I drove over to my friend Bennett’s house on Saturday morning to give him a hand rebuilding his porch, which we demoed a year and a half ago. He’s run into several roadblocks since then, including sinking concrete posts, a leaking sink drain, and a 40-year-old clematis bush that had rooted under the entire structure, so it’s been slow going. We leveled and secured one of the side rim joists and then joined it to the back rim with an angled section. Then we trimmed and hung several interior joists so that Bennett could continue cutting and installing deck planking.

When I got back home, we all cleaned up and went out to a local Dim Sum restaurant that got a glowing review in Baltimore Magazine this past year. I know nothing about Dim Sum but figured it would be fun to try for our anniversary meal, and the girls agreed. We wound up ordering much more food than we bargained for, but everything we tried was delicious.

Sunday I drove down to St. Mary’s county to spend the day with Bob, who was already dressed for lunch when I rang the doorbell. I took him out to the local barbecue joint for some brisket and he polished the whole thing off with a look of satisfaction. After stopping to fill his gas jugs, we headed back to the house and I sat on the couch looking over his utility bills while he told me the usual stories. He was a lot more animated this week than he was the last time I was down there, which got to be pretty tiring by the time I had to leave.

Memorial Day broke sunny and chilly, and Hazel was desperate for a walk, so after we filled up on coffee, Jen and I took her out for the two-mile circuit. Back at home, I sat at my desk keeping watch over Finn while she finished up some homework. I submitted a new COAL story to Curbside Classic, something I’ve been working on for a couple of weeks, comparing both of the CR-Vs—which mainly wound up being a review of the OG. Next I finished up a postcard design I put together to promote T-shirt sales at Nationals in June and sent it out for printing. I shopped around and got a pretty decent price for 100 of them, and I figure that if I wear a couple of the shirts and have the postcards on hand, I might be able to make some sales.

When Finn was done I hustled out to the driveway and got some work done on the Travelall, which I’ll write about on the other site. We grilled some steak and Jen picked some arugula from her garden for dinner, and had a quiet meal at the table together.