Last Friday, and all the weekend events.

Last Friday was a good outing with Mom and Denise. We went to Zabcikville, east of temple, and had burgers at Green's Sausage House.

They're famous for their sausage, stuffed with peppers and anything else you want, but they also make wonderful burgers and sandwiches. Mom had a super ham and Swiss, Denise had a sausage burger and I went for the big bacon cheese burger. we shared fries and onion rings and it was all wonderful, and relatively cheap.

After eating, since we were out on the east side of Temple, I asked mom if she wanted to go check on the plots in the cemetery out there where some of her relatives are buried. Both she and Denise said yes, so we headed over there.

It's called the Little Flock Cemetery. My mom's grand parents and a few aunts and uncles are buried there, mostly under those huge pecan trees. there's a reason for that. When her great grandparents died, her grandfather planted those trees right next to his parents graves. The trees have since grown to a tremendous height, and produce wonderful crop of pecans.

After wandering around the cemetery, taking pictures of some of the older headstones and checkin' on the old relatives, the three of us headed back to temple and made a side trip to Dairy Queen for dessert. We each got a blizzard, heath candy variety, and took them home to Mom's house.

After finishing the treats we busted out the booze and sipped some Chateau Monet, finishing off the bottle.

We were all in a reflective mood, partly from the trip to the cemetery but also from the crap that's goin' on in the family now. I won't labor you with details (I think I've already unloaded that crap on you anyway). Suffice to say that the drama between my mom, sister and I has heated up lately.

Sis has been cut off from the support the folks have been giving her for the last five years, the money train having hit a huge wall when dad died and mom's income was cut in half. Since then she's had a line on a job in Midwest City, East of Oklahoma City, and so she and mom are drivin' up there this week to check it out and see about getting sis an apartment up there.

It turns out that dad's death has been the catalyst for getting my big sis off her fat ass and back into the adult world. It's too bad that it took that to get it done, but at least something good is coming from the loss.

Denise and I also started to tackle some yard work around the house Friday, cleaning up part of the front yard and trimming back the rose bushes. They had been pulled away from the wall by a high wind a week or so earlier and were blocking access to my front door. It's not something I worried a lot about, keeping unwanted visitors away and all being a boon to my serenity, but it was unsightly and had to be fixed.

Part of the urgency behind this explosion of yard work was due to the fact that we were gonna have a visitor on Saturday. I'd gotten an email a few days earlier from Holly sayin' she was comin' down to Killeen and wanted to get back together.

She'd come down a while earlier and we'd taken her to one of our best Chinese food places, but later attempts to connect were always derailed by other plans. Trips to Fredericksburg and such. So I was looking forward to seeing her again and showing her around BJs, which has become a favorite haunt of ours.

The food at BJs was wonderful, as usual, and we had a great time. The dinner and subsequent after dinner tipple at my place was a huge blast, and we hope she gets to come down again soon. She's a hoot, and we love to get together with her and commiserate about family drama and the world in general. Ya gotta love a woman who carries a Colt 1911 in her little purse, and knows how to use it!

Saturday afternoon we began to tackle the back yard, which had been allowed to turn into a jungle again. You might remember a post from about a year ago, the last time I spent about 8 hours clearing this mess.

The cats always gather in the yard to watch the festivities. This is Sandy and Rusty, the twins, checkin' out the strange goings on from the steps at the back of the yard.

One of the things we discovered in the yard was a little present one of the cats had left for us.

Back when I moved into this house, in 2003, my cats went on a rampage and left rat carcases all over the place. In stead of being grateful for the free extermination services my neighbors were horrified and disgusted, wanting me to ether keep my cats in the house or get rid of them. City folks!

These are the sort of people who move to the country and then complain that the deer are eating their flowers, but won't let you hunt them. Eventually I put a cat fence up along the top of the wood fence and the issue was solved. However, about a month ago I realized that a few of them were escaping. I'd get home from work in the evening and one or two would be sitting in the front yard waiting for me. So part of this flurry of activity was to plug the hole in the fence and get the cats back in the yard before one of my Nazi neighbors calls Animal Control.

We left several piles of weeds in our wake. By late Sunday, the yard was almost cleared and we were thinkin' about what sorts of plants and flowers we were gonna get to plant , to replace the weeds. One more weekend and we'll have it all set up right, or good enough to let go for another year.

Anyway, that was the weekend, Exciting eh? This next one looks like it might be just as exciting. I'll keep ya posted. Cheers.