It's weekends like this that make The Ring Fingernail the perfect place in the world. Mid-80s all weekend, and enough of a sunburn to let me know I'm alive. Sweet. Some semi-sleepy beach reading on Saturday, some low-quality beach volleyball this afternoon, and grilling and the Cubbies later on tonight.

As I said, about perfect.

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Grilling. I made a major purchase last Sunday. I expected, what with Amazon Super Saver Shipping and all, that it would arrive sometime next week. But, sweetly enough, it showed up at my door Wednesday afternoon. Well, not major in terms of cost, but major in terms of enjoyability factor. Sweet.

And then, just as I was wondering whether I had made a strong purchase - after all, it was a semi-impulse buy - this. Validation. Sweet, sweet validation.

And then, last night, my first experience with it, Saturday night. (Plans on Wednesday, slovenliness on Thursday, an energy-sapping run on Friday.) Two relatively cheap steaks, two ears of corn, and some oven-roasted red peppers combining for just about the finest thing I had ever prepared. Nay, the finest thing ever prepared for my by my foot-high magic rectangle.

Indeed, a foot-high magic rectangle.

I've had some pretty good experiences with these before - hot dogs at CoPa, turkey dogs at Miller Park, burgers and veggies by the Central Street Metra station - but nothing as sweetly wonderful as those two cheap steaks and those two ears of corn.

We're doing chicken and, perhaps, burgers tonight. I'm imagining the results will be similarly strong.

Best $49.70 I've spend in a long, long, long time. And that's only considering one meal thus far.

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I had an embarrassing conversation on, let's say, Thursday night. I'm pretty sure it was Thursday. I was talking to my parents for the first time in a few weeks. Ten days or so, anyway.

It was revealed that, while I wrote - in two separate locations - how awesome my mom is/was, I never actually called on Mother's Day. Me = first class bastard.

I probably called the day before or the night after, but not on the actual day. Lame. Lame. Lame.

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Thursday was awesome because it was on Thursday that I received the itinerary email from Harper regarding Engagement Shindig '08: Beer by a Lake.

The itinerary, starting Friday, June 22, at approximately 6:30 (after dinner), though I'll be there at about 10, reads something like this:

Friday, 6:30-Sunday, 3:00 p.m.: Drinking. Swimming. Lake-ing. Getting sunburned. Not sitting on the furniture while wearing wet clothing. Not candle-lighting.

Sunday, 3:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.: Driving home. Basking.

The guest list, or rather, the list of email recipients, seems like it'll be a truly fantastic time. I couldn't be looking forward to it more.

The fact that it'll be the peanut butter and jelly in a three-weekend sandwich that includes visits by The Boy and his lady (next weekend) and by Gurs (the last weekend of June) makes it that much more fantastic.

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Wednesday plans included a return to last summer's place of business, and it was pretty fantastic. The fact remains that there are a lot of ways to spend an evening that are far worse than sitting in a ballpark, stomping along to the annoying songs, and generally being silly. That's what I did on Wednesday, with a former coworker, and it was just great.

The fact that the tickets were free and the company was good seems to make it fairly likely that I'll do it quite a few more times this summer.

Baseball's the best.