What are these things you call car keys?

What a fun weekend. Friday we went up to mom's for lunch for Independence Day. We hung out for a bit. Then for lunch we had too much food. Abe made delicious Yankee cornbread from Abe's bread cookbook. Yummy. Mom made a Gigantic batch of potato salad (she makes great potato salad). She made even more for the five of us (Isaac was there too) than I made for the whole potluck at work on Thursday. She uses potatoes, mayonnaise, dill, eggs, salt, bacon. Maybe something else, but I can't remember. Sometimes vinegar. She also made corn on the cob (so Abe and I have been eating that for dinner lately, too - well, with dinner). And Jim made BBQ chicken thighs (yummy, but to fatty and they made me sick), and salmon. The BBQ was just Jack Daniels BBQ sauce, which is some of the yummiest BBQ sauce. The salmon was marinated in some homemade sauce of Jim's with garlic and brown sugar and something wet, but I have no idea what. Very delicious. And he made grilled zucchini. I had a bit of everything. I was so full I couldn't even eat dinner. Isaac was so hot (haha, they don't know the meaning of hot - it was perfect out after the heat of Seattle), he could hardly eat anything. Well, for him. He still ate more than I did.

Then we went to the pond to look for the muskrats. But we only saw one and just barely, so we went and look at the pics mom had taken of them before. Pretty dang cute. We also spent some time looking at LOLCats. Pretty funny. Then, of course, we played Boggle. Isaac took a nap, and Jim gussied up before his poetry reading.

And the it was time to go off to the poetry reading. I had ripped a knitting needle out of my project, so I needed to stay, but I didn't know where we were going. So Jim and Abe drove in and mom waited for me. I was going to drive us in in our car so that Abe and I could just head home. After a few minutes, Mom and I were nearly ready to go and then I remembered I hadn't brought my keys. Turns out those are necessary to drive the car. So instead of calling Abe (who didn't have his cell phone on him anyways), mom just drove us in in her truck and I would have to drive it back after the poetry reading and art walk.

Anyways, we got to the poetry reading and it was as much fun as a poetry reading could be. My favorite reader was an older gentleman named Malcolm. He had a big deep voice. And Jim's second poem was my favorite poem. The poems were all from a poetry thing where they gathered together and took turns writing lines on poems. They were in a neat bone exhibit at Mindport.

Then we went on the art walk. I think the Blue Horse Gallery was the first place we went. There is a comic book shop above it, but they were closed. Perhaps some other time. The Blue Horse Gallery had some fun stuff. They host a bunch of international trips. I would love to go on the one to Egypt. Or Ireland. There were some beautiful prints, though I don't remember the artist. On the way out, we ran into George Jartos. My mom has an old unfinished painting of his that I used to like to look at when I was little. It was weird meeting him after knowing that painting for so long. He seems like a nice fella. Pretty near exact what I had pictured. Then we went the the Wild Buffalo, a bar. I got carded. And there we looked at more paintings by George. They are amazing. I really like his art. So detailed and weird. Abe was not as big a fan, but it is just the kind of thing I like. I could look at it for hours it feels like. After that, we went to a couple other places, but I don't remember being as impressed. Abe liked a more modern one.

And then it was off to the Temple bar where we waited. We were meeting Jim and other poets and artists there. Well, mom and Jim were and Abe and I just happened to be there too. The service was awful. It is always awful when we go there. The food is pretty good when you can get it though. Mom and I were going to split a sundae, but it after 20 minutes I canceled the order. Abe did get his salad though. He said it was delicious. He made mom's night by giving her the tomatoes with mozzarella.

OK. So then we went home. And of course got home around midnight. Kind of sucked because first we had to drive back to mom's in the old truck, but we got to say good night to the very tired Isaac who had stayed at mom's to sleep before his 12 hours of work the next day.
Saturday was awesome and laid back. I don't even remember what we did.

On Sunday, I went to my cousin Jenai's baby shower. Best shower ever because she wouldn't let them plan all those horrible baby shower games. I gave her a cute little handknit baby cardigan in light green. Got a lot of 'ahs.' But then when another cousin and aunt asked me to move my car so they could get out, turns out I had locked my keys in my car!! So my super nice cousin Jenny very kindly drove me home to get the keys from Abe, who came back with us and drove home. It was really nice to hang out with Jenny. We had a good ride back. I just gotta get off my butt (or have less to do) and go hang out with her sometime. Hopefully, Isaac will get a hold of me so that for the 25th, when we go to see Harry Potter, we can also take some time to see Jenny. Maybe have some tea at the Village Yarn and Tea shop.

Also, the new AntiCraft is out. I actually like this one. The last one was all merkins, which I am not so into. But this one is all embroidery and I like a lot of it. In particular, I really like the Cthulu and veggies one and the rose on the apron. I think I might be making both of those.