Beef & Bacardi

Where did the weekend go? Saturday, Sunday and Monday have simply flown by. I’m hoping today will go a little more slowly. Our nephew & his family left yesterday afternoon, so the house is relatively quiet.

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Sunday was supposed to have been a small barbecue for us, our nephew’s family, and a friend of mine (and his wife/kid) who had just moved back into town. Well, I’ll have to tell ya, it wasn’t so small:

Thirty-four people, forty-plus pounds of meat, and lots of beer and booze do not a small barbecue make. I started the grill at 9:15a.m. The last piece of meat came off around 8:45p.m.

I smoked a 15lb beef brisket that was met with rave reviews by all. It really was a masterpiece. It's pictured here about four hours from being done.

I also smoked an assortment of chicken, sausage and beef fajitas.

The Warden also put together a potato salad of sorts that was out of this world. I did them on the barbecue too. The recipe, which she got of the ol’ tee-vee, didn’t call for a mesquite smoking, but it should have. They were delicious (sliced), topped with cheese, chives, and bacon.


My fun-meter pegged at around 2:30a.m. Actually, my tummy was feeling a little woozy, so I quietly slipped away to our room. The Warden came looking for me and, after learning of my gastronomic distress, fetched some Pepto and some ice water for me. My savior! It took a few minutes for the spinning and turmoil in my stomach to lessen, but eventually it did. The noise and carrying on in the other part of the house didn’t; not until 5:00am anyway.

What's left of the 1.75 liter bottle is pictured at left. I drank all that nasty shit (straight) Sunday night, with the exception of four drinks me and my brother-in-law had the night before.

Monday we went with our nephew, his family, and The Warden’s sister (and grand kids) to a restaurant (The Rainforest Café) on the River Walk. We waited for two hours to eat. If not for the kids, who wanted desperately to eat there, we would’ve gone somewhere else. The food wasn’t worth the wait (or the price), but it was fun, and the kids liked it so all was groovy.

And today? We may go visit some friends with a few friends.

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Memory Du Jour:
Southern California, 1970
I was eight. I had a baseball game and was running a little late. The place where I was to meet the team for the ride (everyone in one big station wagon) was my elementary school. It was only two blocks away. I ran as fast as I could. I sprinted and wound my way through the school buildings, and railings, and bushes (There was a zigzag path bordered by shrubs that led to the playground). I got to the playground and saw the coach closing the back door to the station wagon. I tried to speed up. I suspect I had about 150 yards to get to the other side of the playground to the cul-de-sac where the team was. I knew it was no use. I was never going to make it (cue the tears). The coach walked up the left side of the wagon and opened the driver side door. It all went in slow motion. The coach got into the car (more tears now). When the door closed, I started to blubber a little. When the station wagon started to drive away, I was in a full-blown cry. The car slowly crept up the hill toward the railroad tracks where they would have to turn either left or right. I waved, yelled, and cried as I ran across that playground watching the car and my teammates leave without me. Someone finally saw me because the car stopped and started backing up to the playground! I spent the remainder of my run to the station wagon wiping away tears and snot so I wouldn’t look like a big baby when I finally reached my team.

I don’t remember anything else from that day. I don’t even remember getting into the station wagon; just the tears and running across that huge expanse of a playground.

Quote of the Day:

"If people want to get to know me better, they've got to know my parents and the values my parents instilled in me, and the fact that I was raised in West Texas, in the middle of the desert, a long way away from anywhere, hardly. There's a certain set of values you learn in that experience." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 5, 2006

Graphic Du Jour: