Wow is it Wednesday already?  It still seems like Monday to me if that makes any difference.  So, in my head, I’m right on time.  Not that I have any news anyway.  I’ve certainly flushed the memory of the weekend from my mind, so that’s not an option.  The last few days I’ve been getting ready for my big annual Float Trip, as you may have noticed from the counter on the main page of this site.  As I type, it reads 15 hours from now, which is not entirely accurate.  I will be on site, all going well, in more like ten hours.  (Not that all has ever gone well, as far back as I can remember.  Every year brings renewed hope though.)  Naturally rain is in the forecast, right on cue.  Gee I can hardly wait.  The last two years have been total mud-fests, I’m not sure I can stand another one.  Then again, once you get there you don’t have many other options so we are effectively stuck with whatever comes.  And we’ll LIKE it.

They are coming fast and furious this week.  I finally have a “smart phone” after a decade using a flip-phone.  I’m SOMEBODY now!!!  Oh by the way I don’t have any phone numbers, don’t be offended if I don’t answer your call.

If it can be helped,  please don’t ever use the phrase “Just sayin” in any form of communication with me.  Your cooperation is appreciated.

I think I woke up on the proverbial wrong side of the bed.  There is no good reason for this, it just happens sometimes I suppose, and most commonly on Mondays.  What can ya’ do.  I shall type up an obligatory update anyway.

So, beginning with Friday:  You guessed it, an afternoon at my favorite local haunt.  By all rights I should have just gone home, given the weather.  I sort of look forward to it through the week though, and I didn’t want to start my weekend off on the wrong foot.  So, I headed down and took up a perch in the “duck blind” with several other guys.  That’s the small, covered part of the patio attached to the back of the building, which gave us a bit of respite from the drenching rain.  Our excitement for the evening?  Well, we were sitting there rehashing the weeks woes when we saw a big freaking rat about the size of Kane go slogging through the water.  Eww.  We promptly procured some chips and went about chumming for him, and then trying to crack him with a piece of firewood when he’d come out.  Ahhhh, good clean fun.  (Nobody had good enough aim to bag him though, rats.  HA HA HA, get it, “rats.”  Oh boy.)

Saturday I don’t much recall what I did.  I hit the gym around noon and spent a good amount of time there.  Given the wonderful weather, I’m sure I did something incredibly fun and exciting after that, but the details escape me.  After I got done doing whatever it was, I went and watched basketball games and bad horror movies on the couch.  Donette, meanwhile, was up north at a slumber party with a bunch of hens.  Not exactly as fun as chucking firewood at a rat, but every day can’t be that exciting I guess.

Sunday I mowed the yard.  Woo hoo.  The second mowing of the season, and it was way too tall.  I expect I’ll be cutting it again Wednesday if I am to keep up with it.  Sigh.  After that I headed out for a little spin on the bicycle.  To mix things up a bit, I headed straight north up Main and kept going until I hit the river.  Nice ride I think;  Got a few good hills mixed in and as long as you watch out for potholes the pavement is pretty good.  After that I decided to head down and watch the late basketball game at the Brooksider.  Wow, nice day.  I elected to sit at a table in the sun, which was too bright to really see the TV’s, but I was pretty neutral as far as the game went anyway.  After a liberal dose of rays, we headed home for some dinner.  Fired up the grill for the first time this year and had some good burgers.

Well that was an odd vacation.  As previously referred to, our cruise fell through, so that left us to our own devices for entertainment.  Having no devices, that translates to precious few options.  Let’s see…  I spent a prodigious amount of time at various dog entertainment venues around town.  Fun for Teagan I suppose, and to some extent I enjoy them also.  She had her first real attempt at swimming;  I see a doggie-life-vest in her future.  We rode the motorcycle up to Lexington, MO for a day, mostly just to enjoy the awesome weather.  We spent more than one afternoon basking in the sun on the patio at the Brooksider.  I got caught up in the whole March Madness event for once, but effectively lost all interest after Missouri crashed and burned.  And I think that about covers vacation.  Gas hit crazy prices right on queue for us, so we really didn’t want to go over a few miles away for anything, limiting our options even further.  What can ya’ do.  Our cruise has been rescheduled for late May, we’ll try it again.

The weekend itself was just sort of tacked on the end of the vacation I guess.  We got with the Martins to celebrate St. Paddies day and that about covers it.  Actually the girls did go out and celebrate;  Chris and I stayed home and slaved over a hot smoker all day so they would have a traditional holiday feast waiting when they got done carousing.  Ain’t that the way.  Maybe it wasn’t so traditional of a preparation though.  Convinced that anything worth eating is better on a smoker, we lit up some coals and prepared the entire meal over some nice hickory smoke.  I’ve done the corned beef on the smoker before, so I knew that was going to work out.  The cabbage and potatoes were something of an experiment, with mixed results.  I was a big fan of the cabbage, it was great.  We cored it, then stuffed it with butter, italian sausage, and some fresh thyme, then loosely wrapped it in foil and let it go about 4 hours.  Solid.  The potatoes we just tossed with oil and salt and put them right on the grate.  Eh, they were OK.  Probably should have foiled them also, at least for part of the time.