The Barbeque

I didn’t write about this last weekend as Willow’s death kind of took the fun right out of me. But on July 17, I had the joy of having a big chunk of my family over at our house. Ron, Jessie, and the children; as well as Connie and Dennis were all in the lower mainland at the same time. I took the day off work and Irene and I invited folks over for a BBQ, and despite me being a bit out of sorts (my “day off work” turned out to be a “half day off work”) … I think things went pretty well.

I’ve uploaded a few pictures, which you can see by clicking on the selected image below:

I bought a big Coleman cooler and filled it and my 25 year old “little” cooler with ice- beer and wine coolers in the big chest, pop in the little one. My theory: if everyone could serve drinks themselves, I’d have more time to cook and visit. This worked out well, and my limited social expertise is thereby expanded. I then made another good call: I pre-cooked a batch of chicken wings and, when folks started arriving, finished them on the barbeque so there were finger snacks right away. Irene did a veggie tray, and this added to to the “low effort” food supplies.

The fact that I had to work early in the day had disrupted my planning: as my friend Chris will attest, I’m not really a spur of the moment, toss things together kind of person. That means I started the gathering with a higher than usual stress level, and the steps noted above made a huge difference in terms of freeing me up to de-stress. Later in the afternoon I cooked up some good steak that Irene had bought from her favorite meat shop.

But mostly, I was happy to be able to have a few brews and visit with people. Really, this was our “social” christening of our deck, and it worked out well enough to make me proud. I’m lucky I have such a forgiving and (generally) easy to please family!

One thought on “The Barbeque”

  1. I keep telling you, food isn’t that hard šŸ˜‰ As long as people remember the point is to have good company with stuff that tastes good there is no problem. It’s only when misguided folks get hung up having the “perfect party” or some sort of best host(ess) contest that things turn sour.

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