My weekend started on Friday last week, thus unleashing the non-stop torrential downpours we were subjected to the last few days.  What a drag.  My sprinklers were doing just fine, I could have done without the rain.  Oh well, a day off is a day off, no matter what the weather.  Still beats working.  I had scheduled Friday as a vacation day quite a while ago, initially with the intent of going to Pigfest in Ohio.  But, as the date drew closer, I realized the drive up there was just a bit too daunting for me, so I bailed.  Then a few weeks ago, I got a wedding invitation for some friends in Nebraska.  So I made some hasty plans to go to that event, seeing as I already had vacation and all.  But, no, couldn’t make that drive either.  Not as far as the Ohio event, but it still exceeded my 10 mile radius of safety by several hours.  So, in the end, I just sat home with Gabe and watched bad movies.  Met Martin for lunch at the Brooksider, called it a day.  When Doni got home we went to the wine tasting around the corner, then headed back home and watched a few movies.

Saturday was roughly as unproductive as Friday.  Munkirs came down and joined Gabe and I at the Brooksider for lunch, then Todd, Doni and Christy came down.  I had to take Gabe home when it started pouring on us, then I went right back down there.  We hunkered down inside, waiting for the storm to pass.  Since it never did, we ended up staying all day.  When we finally tired of the ‘Sider, we went up to Bobby Bakers to exercise the jukebox for a while, then went around the corner to 75th Street Brewery for dinner.  All-in-all, a good day.

Sunday I fired up the smoker to put on some ribs.  I’d intended to do them Friday while the rest of the world worked, but the rain screwed that plan up.  Turned out OK though, because nobody could come over Friday anyway, and the weather was perfect on Sunday.  I put 3 slabs of baby back ribs on around noon, and settled in to enjoy the weather.  I did leave them unattended for a little while so Doni and I could go play tennis with Christy and Todd.  Gotta mix some exercise in the weekend somewhere, you know.  Todd came over after tennis and tossed some chicken on the smoker, and it was back to sitting around doing nothing.  The Martin’s joined us for dinner, and Susan came over too; Turned into a regular get-together.  Watched a little HBO, then called it a weekend.

The rekindled home-cooking project is coming along nicely.  Besides the ribs and chicken on Sunday, I grilled some shrimp on Tuesday and made mahi-mahi fajitas on Thursday.  I was kind of partial to the shrimp; I put that recipe up in the cooking section.  The fish fajitas were pretty interesting too… That was Doni’s creative thinking at work there.  Tonight:  Lambchops in garlic with new potatoes.

Well the nice weather didn’t last too long.  Drat.  Oh well, Fall is just around the corner.  I’ll survive.  Perhaps.

That was a rather busy weekend.  Perhaps even too busy for my tastes, I haven’t decided yet.  Friday we kinda took it easy…  At first we weren’t going to do anything at all, but then decided that the weather was so nice we better at least make an effort at getting out.  We walked around the corner to Waldo Wine and hit the “free Friday tasting” for a few hours.  Can’t beat that deal.  Meet a few neighbors, taste a few wines that we’re too cheap to ever actually buy, and get out of the house for a few hours.  After that we went back home, hunkered down, and watched a movie.

Saturday was truly a day of entertainment.  Not sure if that’s a good thing or not; a little too busy for my tastes.  Doni wisely prepped for the day by sleeping until 11:00 in the afternoon with the menagerie.  As soon as she and Gabe saw fit to get out of bed, we loaded up and headed out to Petsmart for our weekend re-stock on treats, food, toys, etc.  We got the boy a few more “interactive toys,” which are supposed to occupy his time in his crate, and a few bones and such.  His foster Mom works there too, so we visited with her for a while.  After our little shopping trip, we headed up to the Northlands to hit the lake with the Martins.  Few hours of floating around in the water, then we went to a birthday party at one of their neighbors’ houses.  After THAT party we headed back to our ‘hood and picked up the pup, then went to a house-warming party at Susan’s.  This was quite the well-attended fiesta, and we ended up staying quite ridiculously late.  Gabe seemed to enjoy all the attention too, and he behaved very nicely.

Sunday we slept in for a bit, then trudged down to Jalapenos for a little lunch.  While we sat there munching our enchiladas, we also planned out our menu for the week.  Very organized of us, I thought.  The basis for this little rash of planning was reading Braun’s Food Blog.  He has single-handedly inspired me to get back into cooking.  Somewhere between the house in Texas and the apartment downtown, I kind of lost interest in the whole food thing.  It’s just so much easier to let somebody else cook it for you.  But, I’m gonna give it a try again, starting this very week.  Gonna start off slow…  Maybe just one or two nights a week, and see what happens.  After deciding on our culinary schedule for the week, we split up to go do “stuff”.  Doni hit the local markets to collect up the ingredients for said menu, and I went home to mow the lawn.  Somewhere during the one-mile drive from the restaurant to the house, I decided it was too hot to mow and went to Woodside to play tennis.  Hopefully everyone can appreciate the stupidity of this decision.  “Man, way too hot to mow, think I’ll go run around on a big slab of asphalt.”  Oh well, the sweat did me good.  Todd and I took on Mike and Kristy in a few games of doubles.  This was billed as the clash between our age and experience, versus their youth and energy.  Our age turned out to be quite a hindrance, and actually we don’t have any experience, so we lost rather badly.  What the heck, it was fun.  Wait a minute…  It sucked.  After laying on the couch for a few hours under ice packs, we went over to Susan’s for some Chinese take-out and HBO.

That wrapped up the week.  Tonight we’re going to the last Starlight show of the season, “Hello Dolly.”  Prime rib on the menu.  I’ll start my new cooking regimen tomorrow.

I was just gonna take a pass on this week, since I didn’t get an update posted yesterday.  But when Braun weighs in on the message board, laziness is no longer an option.  Get it done, and get it done now.  Actually, I had a sneaking suspicion that something spectacularly interesting was going to happen last night so I held off for an extra day.  That way I could share the excitement with all.  Such was not the case however… Darn.

We kicked off the weekend last Friday with Martins and Garcia down at the Brooksider deck.  I guess Todd was there too, but when isn’t he.  Nothing extraordinary to report… General miss-behavior and such.  After we tired of the Brooksider, Martin came over and hung out at the house for awhile, and the girls went over to Ed and Kim’s for who-knows-what.  Apparently they prefer the company of the younger generation.

Saturday was packed full of events, none of which where particularly interesting, but all of which shall be related for the sake of content.  Gabe and I started off the day walking down to Brookside to watch Todd get abused on the tennis court.  Tennis is kind of our sport-of-the-moment, I guess.  We decided that since we belong to a “racquet club” we should actually play some type of racquet sport, so we picked tennis.  We watched them until it got a little too hot for the pup, then I went down to Woodside to play a few games myself.  Actually I didn’t play any “games”… Susan and I just hit for an hour or so.  And to further clarify, there wasn’t really much “hitting,” just a lot of running after errant tennis balls in 95-degree heat.  I am not entirely convinced that I like this game, but I’m approaching it with my typical open-minded attitude.  After nearly passing out from the heat, I took a quick nap and then it was time for the THEATER!!!!  Yee ha.  On the upside, dinner was awesome… brisket, chicken, sausage and beans.  Jack Stack caters the dinners, and every now and then they stray from their forte’.  Never works out too good either; Stick with what you’re good at.  The show was “Singing in the Rain.”  Not too bad, as plays go.  A bit long perhaps… The first half was definitely pushing the limits of my attention span.

Sunday was relatively busy too.  My Mom and the Morelocks met us at Perkins on 75th for a little breakfast to get the day started.  I’ve noticed that whenever I mention Perkins, I generally get a reaction of condolence.  I can’t quite figure that out… I happen to like Perkins.  I picked it actually.  Sure, there are places around my house with a little more “local flair”.  BUT… They don’t give you a side of pancakes.  That’s a deal-breaker for me.  I like pancakes, but I don’t want JUST pancakes.  Nobody fills this requirement but Perkins that I’ve found.  I like just about anything with sausage gravy on it, a few eggs, breakfast meat of any type or all types, AND a few pancakes.  Yes this is an obscene amount of food, but I can handle it.  After that I went down and hung out with Todd for a while at the Brooksider and watched a bit of the baseball game, and then we went to Susan’s for dinner and HBO.  We had Church’s chicken and sides for dinner… It wasn’t exactly a day of healthy eating.  But it was GOOD.

Crap, I feel like we’ve been transported back to Texas.  Actually, it was a lot hotter for a lot longer down there, but this still sucks.  Turns out that poor ol’ Gabe isn’t too heat tolerant either, but he doesn’t seem to know it.  He’ll run himself into the ground, so we have to keep an eye on him.

Not too much went on this weekend.  The entire weekend was irreparably damaged by work.  Oh well, it happens.   Gotta pay the bills.  If I wasn’t working, I was laying on the couch wrapped up in the “Good Times” marathon.  I’m sure everybody else watched that too, huh?  Oh yeah, back-to-back-to-back Good Times episodes, 24 hours a day.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  Andy Griffith Show maybe.

As far as entertainment goes, I went to the ‘Sider for a few hours Friday night.  It was too hot to sit out on the deck though so I didn’t stay long.  Saturday afternoon I went to lunch out in Kansas with Munkirs, if you want to put that in the entertainment category.  Not a whole lot of verbiage during the meal, but the burrito was excellent.  Actually I can recall the entire conversation, which I shall relate for those not fortunate enough to attend:
James:  “Float Trip is pretty late next year.”
Phil:  “Yeah it is.  But the American Royal BBQ is the same weekend as last year.”
James:  “mmmm hmmmm.  Might get some new hiking boots for it this year.”
Phil:  “Yep.”
After that I tried to go to a party over at Susan’s, but didn’t stay long.  I think I had some kind of social panic attack and had to leave after about 10 minutes.  I had to go in to work at midnight anyway, so it probably was for the best.

Sunday was just a blur of “Good Times” episodes in between conference calls.  Never did get the stupid lawn mowed either.  I am trying to just let it go until Wednesday when it is supposed to cool off a bit.  I’m in no condition to be out in this heat.  Did everyone read the article in the paper this weekend about the Pitbull Rescue?  It’s a pretty good article.  Gabe came from the MPR; they’s good peoples.  I also read this joke in the paper this weekend, which I got a guffaw out of… I don’t know why.  One of my favorite jokes is the “Frayed Knot” one, so I guess this falls along those lines.  If I was any good at joke-telling I could take this one to the Brooksider.  But I’m not.

A guy and his pet newt walk into a bar.

The bartender asks, “What’s that thing on your shoulder?”

The guy says, “Oh, well he’s my pet.  His name is Tiny.”

The bartender asks, “Why’d you name him that?”

And the guy replies, “Because he’s my newt!”

BAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!!!!  “MY NEWT”.  Whew, that slays me.

Man it is too hot for me out there.  I had to break down and mow the yard yesterday and it like to killed me.  It didn’t help that I waited until 1:30 in the afternoon to do it either.  I’m ready for Fall.

That was a relatively busy weekend.  A rather social one too.  We started off the weekend Friday at Starlight with the Martins.  The show for the week was “Jesus Christ Superstar.”  I will have to rate the production a “high tolerable.”  While I will probably go to my grave without ever saying I actually LIKED a show, I will admit that this was one of the better ones.  It was more entertaining than watching the bats that fly around over the stage, which is unusual.

Saturday was entirely too busy, but entertaining.  We headed up to Smithville and took a cruise on the Martin’s boat for the better part of the afternoon.  The Munkirs came up too…  We’ve now seen them twice in as many weeks!!  Remarkable!  After taking in roughly way too much sun, we headed back to the slums to clean up, and then everybody came down and joined us for dinner at Carmen’s.  The Scotten’s even took a little break from their moving endeavors to voyage north and dine with us.  It was Donna and Kelly’s birthday; we even sang happy birthday and the whole nine yards.  The most notable event of the evening was Munkirs racking up 4 witty comments during dinner.  This quite possibly eclipsed his life-long total, and all in one evening!!  Apparently he has been sitting at home in the dark crafting these zingers during the last 2-3 months that he’s been MIA.  After dinner I had to go to work… BOOOO!!!!

Sunday I spent most of the day at home, putting in some quality time with Gabe.  He obviously wasn’t too pleased at being left alone all day Saturday while we were out playing around, so I had to make it up to him.  A little walking, a little fetch… Doesn’t take much to keep him occupied.  I also ventured into a little electrical repair in the house.  We recently had a new over-the-stove microwave installed, and of course nothing can ever, ever, ever work right the first time.  It would run for about a minute and then power off.  Not blow a fuse…  Just shut down.  After a little experimentation, we found that if you pounded on a certain junction box in the basement, it would come back on.  So, after a few weeks of thinking about it, I finally got around to opening up said box to have a look-see.  It wasn’t pretty;  One of the wire nuts had completely melted down and dripped plastic all over the place, and burned through a few of the wires.  Even to the untrained eye, it appeared quite unsafe.  So, I took everything apart, cleaned it up, and put it back together.  So far, so good…  The microwave runs, and nothing seems to get hot.  There is about a 15 percent chance that my house is on fire right now.

That strikes me as a rather lame update as I review it.  The weekend was much more eventful than indicated in this summary.  Guess you’ll just have to trust me on that.  Tonight is supposed to be a bit cooler…  I vote “Brooksider Deck” for dinner.