That weekend went fast.  I think I was cheated somehow or another.  We started things off slow on Friday down at the Brooksider Patio.  One could also argue that I went to the Plaza Art Fair too, but it was purely by chance, or a better description might be by poor planning.  I decided I needed to run down to Diebel’s to pick up a cigar;  Bad idea.  It was a mob scene down there.  Luckily I was on the scooter so I could just hop up on the sidewalk for some convenient parking.  I still had to walk through that disaster though.

Saturday started off well, then slowly dissolved into somewhat of a bust.  Donette got up early and headed down to Brookside for the annual “Strut With Your Mutt” event.  She and another girl had a booth set up to do some fundraising for her upcoming 1/2-marathon.  They were selling assorted homemade doggie treats, which she had been up all night baking.  Teagan and I walked down there at a slightly more reasonable hour and joined her.  Teagan did very well, and all the excitement wore her out nicely.  Donette did good with her fundraising too, it was worth a few hours of sitting out in the beautiful weather.  The only thing we had planned after that was the first class in Teagan’s next “grade;”  Intermediate Obedience.  It was scheduled at 4:00, which was something of a day-killer in the first place.  As it turned out, the instructor called at 2:00 and said class was re-scheduled until next week.  Well crud, that’s nice to know, I had a list of other things I would have much rather done.  Oh well, what can ya’ do.  Instead I mowed the lawn, grilled up some pork chops, watched a few movies, and called it a day.

Sunday was a full day.  Donette headed out in the morning to run in a 5k event with some friends, and I headed up to Martin’s house to start the preparations for the Royal next weekend.  By the time I got there around 10:00, he already had eight pork butts nestled snugly in the cooker, merrily smoking along.  We figured there wasn’t much use in staring at the smoker, so we headed out on a brisk 17-mile bike ride to pass the time.  (The term “brisk” referring to the weather, not necessarily our pace.)  It was a nice ride, but there’s some hills up there in them northlands.  Whew.  After our ride, we sat out in the back yard the rest of the day, enjoying the weather and pretending we were working on the BBQ.  Mostly we just ate.  His neighbors brought over some pancakes to fill us up after the bike ride, and no sooner had we finished gorging on those then a buddy showed up with some sliced brisket and ribs.  By the time we polished that off, Martin had a tray of jalapeno poppers ready to come off the grill, and then we washed those down with a few more slabs of ribs, some chicken wings, a pumpkin souffle and a big green salad.  Eeeesh, it’s making me a bit queasy just thinking about it.  I was miserably stuffed, but that didn’t stop me from trying the smoked-meat chili another neighbor brought over later.  Ohhhhh my belly.  I think I might need a few (dozen) more bike rides to work that one off.