Another short week in the making, nice.  Thursday begins the long weekend at the American Royal BBQ, so I took off Thursday and Friday.  Let the marathon begin…  Now if I can just get through Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Today has already kicked off with a little car trouble…  I guess I left something on in the “truck,” so we woke up to a dead battery this morning.  It will be interesting to see how long it sits in the garage before we take the trouble to get it jumped;  I’m conservatively guessing two weeks, unless we need it to haul stuff around this coming weekend.

The BBQ activities have already started, actually.  Friday I crossed the river and went up to Martin’s house to start prep work for the party.  We trimmed up a little meat so we’d be ready to cook the next day;  Nearly 160 pounds of brisket and pork butt.  Whew, that’s a lot of flesh.  Gets a little bigger every year;  That doesn’t even count all the ribs, chicken & sausage that we still have to get done.  We got it all carved up and seasoned, then I retreated back to the safety of the southlands, stopping by the 810 Zone on the way for some socialization.  I went to a guy’s 24th birthday party, just to make myself feel younger.  And I supposed it worked, at least until I went home at 8:30 because I was getting tired.

Saturday I once again crossed the river;  Twice in one weekend!  Geez that’s more miles than we put on the car in the entire last month.  Martin had the smoker fired up and we cooked up all the meat that we had prepped the night before.  That pretty much killed the entire day, but it was fun.  He put the TV out on the back deck, so we watched college games, and cooked, and…  That was it.  After everything got cooked, we broke out the trusty food saver and got everything vacuum sealed too;  I’d say we are in pretty good shape for a party this Friday.

Sunday, well, I guess I wasted the entire day again.  As I’ve done the last several Sundays, I sat on the couch watching football games that I wasn’t even remotely interested in.  Occasionally I would glance out the window and think “Sure looks nice out there, I should probably do something.”  But I never did, just sat there and clicked through channels.  At least next Sunday is already spoken for with the BBQ, so it won’t be a totally wasted day.  (Depending on your definition of a wasted day, naturally.)  The highlight of the day was lunch I’d say;  Donette whipped up a five-way for us, with a few chili dogs for appetizers.  That made for a “unique” little diversion in the day, I suppose.