I love Sundays, and cofffee, definitely coffee... I Love...

That stuff! LOVE IT

Yesterday was a fabulous day. I mentioned it before, but the thing about a full-time job, is that you truly DO enjoy your weekends more. My Lady and I had a wonderful day, and I'm sincerely hoping for yet another wonderful day today.

After sleeping in (what a blessed thing, a pillow can be) we both woke up to a quiet house. That's right... My mother (Fi's nemesis just kidding, sorta) is house-sitting this weekend for an old friend. It's amazing how quickly our "marriage" improves with the lack of an audience. Not that our marriage is rough, but there are more "I love yous" more "you're beautifuls" and we seem to enjoy doing things for each other even more.

Case in point: My Lady was bored with my "newspaper" reading on the back deck. So... She went in and cooked breakfast. It was gorgeous (I mentioned that yesterday, actually) but then after showering, I did the dishes. Why? 'Cause that's what you DO when the other person cooks! Anyhoo... She worked on some design work she's doing for her parents back in Scotland (money is good) and I began working on a "talk" that I'm giving at my old University about Graduate school.

After working on things that we actually enjoyed working on... We decided to do a cook-out barbecue on the deck. We have an old fashioned Weber grill... And I'm pretty damn fabulous cooking outside... (Slight digression follows:)

I'm going to try to paraphrase an old quote from the rather horrific show "Friends:" "Men build FIRE. Men cook MEAT. Men pee on fire to PUT IT OUT." - Chandler Bing.

But it's true... (Not the peeing of course) but there's something about the upbringing of an American male, where we tend to be damn good at cooking on a grill outside. Actually... I've come to understand that this skill is dwindling in our population. You see... Back when I was a kid, Mothers cooked. The ONLY time you would see a guy cooking was when he was on the deck/porch burning all sorts of varieties of bloody meat. I came from this background... My father (whom I have a few unsolved issues) did do a FEW nice things... One of them was to teach me how to cook on a Weber. Things have changed lately... Men actually cook in the kitchen... (I'm one of them) Although my wife and my mother are both very good cooks... I've been told by many that I'm the best amateur cook they know. You'll notice I'm not so full of hubris that I say "amateur CHEF" 'cause that's silly... However, I do have a knack, and supreme enjoyment for cooking in the kitchen... I experiment with sauces, pastas, roasting and sautéing, baking and frying... I LOVE it. But no matter how enjoyable I find cooking indoors... There's something magical about the process and ritual involved in cooking on a grill. The cleaning of the grill, the meticulous stacking of the charcoal briquettes, the lighter fluid (usually too much) in order to get the proper "whoosh" of flame as you light the grill, the wire-brush scrubbing of the grill once it's reached an optimal temperature... The articulation of the vents to allow for proper cooking temperature... The movement of the meat and veg on the grill to ensure compete and safe cooking temperatures without allowing the meat and veg to get "toooooo" chargrilled to the point where it actually resembles the charcoal below it... All of these things are magical to me.

End of digression... Hope you're still here:

Anyhoo... We made burgers and brats on the grill... (Yeah, TURKEY, not real... I'm still a strange "health-nut" sort of fellow) And My Lady made a wonderful salad with greens and avocado and a light vinaigrette... All in all, it was wonderful..............

Finally... We watched two videos. The first... The Squid and the Whale, which is quite possibly one of the more disturbing and surreal depressing films I've seen in a very, very long time. Good though. Then we watched North Country, with Charleze Theron. Um... Again... Fairly depressing... With a few scenes from which I'm still recovering... But again... Extremely GREAT as a film. I suggest to my readers that you try to see both of these films...

Anyhoo... Then, we went to bed late. It was glorious. The entire day was glorious and amazing and with bright swirlly lights.

I hope you'll forgive the "Cheese Sandwich Blog" today... (I just recently learned that term from Diablo Cody)

I'm sure very few of my readers actually cared to read a blow-by-blow account of a Saturday in Minnesota... However, I'm sure that there were at least a FEW interesting asides contained within the post today.

Finally... I found a "silly blog-thing" over at Chris Cope's Blog

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

And unlike him... I freaking HATED Dublin, and I'm a bit upset with the outcome of the quiz.

Tomorrow back to work. Gah. Wish me luck, folks... I'm going to need all the well-wishing that exists on Earth to get through this job.

Smiles and cute little furry kittens... (Screaming in agony as they're dropped from an overpass into rush-hour traffic - Poor kittens!)

-- Tuckmac