and here it comes, i guess

i just looked through the last week and realized i never did my traditional “juneteenth bbq wrap-up” bit…

…so we’ll correct that now.

they say with age comes wisdom, and i feel a day without learning something new is a day wasted…not to be confused with a day you STAY wasted, in which case you probably didn’t learn shit and it’s okay. moving on.

six things i learned at the 15th annual juneteenth “livin’ XL” bbq

6. i still REALLY hate gas grills – the only true down side to doing this at harold’s place, other than the whole “gotta stay sober to drive home” thing…the gas grill. this time it made me work it, ’cause we got set up at one, but it didn’t work, so we moved to the other, cooked the chicken (and non-chicken) only for that one to run out of gas after that but the first one suddenly decided to resurrect itself and we (read: “i”) cooked the beef and pork quickly and quietly – but that grill (same one we’ve used the last three years, i should add) worked fabulously till we shut down at 1am…

5. i like having it away from home after all – i almost moved it back to my place since it was my 40th and all, plus than more lockhart people could go. then it occurred to me – most people i know from l-town wouldn’t go to my place either way, and doing it in austin helps out the atomic folk, plus no cleaning up after and no 90 degree house from people going in and out of the house. just way more positives than negatives to doing it away from home…but if harold ever moves what the hell do i do?

4. underbuying is the key – when i DID do it at the house i always inevitably ran out of meat. than my drunk ass would need to get to the store, get more, and come back and keep going. for some reason since i moved it to H’s place i started overbuying when i don’t even get drunk so the biggest hurdle wasn’t an issue…resulting in (literally) POUNDS of meat coming back to my house and to a degree getting trashed. this year i bought HALF of what i thought i needed, dropping only fifty bucks (half of what i ever spend) and we had just enough to take care of business. nice. and H still owes me for that fake chicken shit…

3. there are no milestones – i REALLY wanted to make a big deal of this since it was both the fifteenth anniversary of my mixed bag o’ friends getting together (most of these folks don’t interact 364 days out of the year) AND it was my 40th. still feels like the 30’s, but later…same drama and bullshit, different day. literally. i’m starting to realize that milestones are where you MAKE them, they’re not just the nature of a number.

2. teen fail part i – teenagers will always be amused when you respond to double entandra phrases with “that’s what she said”…until they think about it and realize you’re dating their mom. than they just look mortified. don’t know if that still fits today, but never mind that now…

1. the more things change, the more they stay the same – i had both some of the “old guard” (i.e. people that were at the first party at the driskill hotel in ’96) and new atomic folk that this was their first one. everybody seemed to enjoy the food and the fun. no matter what, this tradition will have to keep going…it’s nice to have SOME resemblance of stability in some part of my life these days…