“Rise cow, and live.”
“Pour me, pour me, pour me another shot of whiskey.”

I had my quasi-annual BBQ yesterday; I say quasi because while I try to have it every year I've missed a summer somewhere along the way. I hosted the first one in August of ’99 as a going away to college party for everyone. It was quite a success, and so I’ve repeated it almost every year since. At it’s high point there were probably 17 people or so in attendance; my acceptance list is usually almost 100% of the guest list, because I plan ahead and try to work it to when everyone can come. But this just seems to be a busy summer for people, and so it came together very last minute - like two days prior to the event itself. And we did it in the afternoon instead of the evening like normal. Between it being too last minute for some, and losing contact with others, and Brandy getting sick, there were only 7 of us (plus baby Benjamin) there Saturday. So compared to other BBQs it was pretty low key.

It was still fun though. In highschool I had two - three separate groups of friends with a few crossovers; I generally invited everybody to this BBQ. But this time I only invited 2/3 groups, and basically the ones that showed up were all of one group, so it was cool. Kara and Leo always keep us entertained; Leo is just a funny guy in general, and Kara is in vet school, which provides many excellent stories. She was telling us how it’s hard to make money as a large animal vet, because farmers tend not to call for the vet until the animal is practically dead, so you’re basically being asked to resurrect the cow. (Thus the quote.)

The day before the BBQ was also a fun one; I drove 2 hours down to the Gasconade County Fair to go see Trick Pony with my sister, brother-in-law, and some others. It was really a great concert. The band has a lot of energy and the songs from their new CD sound good; I want to buy it when it’s released in August. Unfortunately the crowd was pretty laid back and took awhile to get into the concert. They had set up a stage on the baseball field; everyone came early and lined up their folding chairs and then left them to go enjoy the fair. So a lot of the people that were in the middle and front were older people who just wanted to sit back and listen, instead of being active participants – you know, getting up, screaming when Ira makes the guitar do acrobatics or rides the base fiddle across the stage, singing the choruses, dancing, and yelping appreciatively at amusing lyrics. There were definitely groups of people doing that, but not enough to overwhelm the sit-back crowd. Andrea and I waited in line to get autographs though, and I impressed Ira by knowing that the cello – like instrument he was playing was a bass fiddle. That was thanks to my Dad, who suggested that might be what it was when I described it prior to the concert. He seemed impressed that they used a bass fiddle; it’s true not many groups do these days.

So yeah, that was the weekend.