Culinarily, things were hit and miss. Our first meal from Blues City Deli was great as always. The owner Vince knows his sandwiches. I've maybe had a few as good but probably none better. That night we hit Square One, the brewpub across the street from our old lofts. We got off to a bad start right away when our friendly neighborhood bartender Art didn't recognize us. To say we were regulars is a major understatement and I'd even given him a bunch of Simpsons loot when we moved. I wanted tickertape or at least a hug. The wings were solid although they were out of IPA, their best offering in my opinion. My burger came out well done and I sent it back. Hennies' fried flounder fish and chips, usually the best thing on the menu was over fried. And when Hennies tells you something about cooking oil and its proper use you can take it to the bank. Since we left they changed the law in MO to allow bars to distill their own spirits. I had a hop liqueur that was interesting and dang refreshing. The next day I had an awesome tongue torta from this Mexican place we used to go to a lot. Mmmmmmm, tongue. By far the worst experience we had was at Mosaic, an upscale tapas joint downtown. We waited 40 minutes for our first round of treats to come out. When we asked about it they told us a group of 40 had just put their order in before ours. I was unsure as to why they had to prepare that entire order before at least bringing us our damn cheese plate. We ended up leaving after a couple plates, walked down the street, and were face deep in excellent sushi within 10 minutes. Yelp was informed. Our final meal was breakfast at Rooster, our favorite crepe spot. They messed up my order there as well but it was still pretty OK.
Sunday we headed down to the Hennies ranch in the Ozarks. There, we burned a winter's worth of brush Mike had been saving. There are/were two other piles this size.
The inferno was pretty epic, nearing Texas A&M homecoming levels.
While we were hosing down the surrounding grass, I could see young Soren, or more specifically his lily white behind back by the cabin. "Hey Hennies, I think Soren's trying to take a dump," I said, expecting him to have a problem with it. Instead, he said, "Oh, is he over by his poopin' rock?" He was. When in the Ozarks...
Here's the pooper in question through the heat shimmer mirage thingy (is there an actual term for that?)
As many of you know Oden had a pretty rough first year due to lung issues and prematurity. When we were there last summer he was basically confined to his room due to the risk of infection and had to be on oxygen pretty much all the time. He's doing much better now and it was pretty neat to see him tearing around in the style accustomed to children. Basically, going outside is like Christmas and polka dancing all rolled into one for him after being cooped up and attached to machines his whole life. His Caring Bridge page is linked to the blog so we can keep up with the little tike.
Liz, Oden and Soren at the Botanical Garden
Oden starting to get a little tuckered out at the Botanical Garden.
Soren and Liz feeding the fish at the Garden.
It was a good weekend. I played my first softball game (scrimmage, actually) on Sunday. It's modified fastpitch which made it pretty interesting. I got on every time I was up but two of those were on errors and the third play could have been made. I wore my Monkey Knife Fight shirt. It was nice to give it some action, even if not on the team for which it was designed. We crushed an inferior team then went to the VFW (our sponsor) for beer. We played two dart tournaments and I was on the winning team both times, which netted me 40 bucks. Everyone on the team was super "nice" and unbelievably Bostonian.
