My dad looks at me now and tells me how proud he is of me. He also acknowledges that he and I are a great deal alike. We want instant resolutions, we don’t like loose ends, and we can be incredibly impatient.
My dad advises me to pick my battles and choose better times to address them. He does this, not while looking down his nose or criticizing, but with the look of someone who understands that for our personality types that can be a hard lesson to learn.
Of my parents, my father was the more quiet one. Yet years (and years) later I’ve realized that many of my core beliefs are his; live and let live, judge not, and tolerance. He didn’t instill those beliefs through preaching or lectures (not that I didn’t get lectures!) but through example.
My dad is methodical and analytical. He doesn’t make hasty decisions. Yet he thinks quickly on his feet. When I was learning to drive he taught me to know my route ahead of time so I could anticipate lane changes and turns at least a block ahead of time, usually more.
I admire my dad’s energy, his ability to break a situation down and see it for what it really is, and that he’s pretty mellow. That last part gives me hope for myself. I don’t think anyone would describe me as mellow now.
The other day one of Ethan’s friends asked my dad if all the silver hair bothered him. My dad, who started going gray in his late thirties, replied, “I don’t mind it, but I do mind what it represents. It represents age…” He was also quick to add that having two daughters didn’t help!
“What it represents…” Big picture, details, my dad has the ability to zoom out and zoom in while others might only be able to see one or the other.
My dad has devoted hours upon hours to charity causes like Relay For Life. He was head of logistics for years right up to the year that our local event raised over a million dollars. If you asked him why he does it he wouldn’t tell you about losing his father to lung cancer when he was only 20, or his sister-in-law who died of breast cancer, or even his own cancer scare; the very first reason would be that he has fun doing it.
He also has fun dragging his daughters along for the ride.
The big barbecue competition recently? Was for the Children’s Miracle Network. My dad was a committee chair, he was at the event starting very, very early Friday morning until late Friday night. He skipped breakfast with family on Saturday morning to be back out at the event before anyone else - minus the barbecue teams, of course! The man is a freakin’ energizer bunny.
And through the entire event he happily ran over to our area to see Maggie or to taste something before it went out to be judged. It’s one thing to do everything well, but it’s another to always do it with a smile on your face and I don’t recall seeing my dad not having a good time.
My dad introduced me to cartoons. I remember watching them with him. Although, I’ve been told that when I was an infant you would find me in my bouncy seat early Saturday mornings watching cartoons with dad right next to me.
Later on my girlfriends and I would insist on watching a scary movie, but we’d make sure that dad was there with us because he’d make corny jokes at all the really scary parts. It made it less scary!
Years later, I find myself often curled up with a kid or two or three watching cartoons and forgetting about all the other stuff that isn’t nearly as important as just hanging out with my kids. Sometimes, I even make corny jokes during scary movies.
Just like my dad did with me.
(I like that picture, btw, he doesn’t he thinks it looks like we are “out of it.” I think it looks like we are having a good time. We were well into a few beers at Prime Cut for my birthday earlier this year.)
Last weekend was the big event… the one we’ve been practicing for, the Bakersfield Biggest Baddest Barbecue Championship 2009! After months of tweaking websites and eating loads of Mike’s barbecue everything came down to late (very late) Friday night right up to noon on Saturday.
They say that competitions are won or lost within the 15 before the first turn in. The rules are strict, the judging is fierce, and the garnish nearly caused me more than a few gray hairs.
The good news is that we took 10th place in Brisket.
The picture above is not our brisket. In fact, I only have ONE picture of our brisket and only ONE picture of a finished presentation because I was just THAT STRESSED over it being my first time doing boxes with garnish and being judged and all that jazz!
Of course, in the normal realm of things 10th isn’t so great, but we were up against PROS! And to place AT ALL our first time out was WICKEDLY AWESOME!
And, after going over all the data and scores (extensively) we found that our ribs actually beat out a few restaurants here in town. Which, at the very least, secured us some bragging rights.
Saturday morning I attended a class on garnish by Harry over at Slap Yo Daddy Barbecue. Harry is a super nice guy, very informative, and very helpful. He was also the grand champion of the event. There are all kinds of tricks and tweaks that go into these competitions and we were nearly blindsided if it weren’t for Harry’s demonstration Saturday morning. Needless to say… Ethan made great friends with a produce guy at a local supermarket and that is probably what saved the day for us.
We didn’t go into it expecting to win or even place we just wanted to have a good time. We did… probably too good thanks to Jeremy Tucker over at T-Bones Ranch House. Jeremy is an old friend (he was at our wedding helping to run the reception) and one of the sweetest guys on the planet, donating a lot of time, blood, sweat, tears, and talent to cater the event and help out for a really great cause.
Jeremy showed up at our spot with a bottle of Patron and by the end of the night Mike was nearly useless. Jeremy’s awesome wife, Lora, had to drag him off to find a designated driver since they both had to be up early at their restaurant the next morning and then back out at the event again!
Most of the grill teams stayed up all night cooking (and drinking) which was pretty fun. We’re already looking forward to next year’s event. By 10am Saturday morning one of the guys from another team took a run through all of our “cook sites” to let us know they were setting up 10 O’ Clock shots of Jager, Goldschlager, and God only knew what else to “take the edge off.” He reminded me of one of Mike’s old buds, Fed (think I’ve told a few Fed stories around here) because, and this won’t be as funny as the actual thing was because you can’t HEAR him say it, “Everyone takes this shit too seriously, like babies in China are dying because you’re out here barbecuing…”
Aside from the 12, 12:30, 1pm, and 1:30pm turn in times on Saturday when things were a little tense (UNDERSTATEMENT!!!) everyone was out there to laugh, enjoy some live music, drink and have a good time. We met some great people and had a really good time and that even takes precedence over the fact that we placed!
I wish I had gotten more pictures. I was also twittering for the event (not on my twitter on the event’s twitter) and of course, helping Mike prep, grill, and present so by the time I could dig in for pics my batteries were croaking and I was just having too good a time.
After all that, we’re woefully addicted to BBQ competitions. We’re looking into a competition in October for our next venture!
Good grief, she’s disappeared again. Well, unless you happen to be a friend on Facebook. I’m on there… add me. I’m hopelessly addicted it seems. As if I needed another addiction online, or something else to cement my current online addiction! Potato, po-tah-tah.
A lovely combination of writer’s block and summer fever accompanied by numerous end of the school year things and loose ends to tie up have had me mostly away from my computer. You know, where “fun” is concerned vs. “work” which isn’t as much fun, obviously.
It’s official… I am now the proud owner of two high school students.
Kate graduated from the 8th grade last Friday. In a really cool turn of events the graduation was held on the football field of Ethan’s (and Kate’s soon-to-be) high school. It was very bright and very warm but I’m thrilled to say she didn’t twist her ankle or break her leg walking in some incredibly tall heels!
The shoes were awesome.
I’m sure all over the web you are finding lovely, touching tributes written by teary eyed mothers and explosively proud dads. I’m teary eyed and proud certainly, you see, Kate wore those shoes with what was probably a broken toe. The day before graduation in some sort of “Oh MY GOD, IT’S ALMOST OVER!!!!” daze, Kate stumbled out of bed and promptly racked her toe on the bed frame. She IS her mother’s daughter, I’ll spare you the pics to prove my point. Suffice it to say that I did roughly the same thing with the coffee table just a few weeks ago.
The bigger point is that she stuffed that black and purple little piggie into those stilts shoes and she marched across that stage (and around the field, twice!) like it was nobody’s business!
Proud, just does not describe it!
And, of course, the whole family was there:
(Please ignore the slightly obese woman in the orange shirt. Shut up, I know, I’m back on a diet and exercise and all that sort of nastiness that I would prefer not to talk about!)
The good news is that we all survived graduation and the slumber party to celebrate it as well!
My dad looks at me now and tells me how proud he is of me. He also acknowledges that he and I are a great deal alike. We want instant resolutions, we don’t like loose ends, and we can be incredibly impatient.
The big barbecue competition recently? Was for the Children’s Miracle Network. My dad was a committee chair, he was at the event starting very, very early Friday morning until late Friday night. He skipped breakfast with family on Saturday morning to be back out at the event before anyone else - minus the barbecue teams, of course! The man is a freakin’ energizer bunny.
