A Big Old Party Like You Never Saw

Back to work today after several days of celebrating end of school for the kids and taking long Memorial Day weekend.

• Thursday afternoon: End of school year celebration with the family at Bobbie’s Dairy Dip in West Nashville. The Boy ate his first chocolate dipped cone, and he did better with it than I would have thought. This boy can’t eat a bowl of ice cream without wearing it on his pants, so I was wary of how he’d handle soft serve ice cream with a chocolate shell coating in 85 degree weather. But he did okay. Wife ate hers without spilling a drop, but then she is an ice cream consuming professional.
  
• Thursday night: Watched The Wrestler. This will be the subject of a separate blog later this week. I’ll just say this for now—If I went to a strip club and Pam/Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) was a dancer, she would get all of my money. My only salvation would be that my bank limits the amount of money I can withdraw in a day on the ATM.
  
• Friday evening: Went to see a play at the Boiler Room theatre in Franklin. This will be the subject of a separate blog later this week.
  
• Saturday morning: Met some friends from New Orleans and had breakfast at Puckett’s in Franklin. I Ate from the breakfast buffet. Yum. This was my first visit to the Franklin Puckett’s, being a Leiper’s Fork Pucketts fan.
  
• Saturday after breakfast: Went shopping for summer clothes. Someone spent a ton of money. Oh wait. That was me.
  
• Saturday afternoon: Went to grocery store in preparation for cooking to come. Spent a lot of money. I’m really not a very smart shopper.
  
• Saturday evening: Went to see the Long Players play Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run at Mercy Lounge. Four words—Will Hoge Thunder Road. This may be the subject of a separate blog. Got to see Birmingham Steve. Also Lisa Gray was there, the awesome girl singer who backs up Tommy Womack.
  
• Sunday lunch: Cooked Shrimp and Grits, with a creole sauce and andouille sausage. Key lime pie from Publix for dessert.
  
• Sunday evening: Cooked my signature dish – Chicken Sauce Robert, from a John Folse cookbook I have. It’s been way too long since I’ve spent any time in the kitchen.
  
• Monday morning: Cooked vegetable frittata, with leeks and squash. The Boy wasn’t having any of it. The Girl thought it looked gross but admitted that it tasted good.
  
• Monday lunch: MIL, BIL, SIL and nieces came over for lunch. I cooked: pork kabobs, with apples and sweet potatoes; chicken kabobs with tomatoes, bell peppers and Vidalia onions; hamburgers, hot dogs, brats; shrimp burgers (really like a crab cake but with shrimp); these appetizer kabobs with priscuitto, cantelope and mozzarella cheese; another appetizer, called herb-tomato crustina which is really just a mixture of tomatoes and feta cheese on top of garlic toasted slices of french bread; onion rings (I was on a huge Vidalia onion kick this weekend). Wife made her famous potato salad. MIL brought over a peach/cream pie and a “four layer delight” dessert with a graham cracker like crust, two kinds of pudding, and whipped cream topping. We started snacking on appetizers on the patio a little past noon and got up from the dining room table at 3pm.
  
• Monday evening: Left over pizza for dinner. Watched Slumdog Millionaire. Liked it, but Marisa Tomei wasn’t in this one.

Thankfully, today should be a pretty quiet day at Mid-City Bowling Lanes. Otherwise, I think I would wind up re-doing everything tomorrow that I do today.