It’s been raining so much it’s starting to affect my quality of life.  Yesterday I had to hunker down at John’s Deck for a while until the streets dried enough to ride my motorcycle home.  “A while” turned into 4 hours somehow or another.  Well, the streets were good and dry by that time.  Tuesday I had to ride the bus to work it was raining so hard.  Ohhhhh the agony.  Hey, at least we got to turn off the sprinkler system for a while.

After much deliberation, Donette & I have decided to go vegetarian.  I’ve messed up one too many briskets in my lifetime.  Heck with it, I’m just giving up meat all together.  To kick off our brand new lifestyle, we made black bean burgers for dinner last night.  Our original plan was to grill them, but the rain rolled in right when we were getting started so we cooked them on an indoor cast iron grill.  Our side dish was sweet potato wedges, done on the cast iron grill also.  It all came out quite nicely.  Next time we’ll probably add a little more zip to the burgers, probably in the form of some chopped jalapenos.  The ‘taters were a hit, I’m sure we’ll be adding them to more meals.

OK so we’re not really going veggie, we just saw the recipe on Ed’s website a while back and thought it sounded good.  We like black beans…  We like burgers…  What the heck.

An abbreviated posting is in order, as I have the day off and I don’t want to spend it frivolously on my computer.  I’m thinking maybe on the couch watching movies or something exciting like that.  Hey, it’s raining, what else can I do.  Plus the paper put me at a two-star day so I better not push my luck.

Good weekend, all in all.  Friday, believe it or not, we stopped by the Brooksider.  Our best intention was to wish our friend Jerry a happy birthday, then get on home.  It didn’t work out exactly as planned, but that’s the way it goes.  Jerry wasn’t even there, but Martin & Brice were, so I ended up staying much later than I meant to.  Then, our friend Brooke made an unannounced visit to KC and dropped by the ‘Sider, and we stayed much much later than planned.  It happens.

Saturday I starting paying the price of my unscheduled later nighter when the alarm went off at 5:00.  Munkirs was picking me at 6:00 to drive out to Independence for a bike ride.  No, this wasn’t a last-second event, we’d been planning it all week.  I was well aware of the plans when I stayed out Friday night, it was just an exercise in poor judgement.  Anyway, I managed to drag my carcass out of bed, get some breakfast in me, and for the most part be ready when my ride showed up.  Martin met us out there, and we all three were actually in relatively good shape by the time the ride started.  (They had coffee and donuts on site;  Probably a life-saver.)  The ride was a cancer benefit called “Freedom Ride.”  We opted for the 40 mile route.  I’m confident we could have survived the listed 50 mile ride, but it wasn’t an option listed when we got there.  It jumped from 40 to 70, which sounded a bit optimistic.  The forty turned out great though, it was really a good route.  I haven’t gotten to ride on any open roads in a long time.  Everything around here is all stop signs every two blocks or so;  Gets pretty old.  This was just long stretches of uninterrupted riding, much nicer.  The only downside was a few listed “rolling hills.”  I wasn’t aware they had mountains in Independence;  Now I know better.  After that nice bit of exercise, I got home to find Donette getting ready for the pool.  Sounded good to me, so I joined her for an afternoon of lethargy.  We got rained out around 5:00, so we headed over to a nearby friend’s house for bit, then home to watch the Royals game.

We took it easy on the holiday.  Just don’t celebrate the Fourth like I used to.  We puttered around the house all day doing a little cooking, and that was about it.  My Uncle Roy & Aunt Joyce stopped by for a nice little visit, so we got to catch up with them.  Then, around 3:30 or so we headed over to our friend Ronnie’s house for a “gathering.”  (He didn’t want to have a “party” due to the work involved with that, so we all agreed on the term “gathering,” with the understanding “You want it, you bring it.”)  It was a fine gathering, indeed.  He’s got a huge front porch, so about 15 of us just sat outside and enjoyed the relatively decent weather and some good food.

Got in a short bike ride last night with Munkirs.  We’ve been on the Thursday night Brookside ride several weeks in a row now, and kept up the tradition this week.  We probably need to pick up the mileage a bit, but I guess seventeen miles is better than nothing.  After the ride we tried to hit the Brooksider for a cheap burger & fries;  Alas, no parking spots to be had.  Dang Thursday night tourists.

My winless streak of Royals games continues.  We went out to the ball park last night with Donette’s parents to catch the game.  Of course, due to my attendance, they lost.  Haven’t won a game I’ve been to yet this season, which has been quite a few actually.  Oh well.  It was a nice night for a game and we had fun, and they didn’t get absolutely crushed like the other times I’ve gone.

In a quite unrelated topic shift, I really need to start riding my bicycle to work.  I had big plans for bike commuting but so far I’ve only actually ridden in once.  I really should have biked today;  I don’t know how many 65-degree days are left but I’m guessing not many.  Next week…  NEXT week I’ll start.