My countdown to vacation has begun.  All I have to do is struggle until Thursday, then we are flying to Arizona on Friday for a week of whatever-you-do-in-Arizona.  While I am admittedly a bit less than enthusiastic about spending my hard earned money on a trip within the continental US, I am none-the-less looking forward to a little time off.  Maybe we’ll hit the lottery soon and I can get someplace a bit more tropical next time around.

The weekend started off nicely with a tasty lunch at Fiorella’s BBQ.  If there’s anything better than a BBQ lunch, it’s weaseling it out of Kevin Brown.  Yes, he actually picked up the tab, in a manner of speaking.  I had the lamb ribs, which I’d never tried before.  I’m now on a city-wide hunt to find some I can make at home though, because they were awesome.  If I could make so bold a statement, I think I’ll even say they were the best thing I’ve ever had there.  I probably need to go back and make sure it wasn’t just a fluke.  After lunch I went back and served the rest of my hard time at work, then went and met my friend John up at Bobby Bakers for an end-of-week celebration.  We hung out there for a while, then I went home to find Donette hard at work in the kitchen as usual.  She went on some kind of crazy binge with the KitchenAid, determined to grind up everything in the house.  She’d fed two whole pork butts and a beef roast through it by the time I got home, resulting in rather massive batches of italian sausage, breakfast sausage, and chorizo.  (All this wonderful product she spent all day on, and I got frozen pizza for dinner;  Not sure what happened there.)  After dinner we decided to watch a movie to kill some time before a little Rock Band session.  We decided on The Changeling, which sounded engaging enough.  As usual, I was fast asleep five minutes into it, and my day was over.

Saturday morning, after a tasty biscuit & gravy breakfast,  Gabe & I took a rather overdue trip out to Mom’s to see what was happening in the southlands.  I finally got her doorknob fixed on the front door, although I managed to turn the 20 minute install into a two hour project as usual.  I also hooked up a battery charger to my motorcycle, which is sitting in her garage, so hopefully the weather will cooperate this week and I’ll be riding again soon.  After that visit, I went back home and found Donette STILL working in the kitchen.  She’d whipped up two enormous batches of red sauce, one with meat and one without.  Out of control.  And, as on Friday night, I went without dinner.  I guess all this food is just fer lookin’ at, not eating.  I slugged around on the couch all evening not doing too much, because I had to work later in the night and needed to rest up.  I did get in a solid two-hour Rock Band session with Ed, which was fun.  I didn’t lose my connection once either, so all my work last weekend musta paid off.

Ed & I wrapped up our jam-a-thon around 11:00 Saturday night, then I headed upstairs to work for the rest of the night.  Between staying up all night and the Daylight Savings crap, I was all out of sorts on Sunday.  I’m still a bit disoriented as a matter of fact.  I’m not sure what exactly transpired during the day, but I do somewhat recall the Martins coming over for dinner.  Donette actually served some of the food she’d been making all weekend;  I guess because we had company.  We had a tasty spaghetti dinner.  She even made the pasta from scratch, although it kind of tended to stick together.  (She insists she is going to try that experiment again tonight, we’ll see if she comes through.)