Wednesday, June 18, 2008

My Father's Day Weekend.

In Perpetual Motion. More than my favorite internet radio program, it's the mantra of my life.

Friday, the usual: work the day job, work Blockbuster, go home to a house full of people and dogs, have a couple beers, and go to sleep.

Saturday, Sonya runs off to do some errands and check out a new garden plot she reserved with the city and I take Liam to one of his school friends' birthday party. I spent the majority of the afternoon there, watching the kids play in the pool, slip-n-slide, play games and eat, while occasionally staving off one of Liam's tantrums spawned by some minor incident. It wasn't a chore, exactly, but there were plenty of things I'd rather do. Then I went to work at Blockbuster.

Father's Day, I got to sleep in till 10:30. That was nice. Then I woke up to help Sonya and Liam gather to be in the Frankenmuth Bavarian festival Parade with the Redford Unicycle Club. I got a nice card and some artwork from Liam & Courtney for my office, then commence to get them dressed and prepped. The parade started at 1, so I figured if we left by 11:30, we'd be fine. Silly me. Apparently, we needed to stop by Wal*Mart for white shoes for Liam and white pants for Sonya for the parade uniform. Okay, that sets us about 30 minutes behind. No problem, we'll still just barely make it. THEN we have to stop by her parents, because her mom may have a pair of pants that fit so we can return the pair just bought and pick up her brother. That turns into the better part of 1/2 hour as her mom makes French toast for everyone. Finally, we leave her parents' about 12:55. I barrel down the highway at breakneck speeds to get them to the parade site. We get there at about 1:25 and all run to catch up with the group, who is near the tail end of the parade, barely catching them. I pick up Courtney and run/speed-walk - while carrying her - the mile or so to a point in the parade to watch, getting there just in time. I snap a few pics of the group and meet up with my drum corps buddy, Caroline, and a few other corps alumni to watch the remainder of the parade. Courtney is thirsty, so Caroline points to her house and allows me to invade her kitchen for some water for the girl. By the time I got back, the parade was about done.

From there, I walk with Courtney to about the end of the parade (another mile or so) to meet up with them. Sonya's parents drove up to see the parade, missing it entirely, of course, as we almost did, and gather us to drive back to my car. Sonya, me, her parents, her brother, and both kids, crammed into a Toyota Corolla (cue the circus music). We spend about 40 minutes finding a place for lunch, and after a pleasantly quiet and uneventful meal, I decide to head home to finish up a learning track project that's a couple weeks overdue.

Ahh. Finally, some calm and quiet, and I can do some stuff I need to do....

...then I hit the traffic. 2 mile backup on I-75, taking an extra 1/2 hour from my day. The rest of the day was spent in the bedroom working on the learning tracks for my chorus, sweating like a pig, as I have to turn off the fan to avoid ambient noise on the track.

Don't get me wrong, the day wasn't entirely unpleasant, but not the relaxing Father's Day I was hoping for. Instead of enjoying a nice parade with friends, it turned into a mad dash to be everywhere 20 minutes ago.

Oh well. I'll me mellow when I'm dead.

No comments: