3 Cheers

So I can just hear the roar through my Ethernet connection, "Ray! What did you do this weekend!" Well let me tell you

We hosted a cookout celebration for Nancy in honor of her successful completion of Bachelors of Science in Nursing curriculum at Texas Woman's University.

Now if I tried to convince you that I was excited and eager for the honor of having 20+ people (some being children) over to my house, then I'd be lying to you. I am an individual that lives and dies by my routines. I don't like to carry on "small talk" and I'm not comfortable if I'm not talking about work.

When it comes to parties, I just don't make it a practice of attending them. When I was dragged to company parties under penalty of termination, I was the one sitting on the couch in the corner. If it was at someone's house, then I was the once sitting in the corner watching TV.

My wife has a veracious appetite for the social. She loves attending get togethers and always wanted to host one at our house. What better opportunity than to celebrate her graduation from college.

I was politely told to fake my excitement and if I ruined her party I would rue the day. So I let her do what she wanted.

Since I was the designated grill-master (master being the laughable term), I immediately called the true grill master of the family....My brother....And asked, nay, begged for help. With his excellent guidance I knew how many bratwurst to buy and how many burgers we should have on hand.

I was actually amazed that almost everyone who was invited ended up showing up. Even her only brother, who lives about 2.5 hours away and who is very difficult to get out of his neck of the woods, showed up with his fiancee and kids. I think fun was had by all.

I even was even able to kick the brats up a notch. My brother asked me to try a new preparation technique and it proved to be a hit. This time, I had actual bratwurst connoisseurs in my presence and they were just nodding their heads in agreement after the first bite and giving me the thumbs up. Definitely an ego stroker!

My brother-in-law's fiancee made the cake and it turned out to be a masterpiece. Granted, it went through a slight mishap on the way to our house. Apparently, my brother-in-law took an offramp too quickly and caused the cake to slide in the box and messed up the icing on one side. So, after a quick trip to Wal-Mart to pick up supplies, she quickly had it repaired and we got the joy of eating the frosting she scraped off to make the repair.

The most amazing thing was that the dogs behaved. We were really worried about how they would fare with that many people wandering within their domain. We were especially worried about Coco. She is really skiddish around strangers and we had 20+ of them running around. She would run and hide in the bedroom and then poke her head out of the bedroom door every now and again and look to see if everyone was still there. Sometime she would wander out, make a couple laps and then run back to her hiding place.

When it was all said and done, I didn't ruin Nancy's celebration and I made a few more fans of my grilled hamburgers and sausages.

So blog-izens, that's all I have to say about my weekend.