…of 2004, anyway. Chuck was feeling pretty darned good (he can swallow again! Woohoo!!) so we decided to have some folks over for a holiday weekend barbeque. The weather was fabulous (in the mid-upper 70’s) and thanks to our recent acquisition of a Mosquito Magnet we were pretty much bug-free. (Since we have a pond in the backyard, the mosquitoes love to hang out and nosh on juicy human flesh. And I hate icky flying bugs) Anyway, itÂ’s not the prettiest thing on earth (and we bought the smalletst model) but we tucked it away in the back of the yard and itÂ’s been doing its thing for about two weeks now. So last night was its big debut. We left the French doors open and hoped for the best. People hung out in the back until well after dark and nobody got bit! But back to the BBQ: our friend Meagan is staying with us for the summer (before she leaves for a year in France, lucky kid!) and her boyfriend came over last night and Chuck gave him the big test: could he handle the grilling of the burgers and dogs? Happily he passed the grill test with flying colors (you could tell he was sweating it) and everybody ate way too much and ended the evening watching Return of the King on our plasma TV. Several folks had never read the books (what, were they raised by WOLVES?!?), so I was busily filling in the backstory. Special kudos to my niece who was a bartender bfore becoming a deaf interpreter and spent the early evening making cadillac margaritas and strawberry daiquiris (the latter of which didn’t taste like liquor at all – my idea of a good drink!). Yum!