Married Leos

The second ” hopefully annual ” July BBQ was this past weekend and it turned out to be a good time. The turn out was not as big as last year, but last year we did it as a combined ” we missed our 40th birthdays a couple years ago and we are having a party now ” BBQ, so there was a little more of a unwritten obligation to show up last year.

This year we were only inviting friends over, most of the family we invite don’t show up anyway so it was not a big difference. Sorry for not inviting any of our online friends, next year if you are in the Chicago area in July let us know and we will get you an invite. The only family we invited was my cousin that helped me build the deck. Sorry that was worded wrong, should be ” The cousin that came over and allowed me to help him build my deck “.

Now on to the event of the weekend:

FRIDAY NIGHT

As you could tell, by my previous post, Butcher Blocked, I was not too happy with the place I got the meat ( arrachera ) from. I told my father in law to be sure it was lean and they run it through the tenderizer machine to get it nice and thin. Well when I opened up the package, it was much fattier and much thicker cut than I wanted. I cannot blame him for it, he told them what he wanted, they just didn’t do it.

To make things worse, we have to go back to Thursday evening, just before I was going to bed. I had remembered that the meat was in the freezer ( 40 lbs of it ) and I needed to take it out to start thawing. Well after my shower I totally forgot about the meat and went to bed. Come Friday morning I email The Queen to take the meat out and put it on the counter for a few hours then throw it in the fridge. I come home from work and I still see the meat sitting in the sink. FROZEN!! Holy Crap, its 3:30pm and the meat is still frozen. I was hoping to get this stuff all prepared and in the marinade this evening . Off into a pool of cool water it went.

While the meat was defrosting I went outside and started to do the yard cleanup and getting things situated for the party on the deck. That took a big longer than I had thought it would take but I wanted things to look nice, didn’t want any yard tools laying around, wanted the grass cut, and really wanted to get the weeds picked up too.

So about 8pm I got into the house to check on the meat, I felt it up a bit and it seemed soft, so I opened up a package and begain pulling the meat off to put in in the marinade. Well guess what? Only the top few rows were thawed, the rest was as frozen as a Thanksgiving Turkey. F%&K!!! Back into the water it went. This began my Friday Nightmare.

And the Nightmare continues, after doing as much of the meat as I could, I decided to go to the store and get the ingredients for my marinade and for the Chicken Fajitas I decided to make ( the restaurant wanted $210 for a pan of chicken fajitas, the Queen told him he was nuts ), so I told her I would make them myself. I make my list and off to the store I went. The cart quickly began to fill up with all the stuff I needed, peppers, avocado, garlic, cilantro, etc.. F%&K there are no jalepenos, how can I make my salsa w/o jalepenos? This was NOT a good weekend to have a salmonella scare from jalepenos, the store pulled all of them. HEY, I know I will use habanero peppers instead, sure it will be a bit hotter, I will just use less. No habaneros either, figures.

I checkout and run over to Walmart, I get there and the queen calls, “Where are you?”. Walmart, Jewel had no jalepenos and they don’t have any here either. She says ” I could have told you that, they never do “. So I pick up a huge jar of cut jalepenos. Now I am not sure if these will work the same as fresh, but I was desperate.

I get back home and start the salsa, when I smelled the jarred jalepenos they didn’t smell hot they smelled more sweet. F&%K again!! This blows. So I call the neighbor across the street, F&%K!!, voice mail. I leave a message ” Noone has jalepenos, I need jalepenos for the salsa, where am I gunna get jalepenos, give me a call, bye”. About 30 minutes later there’s the doorbell, its Ken and he has brought gifts, 6 jalepenos, it was all they had in the house. Thank You.

For the next 5 hours I make salsa and prepare the meat piece by piece as it thaws, this stuff is never going to be ready. Its 2:30am and they tell me to go get some sleep. I have about 20 pounds of meat cut and marinading in a pan, the other 30 pounds is still mostly frozen. At this point the meat has been out for 22 hours, Ken says ” man you have a great freezer “.

SATURDAY

6am, the music on the alarm goes off. I go dowstairs and start to cut up the rest of the meat, most of it is thawed, only have about 10 pounds that is still frozen. I as much in the marinade as I couild and into the fridge it went. Ken was supposed to be over at 8:30am so we could go to Sam’s Club and get the ice, 9am and no Ken, look out the window and no activity at his house. I call him, VM again, ” its 9am get up got things to do “. At 9:15 I just left to go to another Jewel, hopefully they will have the jalepenos and I will just get the ice there too. I have two other Jewel food stores, both about 15 minutes away. Hmmm, I can go to the store in Morris, but there are more Mexicans in that town and there is a better chance of the jalepenos of being all boughten up or I can go the the one in Plainfield where its a more gringo town. So I decide on the store in Plainfield.

Before anyone get their panties all in a bunch remember, I am married to a Mexican and I am the whitest, white boy there is.

F&%King gringo store, there is not even an empty jalepeno plate by the peppers, what these white people don’t cook with jalepenos? And where are the tomatillos I need, no plate for those either. Should have gone to Morris. So I went through the store and picked up some of the other odds and ends I needed. Ring Ring, its Ken where you at? Plainfield. Well come back and pick me up and we will get the ice.

So on the way home from the store, the Queen calls and says the pan with the meat in it is leaking, so I gotta go back to the store by our house and pick up some more pans. I decide to look to see if they got a new supply of jalepenos, nope, BUT they restocked the tomatillos I emptied yesterday. BOOYAH!!! Maybe things are looking up. Back to the house, picked up Ken, got the ice and finish making the second batch of salsa.

Its 1:45pm Saturday and I am done with the preparation. Not too bad atleast I have 15 minutes to spare.

2pm and my boss shows up, he’s right on time, tick tick tick tick. 3pm Noone else is there, tick tick tick, 3:45, still noone else. The Queen says, I’m hungry you might as well start cooking. 4:30 2nd guess shows, only about 50 more to go. 4:45 my cousin shows up, says he could smell the food when he got out of the car.

More people trickle in, in the next 30 minutes. Still way short of the 50 we invited and never responded to us. All in all we ended up with about 14 people.

Menu - Arrachera ( 40 pounds ), Italian sausage, Hamburger, Hot Dogs, Rice, Beans, Chips. We have LOTS of leftovers.

SATURDAY NIGHT

At about 10pm a neighbor and his wife we never really met came over, the Queen met them briefly when she gave them an invite but that was about it.  This is when the party really got started.  The Queen comes out and says they want the tequila,  tequila starts every party.  The neighbors brought a collectors bottle of tequila, this stuff must have been expensive.  He claims to have a $200 bottle at home.  By about 11:30 the neighbors wife was trashed,  they finished off their bottle of tequila, our bottle and were arguing about going home and getting the $200 bottle.

The Queen turned up the Mexican music and was dancing, she tried to get me to dance but I was still not drunk enough. Kens wife started dancing then the neighbors wife comes out and start grinding on Kens wife, NOW its a party.  Did I mention she was trashed?  The dancing only lasted one song, but the music was still turned up a bit.

“Hey folks, don’t wanna be a party pooper but one of your neighbors complained it was too loud “. UH OH!!! Its the police.

So we turned down the music, shit it was only 12:30am and the A-hole neighbors behind us just went inside from having a little party themselves.  BITCHES!!

30 minutes or so later everyone started clearing out.  If we would have stayed out a bit longer I think there would have been some nakedness, did I mention she was trashed?

That was about it, I am sure I left some stuff out, maybe the Queen can write her own post on her events of the night. All in all it was a good time, even without the 35 people who didn’t show.