THE SENIORS SURVIVE SATURDAY

Seven am on Saturday found us up and (this is a joke) at 'em. We had to move it (another attempt at humor) earlier than usual, because one of us (whose initials are PAN) had cheerfully committed us to golfing with our buddies, the Wildas, at 8:40 am.

Now, 8:40 isn't really early, but...this was a Saturday, so another one of the team (whose initials are RLN) likes to partake of a weekend breakfast feast on Saturday and Sunday, and the other team member has to cook it. That would be me.

Breakfast before Golf: Farm-fresh eggs and farm bacon (from our CSA) turned into bagel sandwiches! Hash browns, coffee and juice, and...Benefiber. We were good to go.

And we went...in the IROC convertible. It was 50 degrees out. We had the top down. We were cold. We put the heat on and bundled in our sweatshirts.

18 holes later, done at a blistering pace (the Wildas are just young folk compared to us), we had warmed up considerably, but our bodies, having been exercised for 3 hours, wanted us to go home. We did, grateful that the sun made the convertible ride much, much more pleasant.

Lunch. Benefiber. Nap.

Up at 3 pm, we impulsively decided to take the IROC out again and head out to Goose Lake Prairie for a short hike through the prairie grasses. Got turned around a bit, but finally found Goose Lake Prairie again. Wish they would quit moving it. Hiked for about 1/2 hour, checked out the boat rentals (for future fun excursions), and then cruised Morris, stopping by the Lindy Gertie's car show for a bit.

We cruised back to Seneca, getting home about 7 pm. After a quick watering of the newest garden transplants, grilling our dinner sounded like the order of the night. We had some GREAT country style ribs just begging to be marinated and grilled with BarBQ sauce. Yum! Lit my big gas grill and began the session.

Made iced tea, watered the deck planters, and watched the country ribs. Basted and basted. When the meat thermometer indicated almost perfection, I ducked inside to ready the side dishes, keeping one eye on the grill. That's when I saw the smoke billowing out from under the cover of our grill.

"The grill is on fire!" I mentioned cheerfully, as I pulled the ribs off as quickly as possible (first things first...save the food!).

"Hoo Boy! A grease fire!"

"I'll get the flour!"

The handfuls of flour that I was tossing onto the flames (flames that were eagerly feeding off the drippings from the ribs and that were licking out of the grill, and that could just reach the rail of our wooden deck...) did nothing.

"I'm going for the fire extinquisher!" It was the ONLY thing to do. So we did. And...it worked!

When the flames were out, we wearily went inside to eat our slightly char-broiled ribs (they were really tasty, by the way), keeping an eye on the deck for any resurgence of flame. It was a night for dessert..and benefiber.

A glass of wine later, and some TV, and it was time for bed. We had looked at the grill, with thoughts of cleaning, but ....there is always tomorrow.

The grill is sitting on the deck, today, Sunday, waiting for us to clean it out. It's covered in a green substance that looks like...flour. Or green Benefiber.