Thursday night Dawg and I went to Five Guys to have our favoritest burgers on the planet and they did not disappoint. Then we went to his parents’ house to pick up some packages and hang out with the kitties.

We eventually got sleepy enough that we came home and zonked out until the next morning.

Bright and early wake-up for no apparent reason, then off to Dawg’s parents’ place to pick up Dawg’s truck so he could get it inspected. After dropping off the truck we headed to E*SPARKS for pastries and iced caffeine, then home and hung out waiting for the new TV!!!!!!!!

It arrived without a hitch, and the bonus is that I found my new camera (just in time!) under the couch which had been missing since May 17! Dawg took care of setting up the TV then I took care of making sure it was programmed while he took a few minutes to cool off in the bedroom. After he recovered we took off to go pick up the truck minutes before the station closed. $573 to get her inspected, but there is a very short list of items Dawg loves more than that truck so we do anything for her. We returned to Dawg’s parents’ home, opened a package from Adam and Britt, and TXTed them our excitement over said package even though it was not for me (hehehehe).

Then we all piled into Hollywood’s car to head off to an Argentine steakhouse in Forest Hills that serves absolutely amazing steak.

After we went back to the house where we all had Fudgie the Whale cake and talked about wrestling and The Real World. After this we went home and watched some more of our new TV then had some very deserved hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!! time and fell asleep until morning.

Saturday we stayed home to watch the 2009 Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest (Joey Chestnut won by a landslide) then decided to go to Jackson Hole for lunch.

OMG the burgers there are AMAZING. Five Guys, run for your money right there! The burgers are 7 oz and are a perfectly wonderful texture inside with a wonderful caramelized top and bottom. I’m drooling just thinking about it. And there was so much that I cut my burger in half before starting to eat it so I still have the leftovers! We then headed to Best Buy to look for an HDMI cable to hook up to the TV, at which point we realized we need an HD cable box, so decided to hold off with that, then went to Target and did a little bit of shopping. We got Street Fighter: The Lengend of Chun-Li, the John Cena movie 12 Rounds, an extension cord for diverting the power for our computers so we could put an air conditioner in the living room window, and some light daughter-hates-tyrranical-father-memoir subway reading: House Rules by Rachel Sontag. After Target we went to 7-11 to pick up hot dogs for our own hot dog eating contest!!!1

(I won, but only because Dawg took a pause to eat some sweet Gherkins before finishing off the last third of his fourth dog) then went home to stay in for the evening and watch fireworks out our living room window (ILLEGAL ones only a block away from the police precinct and the Macy’s fireworks our new TV.

After fireworks we made our own fireworks/hot dog eating contest in the bedroom and fell into a deep slumber.

Sunday we bit the bullet. We got fortification at E*SPARKS then went to the Super Stop & Shop to do a full shopping, our first since The Incident. I suggested a new game plan: I take the cart and I do the shopping while Dawg drinks coffee and wanders the store on his own to pick up whatever items he wanted. WOW, that worked out way better. He went to the deli and ordered all he wanted from there while I worked off the list I made, with the cart at hand. We would occasionally run into each other and flirt and kiss and say those lovey words, then go our separate ways so I could continue working on the list while he waited for his 31-minute-long deli order. (It was a lot of stuff.) We did check out together since we had $338 of groceries to bag and cart, so much that the cashier asked us if we were having a party but Dawg just explained we only go full shopping once every 2 months. On our way out the door she said, “see you in two months!” That made me giggle. We came out of the store still in love, still in like, and still speaking to each other. Amazing what a change in strategy does!

And then we went to 7-11 so Dawg could pick up our winning Mega Millions ticket and we got a parking spot directly in front of the apartment building so we could bring up alllllll the groceries in two trips (only had to clean out one garbage bag full of old food to make room for the new, heh). After that it was tennis time — caught the end of Federer kicking Roddick’s slimey ass after 4 hours 17 minutes, and Serena redeeming a doubles title for Venus after stealing the women’s title from her — and then we watched movies. Or, I assume we did. I wrote this part before we got to that part.

Full set of weekend photos are here. I highly recommend that you take the time to look, especially if you’re a Dawg fan or a Poppy fan.

And since this is what many of you have been waiting for, here’s The Trick Candles / Fudgie gets whacked / The guy we all think is so damn great celebrates a day he says he hates but seems to tolerate very well if we make it extra special:

(Mom, there’s your real ice cream and cake.