If you celebrate Memorial Day with a backyard barbeque, this is something you might like to serve your friends and family.

I don’t know what your initial impression of that photo was but as for me I’ll stick to a good old fashioned Cheesburger with all the fixings.

Have a nice Memorial Day weekend and please add a prayer for all those who have sacrificed so we may live in this “land of the free, and the home of the brave.”

I read here about the return of al-Sadr to Iraq and his call for Americans to leave the country.

BAGHDAD — A day after radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr resurfaced to end nearly four months in hiding and demand U.S. troops leave Iraq, American forces raided his Sadr City stronghold and killed five suspected militia fighters in air strikes Saturday.

U.S. and Iraqi forces called in the air strikes after a raid in which they captured a “suspected terrorist cell leader,” the U.S. military said in statement.

The statement claimed the captured man was “the suspected leader in a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training.”

EFP’s are deadly roadside bombs that hurl a fist-size slug of molten copper that penetrates armor, a weapon that has been highly effective against American forces over the past year.

The militia fighters were killed in air strikes on nine cars that were seen positioning themselves to attack American forces after the raid, the military said.

Al-Sadr’s reappearance in the fourth month of the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown on Baghdad and environs was expected to complicate the mission to crack down on violence and broker political compromise in the country.

Hopefully, we’ll capture al-Sadr, but since al-Maliki thinks so highly of him maybe the best solution would be to fatally wound him.

There is another story I admit I haven’t had the time to really get informed about.

It seems the Palestinians are taking target practice on each other and have gotten Lebanon’s Army and the Israeli’s involved by firing missiles into their territories.

I’m going to bone up on that story so I can give some sort of opinion. You and I probably already know what my opinion will be.

Two weeks to the day of having our wonderful dog Muggsy put to sleep we got a call from the vet’s office that the crematorium had just delivered his ashes.

My husband picked them up and Muggsy is now back in our house.

His cremains are in a beautiful poplar wood box stained dark cherry. It looks like an urn one would use for a person. His ashes are inside and the bottom is screwed on.

When we saw it we liked it so much we called the man at the crematorium/pet cemetery and asked if we could purchase one for our dog Precious, who was put to sleep six years ago. We offered to pay for it but he told us he would deliver it to the vet’s office next week and there would be no charge.

He told us how to open the plastic box she’s in and to just transfer the bag of her ashes to the new urn and screw in the bottom.

We thought that was a very generous thing for him to do.

On the front is Muggsy’s first and last name (In loving memory of Muggsy —) and the year of his birth and year of his death.

My husband wanted to put it on the mantle but I said no. The more I think of it, though, the more appealing it seems to me as it is too pretty to just hide.

Whichever of us goes first will have their urns placed in our casket. I’m just a bit over five feet tall so there will be plenty of room at my feet. We’ll do the same with our remaining animals. I just can’t bear the thought of burying them right now.

So, with hearts still aching, we welcome home Muggsy.