le weekend: of gardening, cookouts and the wrath of red wine
Andrew stayed home Saturday. a gorgeous day for gardening.
we went to the nursery in the morning;
got tomato plants, cukes, a few herbs from plant, a few from seed, marigolds, Pat chose a nasturtium.
the creeping phlox i wanted was on the sale table.
lots of seeds for corn and beans and herbs.
got netting for the fence, a bag of gypsum to start breaking up the clay and 10 bags of humus.
we pulled up most of the sod on the 12' x 20' spot, tilled the soil, tilled in the gypsum,
a hard day's work for sure. even Pat helped before running off to play with the cul de sac kids.
Saturday evening went to Dario's for a cookout.
i wasn't sure what to expect really...Dario's folks are Portuguese, so i figured it would be relaxed and meandering. it was vaguely reminiscent of gatherings at the Falcon residence, but with far fewer people, a slightly younger crowd, no dancing, and the same lovely wine-induced general drunkeness. and food, so much food. beginning with skewered scallops and shrimp, then baby ribs, then sausages, then regular ribs, and finally chicken. they had three grills going, though one just held burning logs, which was nice when the sun set. Pat was delighted with the dog who was so eager to catch the frisbee. he was wiping dog spit on his shirt for an hour, but still picking up the frisbee, tossing it into the yard, laughing when she caught it. we met a neighbor who was a pleasant surprise, funny and interesting. yet another male taken under the spell of the Aussie, lol. men love Andrew, i swear they do. the neighbor seemed quite taken with all three of us actually. (he was married with 2 young kids, and the wife had been there but had gone back next door to put the boys to bed.) he wasn't drinking either, so the suggestions to get in touch, to get together again were really nice.
beer had been the go since we got there and the wine seemed to come out as it got darker.
dessert and wine and a few murmurs of Fado and singing. Portuguese was being spoken at the other end of the tables, and one of the husbands was French, so there seemed to be some of that too. Pat ate too many cookies and enjoyed the easy run of the backyard and we talked about kitchen cabinets and ribs and the nutritional content of music. when 9:30 rolled around, i had reached my social limit though. as the group got smaller and a few left, i could just feel the potential of speaking more closely with too many new people tightening. kids are great for that though, lol. Pat and i left with the unsuspected reason of getting him off to bed. Andrew stayed, so happy and comfortable. he was already onto the red wine, glowing. i'm not sure what he's looking for in situations like that, but i'm pretty sure it has far more to do with the company than the alcohol.
Sunday might have persuaded him to enjoy the company more and the alcohol a bit less, lol. he was up and down, feeling better and worse all day until about 6pm. sips of water lead to a bit of pineapple that induced a bit of throwing up, lol. we did a bit more work in the garden actually; tookup the last bits of sod,
tilled in the humus and some rotting leaves from last Autumn. i thought we might be tilling in a bit of sick as well, lol, but looks like it'll just be the two Tooheys caps for good luck.