Wow is it Monday already?  My sense of time is all messed up again.  I think I need (another) week off.  Most of last weekend was spent at a BBQ competition up in Platte City.  Team TFB was competing in our first contest of the year.  I headed up there Friday after work to find Martin & Brown well into the set-up phase of things.  We actually had a pretty good turnout for the event;  Quite a bit bigger than I expected, especially given the weather.  It was a long, chilly night out in the lawn chair tending the fire.  At least Brice kept me company this time;  It actually was only moderately miserable.  And how did we do?  Well…  Team TFB really doesn’t enter for the whole competitive cooking aspect of the thing.  We enjoy the party, getting outside, some great guitar music with sing-alongs by the fire, and just the general camaraderie of being with some friends you might not have seen for a while.  That little spiel should give you a pretty good idea of how we did.  I didn’t come away totally empty handed though;  I left late Saturday afternoon in a sleepless fog with a cooler full of tasty leftovers and a nice sunburn.  Oh, and a heart full of camaraderie.

Sunday, of course, was Mother’s Day.  Hopefully that revelation isn’t an “oh crap” moment for you.  We met Donette’s parents down at good ol’ Sharps for a nice breakfast.  We got there at 9:00 and got a table immediately, which I thought rather remarkable.  Such was not the case by the time we left;  There was the usual mob scene at the front door waiting for seats.  After breakfast we headed back to the house, digested for a few minutes, and then I headed out to my Mom’s for some lunch.  Two huge meals in 3 hours…  Not a good idea.  Oh I managed though.  We grilled some burgers with all the sides, then topped it off with a Cold Stone ice cream cake.  A feat of gluttony not seen since…  Well, I guess since Friday night at the BBQ competition.  Gee I just don’t understand why I can’t lose a little weight.  After lunch I raced home in time to get the lawn mowed before the weekly monsoon started in.  I am so sick of mowing the lawn that I’m at a bit of a loss.  The fact that it’s only May makes it even worse.  Gonna be a long season I’m afraid.  I got it knocked down though, and then decided to reward myself with a little hot-tub time up at the gym.  As my usual luck would have it, the hot-tub was closed for maintenance.  Figures.  Since I’d gone to the trouble of driving up there, I sat around and watched the Royals game for a while, then called it a loss and headed back home.  Whippee.

Triple Fat Back BBQ is headed to beautiful Platte City, MO this weekend for our first competition of the year.  Should be fun…  Of course they are calling for a cold night, right on queue.  Supposedly though we will be hunkered down in our new 18′ enclosed BBQ trailer, Brown’s latest project.  Predictions from Team Brisket?  Well, I whipped up the latest incarnation of my dry rub last night.  It’s so freaking hot I can’t even taste it.  Just tastes like pain.  But, I’m going with it.  Might try and just use it lightly and maybe even cut it with something else.  A practice run might have been a good idea too, but the event kind of snuck up on me.  (It’s a  bad sign when you are making excuses the day before the contest.)

I am considering testing the waters with a few mid-week updates.  Kind of see how it goes.  I’ve become rather disenfranchised with Facebook and need an outlet for my sharing my near-constant activities.  Or lack there-of, as the case may be.  If the experiment fails, I’m sure that will be the cause.  I am painfully aware that 85% or better of my evenings go something like:   “Sat on the couch and watched the Royals game.”  Kinda hard to work with that.

Last night?  Well, I celebrated Cinco de Mayo in grand fashion.  I walked the dog around the block, then sat on the couch and watched the Royals game.  Yep, here we go.  Today, though…  TODAY could be different.  I am starting the day with two cups of coffee.  We bought a Keurig brewer a few months back and like it quite a bit.  One of the extra bonuses from the purchase was that I dropped from 3-4 cups a day to one.  This is mostly because I’m a cheapskate;  Them little cups are rather pricey.    Today though, I woke up with that “what the heck” kind of attitude and just brewed that second cup like I was made of money.  We will see if that downright edgy outlook carries into the rest of the day.

Well as I just enjoyed a five-day weekend, I guess I am obligated to provide some type of a synopsis.  Probably should have hit it last night;  Today it already seems like it was a month ago.  And, two days of it was spent driving so those don’t count.

Anyway, Thursday morning we took off driving for an extended weekend in Dallas.  I can’t remember the exact purpose of the trip, if there even was one.  Basically we needed a little sun and a visit with our Texan friends David & Jill, and Brooke.  (OK Brooke has only lived there a week now but she’s a Texan already.)  Well and then there was the fact that it was Art Festival weekend in Brookside;  Always a good time to leave.  We made it to Texas by dinner-ish, and Jill fixed some great pasta, then we retired to the hot-tub to recover from the horrific trauma of the drive.

The rest of the weekend was spent in usual Dallas fashion.  You know, clubbin’, eatin’, more clubbin’, that kind of thing.  Saturday night they hooked us up with a sweet hotel in Downtown Dallas, which was…  “adventurous.”  I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever been in downtown Dallas, and I’m quite sure I’ve never spent the evening there.  It was very “Dallas-y.”  As luck would have it, the hotel we stayed at had opened a roof-top pool and deck that very day, so we couldn’t have asked for better timing on that.  We spent a considerable amount of time up there, it was a pretty sweet set-up.  In between pool lounging, we mixed in trips to the entertainment districts and a quite unique dinner.  If I had any idea where all we went I would try and summarize the names;  But I don’t.  I remember Vickery Park, Victor Tangos, & Barcadia, but the rest of them seem to have run together into a jumble of pretty people and loud music.  As I said, Dallas-y.  Sunday morning we headed to David & Jill’s house, and spent the day lounging by the pool, enjoying the best weather of the weekend.  We wrapped things up with an awesome steak dinner;  Honestly nobody cooks a filet like David, and that’s the truth!

Monday we got up and started the drive again.  For the sake of excitement, we took 75 home instead of I-35.  Call us crazy.  I think it took a little longer but that may have been the end-of-weekend impatience setting in.  As soon as we unloaded the car, I changed shoes and went about mowing the lawn, a grim reminder that the weekend was indeed over.  Turned on the TV, watched the Royals lose…  It was like we never left.

We are driving back to KC from Texas, I’ll update this if we ever actually get there.