Last night I joined Munkir’s for another ill-fated bike ride.  I met up with him at Mission Hills shopping center for our usual Tuesday night route.  Last week’s ride ended badly for me when I got a flat tire about 1/2-way through the ride.  Luckily that time I was within walking distance of Munkir’s house, so I headed over there, got fixed up, and went on my merry way.  Last night I made it about 3/4 the way and flatted again.  Same tire, hole in the same spot, same result.  While I was able to limp home last week, last night I just bailed out and called Donette for a ride.  Could this be bad mojo coming back on me for snickering at Martin and his chronic flat tire issue last year?  Just might be.  The evening was topped off when we got home and found young Teagan had dug up the “dooley” again.  She apparently had the same issue working around the pesky rose bush that I did, so she dug it up too just for good measure.  Sigh.

That weekend seemed a little brief.  I don’t think I used my time very wisely, but that’s not too rare an occurrence.  I’ll throw out a brief recap.  Saturday I got up at the crack of 11:00 and took Teagan to her first obedience class at the Ward Parkway Petsmart.  It went OK I guess.  They use that “clicker training” method, which I’m a bit skeptical of, but I’ll give it a shot.  Honestly the results can’t be any worse than what I’ve been trying by myself, so what the heck.  After that, I headed back home and threw a slab of ribs on the grill.  Ribs were on sale everywhere this weekend, so I’d decided to practice up.  For round one, we bought a slab of “St. Louis” style spareribs from Super Target.  I put that in quotes because they didn’t really cut them right, if you ask me.  The “flap” was still on the back of them, and they hadn’t cut off the entire top part correctly either.  Knuckleheads.  I went ahead and threw them on the smoker as they were though.  The job the butcher did on them turned out to be the least of my worries anyway, as I didn’t  exactly do a spectacular job cooking them.  Probably needed about another hour of cooking, and they were way too spicy.

Sunday I got up much earlier than Saturday, and Munkirs came over for a morning bike ride.  Oh, you mean Sunday morning when it rained so hard?  Yeah, that Sunday morning.  Luckily we got a pretty clear heads-up on what was coming when the ear-splitting thunder started.  We had time to get back to my house before the real downpour started.  After the rain subsided, I fired up the smoker again and started on round 2 of the rib project.  This time we made our purchase at the local Price Chopper.  Donette brought home a full slab of spareribs and I cut them myself, and I liked the results a lot better.  I used a much sweeter rub this time too, and a less spicy sauce as well.  I got about an hour of cooking on them and it clouded up and started pouring again.  I mean it was really pouring.  I decided the ribs were a loss and we just headed up to 75th Street.  We killed about an hour and a half up there, then headed back home to survey the damage.  Remarkably, the smoker was still at a rock-solid 200 degrees and burning fine.  Pleasantly surprised, I went back to the business of cooking the rest of the afternoon.  This slab came out far better than the previous day’s effort, that is until I decided to finish them up on the gas grill.  I had the bright idea to “crisp them up a bit.”    By the time I came back outside about 5 minutes later, they were indeed crispy.  Took several minutes to put out the fire, as a matter of fact.  The only good news, if there was any, was that they were on the grill with the bones down, so only that side got blackened.  They went from being probably one of my best sparerib efforts ever to “edible” in the last few minutes of cooking, RATS.  We ate them though, and honestly I think they were still better than the slab on Saturday.

Monday we briefly considered cooking another slab of ribs, but for one thing we still had most of the others left over in the fridge, and for another thing I was still mad about the fire.  Instead, I started work on digging a hole in the back yard to bury our fancy new “Doggie Dooley” we bought a few weeks ago.  Yes, that is basically a small septic tank you see there.  It turned into a bit more of a job than I anticipated.  A 2′ x 2′ x 2′ hole turned out to be quite a bit bigger than I thought, especially when you’re digging in a corner where there is only one side to dig from.  Luckily I waited until the sun was nice and high to get started too, so I’d be fully miserable.  The whole time I was digging Teagan was laying on the ground beside me sleeping.  I couldn’t help but think that, as many holes as she has dug in my back yard, it would be useful if she’d help with this one too.  Not a lick of help though.  After I finally got that dang thing sunk, we headed off to the pool to relax.  It was crowded, but the weather was great and so was the water, so we hung out several hours.  After that we briefly considered heading to 75th Street to watch the Royals, but neither of us really felt like it so we just finished out the weekend at home.

Final story of the weekend.  So, as we’re enjoying the ballgame and some Sonic hotdogs, I think to myself, “Say, that dog has been gone a while.”  Unusual for her, since she is always glued to our sides.  Worried that the fireworks had scared her, I started looking around to see where she had gone.  She was nowhere to be found, then finally I glanced out the window and saw her in the corner of the yard, about shoulder-deep in the ground, digging just as hard as she could around the new doggie dooley.  Oh no.  No no no no no.  I’ll tell you what, for a lil’ thing she had moved a pretty impressive amount of dirt in a short time.  Where was all that energy when I was digging the hole the first time? I got it filled back in for the most part, and blocked off her doggie door so she couldn’t just do it again, but it appears we have a problem.  Ever tried to convince a terrier-breed dog to give up on one of their “projects” they’ve started?  Especially a terrier breed that some brainiac decided to cross with the stubbornness of a bulldog?  Fantastic.  Maybe I can just click that little thing they gave me in class and she’ll quit.  Uh huh.

I had a rather unusual urge to go on a bicycle ride last night.  I think I was feeling a little guilty about not getting up and going to the gym in the morning, and thought I needed some exercise.  I’ve only actually gotten up and gone to the gym before work once this year, so I don’t why it should have particularly bothered me yesterday, but such was the case.  I did a quick scan of the handy local ride calendar, and the “Martin City Brewery Ride” caught my eye.  Hmmm, a new ride on the calendar!  And, as it happened, I’d been wanting to check out the new restaurant also, so this struck me as a good plan all around.  So, I headed out that way and easily found the group forming up for the ride.  (It wasn’t very hard;  Martin City only has about 10 buildings.)  We took off right at 6:30, and after a rather dicey stretch down Blue Ridge we made a few turns and I began to recognize the route as a section of the much-maligned Summer Breeze ride from last year.  Rats, hills.  Hills, indeed.  Possessing one of the worst cardiovascular systems in the state of Missouri, I quickly lagged to the back of the group.  I did manage to hang with them for the 20 mile ride though, if mostly out of fear of getting lost.  I will definitely try the route again, it was really sort of nice in that there were very few stops and very little traffic.  Flatten it out a bit and it would be outright wonderful.  After finishing the ride, everybody went inside to hang out in the new restaurant.  At least I thought they went inside, so I snuck around back to grab a table by myself on the patio.  To my dismay, I found they had all gone through the building and were sitting on the patio also.  I felt I was somewhat obliged to join them at that point, so I pulled up a chair at the table.  The place is OK, but they have some kinks to work out.  Honestly it’s not a “Brewery” at all, it’s just a restaurant/bar.  Luckily I knew this beforehand by reading online a bit, so I wasn’t too disappointed.  I also read that their service can be a bit sketchy, and man did they live up to that.  Those poor kids messed up everything that could possibly be messed up, I kind of felt sorry for them.  Then again, when you’re sitting at a table with 15-20 people, all of whom want separate checks, you are gonna hit some snags.  (Another reason I didn’t really want to sit with the group.)  It would probably be a lot fairer to ride the motorcycle out there for lunch some day with Donette, we’ll have to do that soon.  (Soon as they come out with a coupon most likely…)

It seems like most of our activities these days are dictated by what we have a coupon for.  Such was generally the case this weekend.  I guess the exception was Friday night, when I ended up down at the Brooksider.  My friend Troy (Laura Schalker-Manivong’s hubby) came down and hung out with me for the better part of the evening.  I don’t get to see him very often, which allows for plenty of conversation material.  And, while I didn’t have a coupon for the occasion, the ol’ Brooksider is just downright reasonably priced so I didn’t break my wallet right off the bat.

Saturday our entertainment for the afternoon was at John’s downtown.  Not my favorite place to hang out by any stretch, but we had a groupon that was about to expire so we figured it would pass the time.  It was a nice day too, so I had to admit that a little time on their deck didn’t sound bad at all.  I wasn’t sure if you could order food on the deck or not, but luckily you could, albeit in foam to-go containers with plastic-ware.  What the heck, gave it a little picnic feel.  I’ve eaten at John’s several times for lunch, and have always been less than impressed, to say the least.  About the most complimentary thing I’ve ever been able to come up with has been “It’s cheap.”  As it turns out, that may have always been my own fault for just getting the lunch special of the day.  (Generally something along the lines of tacos, grilled cheese, etc.)  On Saturday I ordered a catfish sandwich and Donette had a burger, and both were very good.  I’d go so far as to say her burger was “outstanding,” as a matter of fact.  I may well find myself back there in the not-so-distant future to order one myself and make sure it wasn’t just a fluke.  While we enjoyed our early dinner, a pretty good crowd of youngsters filled up the place.  It appeared they had spent their afternoon at the nearby swimming pool, and they were all good and wound up.    Hey, what can you expect for a rooftop patio on a nice afternoon.  They were a bit loud, but provided us quite a bit of entertainment while we ate too.

Sunday my day started off with a nice 17-mile bike ride with Munkirs.  We had kicked around the idea of 34 miles, but between the 95% humidity and our assorted old-man aches and pains, it wasn’t too difficult to call it good at half that.  Plus, I had the prospect of mowing the lawn staring me in the face, another unpleasant task in that kind of weather.  Indeed, by the time I finished these two activities I was not a happy camper.  Felt a little woozy as a matter of fact.  Desperate for some calories and air-conditioning, we headed up to our old stand-by 75th Street.  They’re always good for some cheap refreshment, so we hung out there and watched the Royals game.  (“Watched” being the key word there;  They never have the sound on, which annoys me.  Beggars can’t be choosers I guess.)  After the game we headed back home and loitered for the rest of the day.  I broke out of my horror-movie genre last night and watched “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” which I haven’t ever seen.  I started watching it on network TV but the commercials drove me crazy pretty quickly so I found it on Netflix.  Good movie, if entirely too thought-provoking for me.

That felt like a short weekend.  I’m not entirely sure I didn’t miss a day somewhere.  Guess it’s over though.  That’s usually the sign of a busy weekend, which I suppose it was.  We started things off on Friday with happy hour down at the Phoenix, where we watched Lonnie McFadden for a few hours.  Great show.  We got there about 30 minutes before he started and grabbed what I thought was a great table.  It’s the table I always eat lunch at so it must be a good one.  As it turned out, maybe it was a better spot for lunch than watching a band.  We were over on the “bar side” of the place, where it got pretty loud pretty quickly with the after-work crowd.  I think over on the dining room side of the place might have been better for watching the show.  Oh well, the place was packed so I’m not sure it made a huge difference, but we’ll try the other side next time.

Saturday we had some tentative plans for several different things, none of which panned out.  We did roll up north, with Teagan in tow, and visited with Donette’s parents for a while.  They had just completed a big remodel in the house so we got to see that, and Teagan enjoyed the opportunity to play fetch in a yard bigger than a postage stamp.  After that we headed back south, and settled in for the evening.  Just couldn’t get going again.  There were a few festivals nearby that we had considered going to, but between the muggy heat and a general lack of interest (not to mention a general lack of funds,) we just couldn’t quite get out the door.

Sunday I got up early and rode my bicycle down to Union Station to participate in the City Of Fountains ride.  Munkirs met me down there, and we took off on the “long” route.  Good ride, if maybe marked a bit sketchily.    By the end of the ride it seemed people had pretty much given up on even trying to follow the route, and were just trying to head the right general direction.  Musta worked, we ended up back where we started eventually.  With my ride down there and back, I got 50 miles out of the morning, a good distance for me.  After I got home and cleaned up, we headed off to the pool for my inaugural visit of the year.  Donette’s been a few times already, but I’ve had neither the opportunity or the inclination myself.  Sunday was a nice afternoon though;  Not too hot, and with all the rain the pool provided an icy-cold option if things did get a little too warm.  We hung out there for a few hours, then headed for a late lunch / early dinner at Quintons, a new entry up in Waldo.  It got a rather mixed review from us.  On the upside, they feature four different reuben sandwiches, which just so happened to be exactly what I was in the mood for.  I went with the pastrami option, on rye.  (As if there should even be another bread choice;  They did have white or wheat for some weird reason though.)  It was an excellent sandwich, if I ever do get back there it will be to have another one of those.  Donette had turkey on a croissant, which she said was good also.  But, on the downside, we just didn’t really care for the place.  That’s a little vague, I realize, but such was the case.  It was a little overpriced, a little stuffy, and when the owner dropped in and changed the channel from the Royals game we were clearly watching, I think it probably marked the end of Quintons for us.