Catching Up

A THREE DAY WEEKEND

The best weather ever.

Friday afternoon I got a bee in my bonnet. I called Paul and asked him if he wanted to meet me at G's for a quick supper, then go to Best Buy to pick up Rock Band, an XBox game. It comes with drums, guitar and microphone. The player (s) follow the colors as they appear to play along with a variety of rock tunes, and are scored on accuracy. Its wicked fun. Sean was guitar, Paul was drums and I sang. Then I tried drums and Paul sang. Sean was not giving up guitar. Love my man, he is skilled and talented beyond belief, but rythym and tone are two things he was not blessed with at birth. They just are not there. He's a good sport, so when I laughed hard, he did not kill me. We played in our band until late late. I'm not sure the creators of this game pictured Paul and I as a typical market. Late middle age, we bring it home and race to get into our pajamas to settle in and play.

Saturday Sean, X & M, Paul and I went to work at Ledyard. We put in an amazing day. Funny how you work like a dog, (who's dog, anyway???) and the overwhelming result is the indication that more work is needed. That is not entirely true. M was gracious, and agreed to clean the empty unit. Inside work. I HATE it. But she washed walls and floors and windows and bathrooms. I love her. She's so funny, she couldn't stop. We turned around and when she was finished with the apartment, we found her downstairs in the laundry room, cleaning that. What a gem. So that is done. X battled with the weed whacker a lot. We had cut down a lot of brush over the last couple years, so those areas need to be whacked often to keep the growth down. But we have a lazy whacker, so X's mission was to keep it busy. Paul and I caught her whacking the sides and tops of bushes...Sean mowed and helped X. He was in a talkative mood so it took some effort to keep him moving. Paul split wood - the wood I unburied when I started to cut back more brush. We had trees cut a couple years ago and never completed the removal. We made great progress, but cutting back brush means more yard, more maintenance. This area is infested with kudzu, which was entangled in the brambles and small trees I was trying to remove. Crazy stuff. Now the leaves have to be removed, which we only had time to partially pull up, and the ground prepared for grass. No small job. We still have a good size pile of wood to split, haul and stack. Lots more to do, including a hedge I've been wanting to plant for a couple years, but never seem to get to it. We generally only do these 'field' days twice a year at Ledyard - once in the spring, and again in the fall. I don't know if we will get back there before fall to work again.

Sean had some time constraints - a date with his girlfriend, and had to get home to clean up. My dates used to be for an evening. His dates are for a whole weekend. Times have changed. He needed to go, and didn't have time to join us for dinner, so we ended up letting him take my car back home, and Paul and I rode together in the truck. The truck still is unregistered. H - I'm so irresponsible. We originally planned to have supper at a restaurant across the river, which, without the car, would necessitate the navigation of a wood filled, unregistered 13 year old truck, towing a log splitter across a six lane bridge. Paul and I accepted X & Mel's suggestion that we have dinner in town instead, where we usually go after a day of work. They have pretty good food, so it wasn't much of a sacrifice. The other restaurant wasn't too much further away, really, and one we all enjoy but rarely get a chance to go to. We were going to take the car there, but we let Sean take the car, because he had some time constraints - a date with his girlfriend.

When we got home, we of course sat in the hot tub. Thats what we do. We are both a little stiff from our work, but we always are. No Rock Band today. God no.

Sunday. This is sort of shameful. It was absolutely GORGEOUS outside. At about 9AM, I went downstairs, and yep, you guessed it. Started playing in my rock band. Other than a few intermittent breaks, (and Paul did a lot better than I - he actually unloaded the truck and cleaned it, and vacuumed my car and cleaned his), thats where we were and what we were doing for a substantial portion of the day...until the sun went down on this quintessentially perfect spring day. We didn't even eat until close to 8PM. Did I hang out clothes on the line? Did I wash windows? Did I do some yard work? Did I even take advantage of the weather and sit in the shade and read? Nope. I did however spend a few minutes finishing Atlas Shrugged. Wasn't much left. Good reading. So, our band, the Orange Heroes, were striving to get more fans. With Paul on the base guitar and me on the drums, we've gotten as many as we can on the EASY level. And we can't go forward to new venues and unlock more songs until we attain more fans, which means upping our difficulty level to MEDIUM. We are both challenged, obsessively challenged.

Monday. Paul left for Seattle before any human should be up. I miss him. We so have to get away, just be together, we two. No distractions. No rock band.

There are some chores around here that need to be done. But I gotta tell you. I'm going to go practice on the drums. I want to win more fans. Thats my plan for today. The chores will have to be done on break time. Priorities, man.

Three day weekend.

The best weather ever.

Downstairs drumming.

Happy.

Peace