Recently Past Weekend

Mrs. theskinnyonbenny often complains that we don't get invited anywhere. This isn't true, but it's a complaint that she likes to fall back on when we hit a Friday or Saturday night with nothing to do.

The weekend before we left for Russia (two weekends ago, now) was especially busy. Not with getting ready to travel, but with stuff that we were invited to do.

On the previous Friday, we had talked to our friend Elton at a crawfish boil. He was excited to see Kings of Leon play at the house of Blues next Friday, but didn't know anyone who wanted to go with him. Mrs. theskinnyonbenny mixed up Kings of Leon with someone else, and proclaimed that I was a big fan, and sure -- we're in.

I knew of KOL, but for some reason, my mind had them filed with the sea of indistinguishable generic alt-rock bands. Right on in there with Good Charlotte and anyone who's ever been on an American Pie soundtrack.

But then I spent the week listening to their CDs, and I was oh so wrong. Somehow, I missed that KOL is a really, really good band. I got pretty excited about it, and then enjoyed the show. Several times in the past couple of weeks, I've been on shuffle and thought to myself, "Hey that's a cool tune that I don't recognize." Looking down, it's the Kings.

Elton thought that the live show was better than the album performances. Both were good, but I think the production quality of the albums makes them better. They didn't over-do it. You can hear the singer's voice break, the squeak of fingers on guitar strings, and they don't edit that out. The albums are very good.

I didn't catch any of that in the live show. It was rehearsed, polished, still good, but different.

On Saturday that same weekend, we went to Eddie's for boiled crabs. I don't know where Ed got this particular catch, but they were huge, and he boiled them to perfection. We smashed them open and got piles and piles of sweet moist crab meat. Its perfect flavor spread over the entire mouth and melted away with a hint of spiciness. Oh, so good.

Eddie had tried to get me to boil them at my house, but I ignored his hints, since I planned to be too busy on Sunday to wash boil pots and throw away old beer bottles. So he bucked up and boiled them himself.

Once he had a couple of beers, Eddie warned me not to make fun of him on my web site. The light bulb went off: PEOPLE DON'T INVITE US OVER BECAUSE THEY THINK I'LL MAKE FUN OF THEM ON THE INTERNET!

(Not untrue, unfortunately.)

Mrs. theskinnyonbenny suggested that I make fun of faux-friends named Freddie and Marmel instead, but to be honest, there's nothing to ridicule.

Once Mrs. theskinnyonbenny and Freddie had a little too much to drink, they argued about which of them was more awesome. I had a really good idea: an awesome contest. Some weekend soon, we'll get together, drink a little too much, and then each of them will have ten minutes to convince the rest of us that he or she is the more awesome. Then, the other person gets ten minutes to present his or her side. They can make a speech, sing, dance, or do whatever awesome power moves that they think will be convincing. Winner by vote will be deemed the more awesome.

We got up early Sunday and finished some yard work that wouldn't wait until after our trip. Around lunch time, we threw the dogs in the Jeep, and started driving toward Gange and Pop-pop's house, where they would be living for the next three and a half weeks.

We needed to just drop them off and head back to Baton Rouge to buy some books and start packing, but my folks had just bought a new boat. So we were forced to wait out a thunderstorm and then go for a half-hour spin crashing through the lake chop on their 19-foot speedboat. Fun fun fun. I'm very excited to have it around this summer.