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.