my Mom and sister picked me up for lunch at Houston’s.  I don’t know if it’s the rather stringent diet the wife and I have been following lately or what, but I think that was the best salad I’ve ever tasted in my life.  Holy smokes it was good.  Seared tuna chunks over mixed greens with mango, avocado, and pickled ginger, and a cilantro vinaigrette dressing.  Whew.  I killed that thing, and if they had asked if I wanted a free refill I think I’d have knocked out another one.  After that I lounged around the rest of the day, watching the Royal’s rather exciting game and waiting for Donette to get home.  On a whim, I fired up the fire pit in the back yard and burned up a bunch of scrap sticks that have been building up.  While I was sitting in a chair throwing sticks in the fire Teagan decided she needed some more fetch, so I tossed the ball to her for a solid two hours or so.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her so worn out.  She didn’t even get out of bed for her breakfast this morning;  I can’t really quantify that statement other than to say I’ve never seen it happen before, she is a rather enthusiastic diner.  Probably should have held a mirror under her nose or something.

Sunday was a rest and recovery day.  Donette was down at the City Market running a charity garage sale thing, which was promptly rained out.  We decided to head down the ‘Sider to enjoy some hotdogs and fries and watch the ballgame.  Alas, we ran square into the stupid Art Fair.  I didn’t even bother looking for a parking spot, just turned around and headed for Waldo, where we landed at Tanners.  It proved a serviceable viewing spot, even if the game was rather crummy.

I’m sure you noticed the site is ever-closer to a finished product, thanks to some help from Ed.  Had to make a few tweaks in the mysterious “style sheet” thingie…  Geez I despise those things.  I like the results better than the old one though.

I’d say we maximized that weekend’s potential, especially given the rather gloomy weather.  Friday I moped around all day, convinced I was going to get rained out of my Brooksider time.  Matter of fact, I met up with Donette and a few friends at Hooper’s, fully prepared to just call the day a loss.  We headed towards the ‘Sider not long after that though, and actually found it rather pleasant out on the patio.  (They had the heaters running.)  I hung out there for a while, then took the girls down to Westport for some kind of fund raiser.  The Royals were on by that time, so I spent the rest of the evening on the couch watching one of their rare wins.

Saturday we got up early-ish and headed up north to Martin’s house.  One of the nieces is graduating in a few weeks and we were supposed to cook up some bbq for the party.  We had two medium-sized briskets and two monstrous pork butts;  Not a ton of meat but considerably more than I could ever hope to fit on my smoker.  So, we spent the day up there with Martin’s rig, which had more than enough room.  Teagan came up with us too, which made it an exciting afternoon for her.  All fetch, all day.  While the smoker was going, Martin threw on another small pork butt, which we chopped up and threw in a homemade salsa verde;  Wow, that was a hit.  Gonna have to try that one at home.

Sunday didn’t bring much excitement, once again.  Stormy weather sort of tends to do that around our house.  Kelly came down and they drug stuff out of the basement for some upcoming garage sale all day, and I did a whole bunch of nothing.  I watched the Royals return to their losing ways, watched some poor movies…  And that’s about it.  The dog was down for the count after her big day Saturday and just wanted to sleep on the couch, so I figured it best to take advantage of that opportunity while it was there.  We did go out for a little dinner at Waldo pizza, which was solid.  Donette let me pick the pie for once, and I came up with chicken & basil with alfredo sauce, on thin crust.  She agreed it was delicious, although she might have just been humoring me.  I thought it was quite tasty.

So what did we do all week?  Well, stared at the computer fiddling with this stupid thing for the most part.  Friday I did hit my usual Brooksider visit, for what that’s worth.  It was a marginal afternoon weather-wise, downright chilly as a matter of fact.  I threw on a hat and made the best of it though.  After a bit Donette joined me at Jalapenos, where we ordered some takeout and headed home to watch the Royals take their nightly thrashing.

Saturday I intended to head out on a long bike ride.  Alas, Donette had taken off in the car, which unfortunately had most of my gear in it.  Switching to my backup plan, I aired up the tires on my mountain bike and rolled up to the river and back.  Pretty nice route, I rather like it.  Later in the day our friend Susan returned from her vacation in Mexico, so we went over to her house to catch up on her trip.  We’d been dog-sitting her pup Walter all week, so we took him back and then stuck around to watch the Royals, who once again got trounced.

Sunday started off pretty strong.  I rousted Donette and we headed up to the gym so we could “get it out of the  way.”  Well, we got it out of the way alright, but I’m not really sure why.  I don’t know if it was the sheer ferocity of my workout or pure laziness, but I spent the rest of the day on the couch.  (If I was a bettin’ man, it was the latter.)  Man, those old western series can just suck me in.  (The Rifleman, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, etc.)  It’s as if they line them up back-to-back on Sundays with the sole intent of making me waste my day.  Oh and then I watched the Royals lose too.  By golly I paid a lot of money for a full season of mlb.com, and I’m going to watch every painful game.  (Note to self;  Opt for monthly subscription next year.)

Saturday Donette got up and headed to the Rock The Parkway 1/2-marathon.  She was supposed to be running, but she’s been on the DL for several weeks with a bum ankle so she just went and helped out with the event.  Teagan and I walked over a bit later and watched most of the race;  Oddly entertaining.  After that I don’t recall that we did anything of any interest what-so-ever.  Watched the Royals get drubbed again, and maybe a few bad movies.

Sunday shaped up remarkably similar to Saturday.  Went and hung out at the gym for a few hours and that was about the extent of it.  I rolled down to the Brooksider to watch the Royals, mostly out of sheer boredom.  Turned out to be a rather nice afternoon to sit outside and watch them take their daily beating.  That killed most of the afternoon, then a band came in and ruined the day.  A band???  On the patio????  Come on.  So, I headed back home to some delicious homemade reuben sandwiches and more foreign-language movies.  Whew.  Lame weekend.  I’m getting bored just typing this.

Thursday morning I peeled my carcass off Zim’s floor, stepped over a few still-inert bodies, and walked out the door to find a beautiful morning waiting.  It was an easy decision to get on the river this day, certainly couldn’t pass up the weather.  (Turned out we were at least partially duped, as it rained on us a bit;  Not bad though.)  We enjoyed some breakfast sandwiches and got on the river at the crack of noon with a small four-canoe barge.  We floated from camp down to Dawt Mill that day, which was about the right length, especially considering our late start.  Highlights of the trip included seeing some bald eagles, and the “river dog” story.  To summarize the River Dog tale:  We’re merrily floating along, maybe half-way downstream, and we come up on another large bunch of our group.  They’re taking a break over on the bank, and there’s this brown dog running around with them.  The dog sees our barge and immediately dives in the river, swims over to us, and starts circling our canoes.  The other group starts laughing at us, and saying “He’s yours now!”  Hmmmm, what’s that mean?  I kid you not, that dog swam with us for at least two miles, until we finally hauled him in a canoe.  Turned out he’d been swimming with the other guys for quite a while too.  (And we quickly figured out why they wanted to get rid of him;  He’d been skunked pretty good.)  So, end of story, we took him back to camp and a few guys drove him back up river looking for his home.  A few campground owners said he was a stray that had been hanging around for a few months.  He was a good dog, (Aussie maybe?) and one of the guys ended up taking him home.  After all that excitement, we settled in for a tasty chicken dinner and called it a day.

Friday we got around a little earlier, as we were planning to head up to Hammond Camp and float back down.  It’s two miles longer than the trip down to Dawt, so we have to plan for, ohhhhh, about an extra three hours.  The weather was top-notch again, and quite a few guys turned out for the trip.  Munkirs and I quickly settled in the center of a good sized barge, with a generous five-canoe buffer on either side of us.  For those not familiar with the fine art of barge-canoeing, this is generally recognized as the safest place to be.  You really can’t effectively “steer” eleven canoes lashed together, so they sort of pinwheel down the river, and the canoes closest to the outside tend to absorb the most punishment.  What we hadn’t planned on was being tied up next to Todd and Bruce.  It’s a tight race as to which one of them has the worst luck in a canoe;  Suffice to say I don’t believe either of them has ever stayed dry an entire trip down the river, and there is usually a lot of collateral damage involved with their mishaps.  (Whose bright idea was it to throw them in a canoe together anyway???)  Sure enough, not too far down the river, they hit a rock full on and punched a 12″ hole in the bottom on their canoe.  Good grief.  On one hand, one could term that sheer bad luck.  On the other hand, why is it always the same guys?  I’m suspicious.  With their vessel out of commission, we agreed to haul Todd the rest of the way down the river.  Well, maybe “agreed” isn’t the right word;  He wedged his boots into the side of our canoe and we couldn’t pry him out.  After all the shuffling and re-barging, we ended up on the very outside position, doomed to an afternoon of getting slammed off rocks and trees.  Further proof that no good deed goes unpunished.  The rest of the trip was blissfully uneventful though, if a bit painful.  I snapped a few pics of our day Friday, and even got them posted already.

We got back to KC on Saturday afternoon, and I spent the rest of the weekend nursing my various wounds.  For Easter, we met up with both our families at The Well for a very passable brunch.  After a weekend of camping, a big meal was just what I needed.