And now, your Memorial Day weekend wrap-up. Holy cow, what a weekend. How good was it? It’s Wednesday and I’m still feeling worn out! It was all worth it, though.

As I mentioned a couple of times last week, takaza and I were scrambling to get all of the cleaning done before people showed up. This continued Friday afternoon after work, right up until mirkowuff showed up. Shortly afterward we headed out to meet roho, genet, and chebutykin for dinner at Bombay City Indian Restaurant in Gurnee. Dinner was excellent, and the lamb vindaloo kicked my butt (mango lassi is your friend!).

After dinner we went in search of ice cream, only to find that the nearby Cold Stone Creamery had closed. Fortunately, there was an Oberweis Dairy right around the corner (“the taste that makes you want to ban immigrants!”). Tasty milkshakes, though! We had a very entertaining chat about why McG is a tool, and witnessed an alarming exodus from Golden Corral.

After taking our leave from the Antioch crew, Mirko, Dan and I went home. Before going to bed, I butchered four whole chickens (halving them) and put them into a buttermilk brine for the night.

I slept in more this year than last – all the way until 7 AM! I pulled the chickens out of the brine, dried them off, and put them back in the fridge to give the skin time to dry off so there might be a hope of crispiness after smoking. In the meantime, I made some oatmeal and we had an easygoing morning. I put the chickens on the smoker at about 10 AM, stoking the fire with hardwood lump charcoal and hickory chunks. After the first bag of charcoal was consumed, I realized that we didn’t have enough to get us through the day. Mirko and I drove out to pick up some more, and also a case of Dynamite Springs soda, which is locally-made and exceedingly yummy.

Roho, Genet, and Cheb showed up while we were out, and not long after we got back, we were joined by fordshepherd, kwik, and ajpyropup, who had finally reached escape velocity from woodychitwn‘s condo. This kicked the party off and soon we were flooded with people as Dan’s mom, sister, and brother showed up, along with linnaeus, steviemaxwell, magicpaw, tozier-wah, little-wolf, daveqat, bullethc, hegdish, drakeduck, and baconcoyote. (If I forgot anyone, I apologize! It was kind of nuts.) The chickens came off the smoker at 2 PM, to be replaced by baby back ribs. Many snacks and adult beverages were consumed.

The ribs weren’t done by 8 PM, so I figured we’d have them on Sunday. Dan cooked up some bacon cheeseburgers and cheddar brats to augment the smoked chicken, and all was well. The chicken was excellent – I so need to make those again! Everyone contributed excellent salads and desserts, and a surprising amount of booze, as well. We wrapped things up around midnight, with Mirko, Charlie, Kwik, and Ford crashing at our place.

Not surprisingly, we had a somewhat late start that morning, but it was extremely enjoyable for me. Once we got everyone rolling, we went up to Las Vegas Restaurant for brunch. We had a very tasty meal, punctuated with inappropriate humor and a couple of very cute drawings. After brunch, we put Charlie back on the train downtown to go do sinful things, and we were joined by street22. As the afternoon went on, various games were played, culminating in an epic game of Malarkey, played as teams.

Malarkey is awesome by itself, but add booze (which was flowing liberally) and it quickly gets hysterical. Fortunately, Cheb was live drunk-tweeting the events, leading to several hilarious out-of-context quotes, including “Let me answer that question by asking you a question: why do you bark during sex?”, “My mother is *hung*.” and “The secret ingredients of Juicy Fruit are: cigarettes, abortion, tire rubber, and failure.” Also, Dan reduced Cheb to giggling and snorting at one point, which was purely awesome. We didn’t get to bed until 2 AM, but it was a fantastic night.

I was up far too early on Monday, but couldn’t sleep past 8 AM. By 10 AM everyone else was stirring, I put coffee on, and we chatted for a while. Woody messaged me saying the boating plans were off, then suddenly they were back on. We had a quick breakfast of bagels, lox, cream cheese, capers, and onions, then showered and packed everyone up. Unfortunately, Dan wasn’t feeling well, so he stayed behind as we rushed off into Chicago.

You see, Woody’s friend Derek had told Woody that he wanted some furries on his boat, and by gosh, that’s what happened. Alas, the weather did not cooperate, and between the light rain and the 2-4-foot waves, it was decided that maybe staying in the marina would be a good idea. We spent the next few hours just hanging out, chatting, and socializing. It was a real hoot, and many thanks to Woody (and Derek and Patrick) for having us on board. I hope that perhaps one day when the weather is better there might be a repeat trip. Click on the pictures for more pics of the boating trip!

When we wrapped up things on the boat, Mirko was kind enough to rush me back to Union Station, where I caught the express train back to Round Lake with four minutes to spare! The ride back was uneventful, and I was surprised to find that in my absence Dan had done an amazing job of cleaning the house and getting things back to normal. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing and snuggling with my wuff, which was a perfect end to a wonderful weekend.

Yesterday and today have been tough – things quickly got thorny at work, and on top of that I’m still drained from the weekend. I’ll recover (eventually), and things seem to be improving slightly at work – that helps. I’m looking forward to a nice, quiet weekend with nothing planned. Both Dan and I could use a quiet day or two at home doing a whole lot of nothing!