Just A Damn Nice Weekend

This isn't likely to be a tremendously scintillating post.

(Did you need to be scintillated? I hope not.)

I just had one of the most pleasant weekends I can remember. Nothing earth-shattering happened. Most of the events will likely be gone from memory in a week or so. That's precisely why I want to write about it, though. Stuff like this is good to remember. If I don't write it down, I won't. If I put you to sleep in the meantime, my apologies.

First thing I'm going to do is list what happened, in rough chronological order, and then I'll expand on two or three of the items. I won't tell you everything because that would be boring in some instances and ungentlemanly in others.

SATURDAY

* I had a really good shave

* The ride down to a kid's birthday party was very pleasant

* The party itself was fun, with nice people present

* The kids were cute

* The ride home was the same as the first ride - pleasant

* I did some laundry

* I read some Mark Twain

* We watched a movie, a fun bit of fluff called "Jumbo"

* I played the bass

BETWEEN SATURDAY & SUNDAY

* I got a really good night's sleep and we got less snow than forecast

SUNDAY

* Enjoyed some TV with MY WIFE

* Had steak and eggs for breakfast

* Played the bass again

* Took a lazy early afternoon nap

* Got a phone call from my buddy, Sean

* Watched the Celtics beat the Lakers

* Had steak again, this time for dinner

* Made love

* Enjoyed a tearjerker movie starring Betty White

* Another good night's sleep

And that's about it. Like I said, nothing that would make a blog post unto itself, or change the course of history, but just a smooth and pleasant couple of days doing nice things with good people.

It started with a good shave. That might not seem worthy of mention, even in a post full of unremarkable things, but it set the tone for the entire 48 hours. Guys - and probably most women, but I won't speak for them - know that a bad shave can linger. If you cut your face to ribbons, it tends to put a damper on what follows. Even just some undue irritation can keep bringing you out of whatever reveries you find yourself in. Well, I had a good shave. No nicks, no irritations, no razor burn, nothing to remind me that I had shaved, at all, except for the absence of any reminders. That was a good thing. It made the ride that followed completely free of any added annoyance.

The ride was from Watertown to Lakeville, about an hour's duration. Along the way, we needed to stop at a sporting goods store to pick up a present MY WIFE had had in mind for a couple of weeks for our grand nephew, whose party we were going to. The thing she wanted was right there, front of the store, we picked it up, and then we continued on a pleasant hour ride filled with the type of good conversation that a man and HIS WIFE of 18 years have when they love each other.

We arrived in Lakeville and went to a birthday party. It was for Darian, our grand nephew, who was turning five.

(Some folks prefer 'great nephew', same as 'great aunt' or 'great uncle', which is what we all are, but I've never understood why grandparents are grand and the rest of the same generation isn't, so I've taken it upon myself to change that. Sorry if that causes confusion, but my weekend wouldn't have been perfect without it, so...)

(Wait a minute. Let me amend that. It wasn't a perfect weekend. There were slight bits of non-perfection thrown in, but nothing worth telling you about.)

(OK, maybe just one. On our way to the party, we drove past a young teenage girl wearing sweatpants with the inscription "JUICY" written across her ass. I know it's a brand name, and I know saying this will mark me as an old fogey, but it seems to me that a teenage girl with "JUICY" across her ass is the equivalent of a teenage boy wearing pants with "BONER" written across the crotch. It may or may not be the truth, I don't want to know about it either way, and it's hardly the sort of thing you want to advertise unless you actually are advertising.)

(And, now that I've mentioned it, some idiot clothing manufacturer will probably think it's a great - or grand - idea, and start marketing them. I'm sorry I brought it up.)

The birthday party was held at our grandnephew's dojo. He's taking martial arts and it's a good thing. He has perpetual energy and it's a great outlet for it. His sensei hosted the party, and he was truly magnificent with the many kids attending, most of whom were not his students. He gave all of them brief lessons in his arts, then devised games for the kids using those arts, and he was patient and loving, yet authoritative enough to herd the five-and-six-year-old cats as needed. There was cake, and that alone would have made it worth my while. The cuteness of the kids was just an added attraction.

Darian's grandparents, Victoria and Joe, are my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, respectively, and they're two of my favorite people. They were the ones who paid for the party. Joe is a truly nice guy, and so is Victoria (except for the guy part, since she's recently dropped forty pounds and is downright foxy these days.)

After a brief apres-party visit to Victoria and Joe's house, we rode home - again, pleasant - and I did some laundry. That may not seem like part of a wonderful weekend, but when you consider that I didn't have to beat the clothes on a rock and hang them out to dry in 20 degree weather (which wouldn't so much dry them as petrify them) it was all good. I enjoyed reading Mark Twain's Autobiography during the time the laundry was doing itself, and later on I plugged in my bass guitar and was in a groove the whole time I played. Somewhere in there, MY WIFE and I watched the Jimmy Durante film, Jumbo, which was goofy and fun.

Overnight, we were supposed to get an inch or two of snow, to add to the 60 inches or so we've already been blessed with this year, but that didn't happen. Yay!

Sunday morning came and we watched some TV, which was just a nice relaxing couple of hours, then I cooked up a big steak and some eggs for my breakfast. I'm here to tell you that steak and eggs is about the best damn breakfast possible. It's even better when you know you'll have steak for dinner, which we did. I'm not sure if this was the first time in my life wherein I had steak for two different meals during the same day, but I guarantee it won't be the last (unless I croak in the meantime, of course, but if I do, I'll die happy, having had steak for TWO meals in one day.)

I played the bass again, got a phone call from my good buddy, Sean (who jokingly asked me which team I thought would win The Pro Bowl, which we both consider the worst all-star game on the planet, so I said the AFC would win 46 - 3, while he guessed it would be the NFC, 108 - 27, and since neither of us watched the thing, we were both winners), and then the Celtics beat the Lakers, which I might have considered the highlight of the day except for the fact that MY WIFE and I made love afterward, or maybe it was after the steak. It's all blended together in a general pastiche of warm feelings, full bellies, and unhappiness for Kobe Bryant, so it's all good.

The weekend ended with Betty White in a tearjerker Hallmark Hall Of Fame presentation called The Lost Valentine. It worked. It jerked half a bucket of moisture from me, as I sat there blubbering like a schoolgirl at the end, tears and snot running down my face. I wouldn't normally consider that a good thing, but it was in this instance. Betty White was truly good as a war widow who lost her husband in World War II yet who returned to a train station to meet his train every year, on Valentines Day, since he went missing in action. If you didn't see it, do so if it's repeated. And bring hankies.

And, finally, after clearing my body of all the fluids one can clear them of, I had a great night of sleep and here I am. As I said at the beginning, nothing earth-shattering. I wrote this more for my benefit than for yours, so I thank you for grinding your way through to the end. I'll try to be as polite someday with one of your boring posts.

Soon, with more better stuff.