"Screw the heat!" we said, and jumped in the car to head South. This brought us to the Casa of Doom, where an afternoon of laughter, rock, and damn good food awaited us, in the company of daemonwise, typsie, praenomenal, and saofoir.

We all know that I enjoy Guitar Hero, so typsie (who just amazes the fuck out of me at it) got me hooked up on Rock Band. While it's no surprise that I enjoy the singing part, it's a lot harder to sing a song you don't know than it is to play one on the other instruments. As it turns out, though, once I got the basics down, I was pretty good with the drums, so there'll have to be more of this in the future. Hey, you give me an excuse to rock, and I'm-a do it.

More than a few times, we broke the action to get in the hose and cool off. So cool, so refreshing, so liberating to laugh and get sprayed as people walking down the street look at you with a mixture of curiosity, incredulity, and envy.

By this time, there were ten of us around, and it was time to feed the masses. daemonwise put together a green pepper/onion/prosciutto pasta that was amazing, and worshipthesnake and I did some barbecued chicken on the grill. Man, the combination was to die for. We closed the night out with The Amazing Screw-On Head, and headed for home with full bellies, lighter hearts, and cooler temperatures.

Maybe it's not obvious (yeah, right), but it kicks too much ass for me to have this kind of situation, again. Ever since I left Memphis, I've not had "my crew" around. Back then, all through those years, there was always the core group of friends, together a lot, hanging out, no need for agendas and whatnot, just there and having fun. not that i haven't had friends, but to have the close-knit group, I miss that...and it appears I've found it again. Needless to say, I'm cultivating it as much as I can, because it's been missing from my life for too long. I needed this.