Whew, I was hopping this weekend.  Fortunately most of my events were fun-related.  That doesn’t do much for the house and it’s state of disrepair, but what can you do.  I kicked things off Friday at the Brooksider with my usual band of compadres.    It was a nice day out, if a little cool.  I hung out a little longer than usual enjoying the patio.  When I finally did get home, Teagan was most displeased with my late arrival so I had to play ball with her for a good hour.  Sheesh, do the responsibilities of parenting ever end??!?

Saturday I got up and, with some difficulty, rode the scooter down to the Westside area to meet my friends Ann & Mark for breakfast at Los Alamos.  I mention the difficulty because I ran smack into the Hospital Hill run.  This is a popular area of town for such events, but I forgot all about this one or I honestly would have rescheduled breakfast.  I eventually detoured my way down there though, with a rather late arrival.  By the time I finally got there, it had warmed up considerably, so I tossed my keys in my jacket and locked it securely in the under-seat storage for safe keeping.  Literally as soon as I slammed the seat shut I started replaying that sequence in my head.  “OK what just happened there…  Take keys out of scooter, put keys in jacket pocket, lock jacket under seat. No that can’t be right, because that would mean…  Aw shoot.”  Rats.  I stomped around fretting about this unfortunate situation for a bit, then decided there wasn’t much to do about it and crossed the street to enjoy breakfast.  And, enjoy it I did.  Pretty interesting place, and very good.  I opted for a standard plate of chorizo con juevos, with rice and beans.  While that’s pretty standard Mexican Food Menu fare, it was definitely an above-average entry in the category.  Ann got a “platter,” where she selected three meats from their large steam table, with sides of rice and beans.  When I get back there, I’ll go that route.  I should have Saturday, but I was a bit intimidated by the conversational exchange required to figure out what you wanted.  (Mild language barrier going on at the order counter.)  She ended up with short ribs, carnitas, and an as-yet unidentified pork in red chile sauce.  It was a ridiculously large serving, the remainder of which is in my ‘fridge;  Score!  After breakfast they kindly transported me back home, where I set about the arduous task of finding the spare key to the scooter.  Literally hours later, I found one in an old coat I hadn’t worn for some time.  I took the Metro back down there, and after a refreshing hike through the ‘hood the situation was resolved.  Being moderately stressed after this, I rolled back to the Brooksider and hung out watching the baseball game with the boys, even getting to see a rare victory.

Sunday was event-filled also.  I got up early-ish and met Munkirs and his neighbor for a brisk morning bicycle ride.  In this case, “brisk” refers to the weather, not our pace.  We had a leisurely bit of exercise;  I’m still not up to any faster paced rides.  After that solid start to the day, I met Mom out in Raymore for brunch.  I rode my motorcycle out there, and it was still quite chilly!  Apparently I went by the calendar and not the thermometer when I left;  I about froze.  After enjoying my tasty omelette, I headed back home to prepare for a trip to Emporia to celebrate my niece’s birthday.  It would have made sense to leave from Raymore directly, but I was most definitely under-dressed for the weather so I needed a few more layers.  After donning some flannel-lined jeans and a heavier shirt, I headed south for Emporia.  I had grand thoughts of taking a relaxing, scenic motorcycle ride to get there, but that was thwarted by 1) my inherent geographical challenges, and 2) my desire to arrive on the same calendar day.  My phone did courteously provide a few alternate routes, but they were so long as to be quite impractical.  So, I just blasted down I-35, nervous as that made me.  I’ve got a nice jacket and helmet, but something tells me if a semi decides to pull over into your lane they aren’t going to make a whole lot of difference.  I arrived intact though, and enjoyed a tasty taco dinner in their brand spankin’ new home.  Happy #9 Faith!