What is he thinking?

He's got a delicious dinner sitting in front of him: t bone steak from a grass fed cow, grilled squash from the farmers market, a nice glass of wine. We're sitting outside to eat because a cold front came through and it's currently a comfortable 70 degrees. And there he sits on the phone. Crazy. Anyway, I'm blogging from my phone because our internet has been given away temporarily. It's in Vegas, where I could be too, actually, except that i'm a good employee. Curse our need to pay the mortgage/my desire to have health insurance! I keep hearing splashing, doesn't sound loud enough to be a dolphin though. If only alfred weren't on the phone, then you wouldn't be reading such drudgery. Thank Phil.

Crime doesn't pay

Just a little update to our burglary case. Alfred found a screen that was bent and popped out of a window frame on Saturday morning, so I called the police again to report it. When the officers came to check on it, they told me what they had been able to determine had happened. Apparently our "painter" had robbed someone earlier that day and had 2 guys coming after him. The police think he just came to our house randomly, trying to find either a place to hide, a weapon to defend himself, or just something else to steal. After he left our house, the guys found him and beat the crap out of him, trying to kill him, really. Like, they slit his throat. All 3 were found and arrested that night, with our little breaking and entering pal ending up in the hospital. If he lives, he'll be charged with several counts of burglary. Apparently there have been a few robberies over the past couple of weeks in the area, and the police think it was all him. The bike and cell phone he had here were both stolen. An officer is coming over on Wednesday night with a photo lineup for me to ID him.

So now at least it's less scary being home alone, knowing it was just some random thing and the dude's in the hospital and then likely heading to prison (assuming he gets out of the hospital alive, the police said he's in really bad shape.) So the take home message: crime doesn't pay. Stay in school, kids.

what a day

The day started out great. My bosses are out of town for a wedding, so we ordered lunch at the main downtown office and I managed to kill 2 hours there. The problems began when I left work. I wasn't more than 2 miles away, stopped at a red light, when I got rear ended. Luckily my Hyundai is a freaking tank, so the bumper isn't even dented, just a couple of tiny scratches. She hit me hard enough to knock all the stuff out from the little storage area under he dashboard and make the sunroof cover slide open, and dent her SUV's bumper, but my car's just fine. We exchanged info, I gave them directions to the place they were trying to find (which is why she was distracted), and continued on my way.

The next issue came about 5 minutes after I got home. The doorbell rang, and by the time I got downstairs to open the door there was no one there, just a bike in the driveway. I went back upstairs to look out the windows and see if I could see anyone, and heard someone knock on the back door. Then they tried to open the door. Then I heard a man on the phone, telling someone to meet him down the road. By this point I was freaking the F out, considering grabbing Alfred's shotgun, but instead called my neighbor's house. His daughter in law answered, I asked her to look and see if she could see anyone, and then saw from the bedroom window that the garage door was open. She said she and her husband would be right over. They came over, he knocked on the window of the garage to get the guy's attention, and this weird dude came out of the garage with a paint can. Long story short, he said he was supposed to give someone a paint quote and thought this was the house. He finally left, after giving us a business card and saying that we should call him if we needed any work done. When I went into the garage to close the door, I saw that my car door was ajar and stuff had been moved around. So I decided to call the police. They came pretty quickly, which was nice, and the neighbor and I filled out statements. They found his bike and said they had an idea who it was. Hopefully they find him.

All I know is, they say bad things come in threes, and I've had 2 so far. So everyone just take care of yourself tonight, ok?

bonus birthday pics

Alfred's back home tonight, with both the internet card and pictures. So here are a few more photos from his birthday weekend. First up: Wilbur! This was taken about 2/3 of the way through the smoking process. His head is on the left. Note the arm bone poking through his skin.

Then, Bessie's head. This is just after it was taken out of the smoker. Its teeth are towards the right, that big black hole towards the left is the eyeball.

Another shot of the cow's head, this time with its mouth open, meat being torn off.

The birthday boy, happily loading his plate.

A shot of some of the non-meat based food.

And, for good measure, an upside down baby!

Sorry, Alfred

I'm watching the Emmys and was just on the phone with Alfred. The following is a true conversation.

Me: this montage is reminding me of all the people who died this year.

Alfred: like that judge from America's got talent.

Me: what? Which judge died?

Alfred: you know, that one from all the movies in the 70s. He just died a couple weeks ago.

Me: really? I don't know who you're talking about. (montage continues) oh, Patrick Swayze! Yeah, he's not on America's got talent. That's David Hasselhoff.

Have you ever seen the Saturday night live commercial for the mom celebrity translator? I feel like I need that with Alfred sometimes. If I can find a link tomorrow I'll post it, since I'm writing this from my phone right now.

happy birthday Alfred!

And just like that, he's 30. Our feast yesterday went off without a hitch. The meat was all smokey and delicious, the rest of the sides were awesome (the beans especially), and the pies turned out great. We ate some cow brain. I think about 20 people ended up coming, so it was a good turnout. Good thing, since there was so much food. We're hanging out at Alfred's parents' house for a bit today, recovering from our food comas, then back home since our house sitting gig is over. Back to real life...

preparation

Alfred's birthday is on Sunday, but since everyone we know is too busy to celebrate on his actual birthday, we're doing it up tomorrow. We're smoking an entire pig, a couple of pork shoulders, a couple of chickens, and a cow's head. Yeah, not sure whose idea the head was, but we'll see how it goes. They just cut the tongue out and are prepping the rest of the head. It's huge! (That's what she said!)

Alfred and I are house sitting this weekend still, so we're over at his parents' house tonight to help get things ready for tomorrow. Mercedes and Ilya came over too, and we've been working (more or less) for the past few hours. I made 4 (yup, 4) pecan pies, Mercedes tackled the fudge, Robyn and Alfred collaborated on the cole slaw, Robyn's been making some secret sauces, and Alfred and Max have been seasoning meat. There's a massive pot of boiled peanuts cooling on the stove. The gigantic smoker that we're borrowing is heating up outside. We're putting the meat on tonight and smoking it all night long so it's done in time for lunch tomorrow. It's going to be a heck of a Cracker (Florida pioneer) feast!

We've also been doing a bit of eating and drinking tonight. Alfred has discovered the wonders of Bold City brewery and bought a growler today for us to all sample. He also got to open his gift from Ilya and Mercedes: 27 pounds of peanuts! The boy's a peanut eating fool.

Tomorrow should be pretty exciting. We're going to have enough food to feed an army. Good blog fodder!