I Suck At Cookouts

Yesterday was Day 3 of our cookout weekend. Karen, our baby daughter (Briana), and I were fortunate enough to have been invited to a cookout every day during the Fourth of July weekend. That invitation also included the observed day which was yesterday. So three straight days of cookouts! Too bad I suck at cookouts.

The cookout on Monday was in Lowell. Karen's cousin (Karlene) and her husband (Tommy) invited us up to sunny Lowell for the shindig. There's a lot to like about Lowell, or so the city will have you believe. On Monday, I'm afraid there wasn't too much to like about Lowell in terms of the weather. The temperature was simply hot. There's no other way to describe the weather.

Unfortunately, I can't deal with really high temperatures. If you add humidity to the mix, I am literally a pile of dead weight (as if I weren't already) and most likely I will be sprawled out on the ground trying to cool off. I tend to think that the outside heat interferes with my body temperature, which is normally pretty high. (For anyone curious, Karen generally shoves her feet under my butt during the cold winter nights to warm up.) So I like to think that the outside heat only makes my core temperature rise... which consequently makes me a lethargic and dreadful.

Anyway, with stifling temperatures, I thought I was going to pass out. Luckily, Karlene and Tommy have a pool. And I must say, the pool was very refreshing! It is days like yesterday which make me think about how nice it would have been had Karen and I purchased a house with a pool.

Granted, I did not use the pool that much anyway. I had briefly used the pool to cool off after tending to the grill, which you can imagine gets hot outside in the stifling weather. Aside from that, I basically tended to Briana most of the day. And for the most part, Briana was very good in the extremely warm weather. She was probably better than her father.

Were it not for the unbearable weather, I probably would have socialized a little more. Karlene and Tommy had invited their friends over for the cookout. Karlene does not like to mix her circle of friends together. She had done so awhile back (also during the Fourth of July) and received positive results. In fact, her friends asked to hang out with all of us again. So, I was a little annoyed with myself for not being more social on Monday. It's just the heat... kills me.

Needless to say, it was good to see Karlene and Tommy's friends again. They are very nice people. And their children (all boys) are well behaved as well. I think my niece (Kaleigh) may have felt a little left out because she was the only girl that was there... outside of Briana. So she had no one to really play with.

But I must say, Tommy is quite the popular person. Karen counted how many times the kids said his name within a one minute period and it ended up to be something like 7. So on average, the kids called out for Tommy about every 9 seconds. Tommy! Tommy! Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!

Anyway, despite the heat it was a good time. One of Karlene's friends (Kim) made a lovely delicious berry pie. (Cue Rachael Ray's "Yum-O" sound.) Their other friend (Kevin) grilled some pork skewers that were also pretty good. But the berry pie... in my mind... was the easy clear-cut favorite. Of course, my opinion may have been biased since I ate nothing but meat the prior two days.

All in all, despite the high temperatures, the cookout was good. Apparently on the ride back from Lowell, my favorite sister-in-law (Janine) had a brief lapse in her driving-direction skills. I was passed out in the back seat of course (due to the high temperatures) so I could not witness the incident firsthand. I did, however, wake to hear Karen laughing so hard that she was in tears. It made it an interesting ride, that's for sure.