Oh for Pete’s sake let’s just get this Weekend Roundup over with
I am way pressed for time here, people. Schedule’s tight, no time for pleasantries, let’s do this thing, no edits, no spell check, blah blah blah I’m already wasting time.
See, this has been basically the busiest weekend ever and it ain’t even over yet. I had Friday off so I could travel with Maya’s class to the Weston Red Barn Farm. Which we did, although it was cool-but-just-short-of-cold and wicked muddy. Steven had a half-day at school (it sometimes seems that they have more half-days at this school than they have whole days), so afterwards, I had to run home so I could be there in time for Steven to get home. I spent the rest of the day running around town on errands–grocery store, cleaners, Wal-Mart, comic book store, essential tasks like that.
So I was more-than-ready for a quiet evening at home with the fam. Shannon had been working all day the church preparing for the annual Boo Bash Halloween party extravaganza party even thingy, so I made a nice meal of homemade chicken-and-noodles and apple crisp. A perfect meal for a perfect evening! Until Shannon stopped at the party store on the way home and the credit card machine subsequently failed. Ever the trooper, Shannon waited patiently for them to fix the problem. She waited for an hour (I would have given up after about three minutes) until the proprietors gave up and said, “Go ahead and take that $800 worth of merchandise. We know you’re good for it.” I’m not kidding.
That $800 worth of Halloween stuff was for the aforementioned Boo Bash, which took up all of our Saturday. The thing only ran form 10-2, but you had to be there early for last-minute setup and stay late to tear everything down before the Saturday evening service. It went swimmingly, as always: 1200 people walked through those doors and were wowed by the free trick-or-treating and carnival games and haunted house and snacks and train rides and balloon animals and autographs from actor Christopher Walken (just kidding! there were no balloon animals). Steven played a crazy chef in the haunted house, mixing up a meal of worms and dirt, etc., while Maya and I manned a carnival game. As the Big Boss Lady, Shannon, of course, was everywhere, making sure everything was going as it should. Squealing kids dragged their parents through every square inch of the place, and afterward we were able to get the whole place back to normal within a couple of hours.
It should go without saying (which does not mean I will go without saying it) that we were all exhausted at this point, so we wolfed down some Mexican food at El Maguey (with an ice-cold Pacifico and a wee margarita to make us appreciate it all the more), then we went home and turned in early.
Oh, how I wish that were true! Oh no, after dinner Steven and I went to see the Kansas City Symphony. We scored free tickets a while back, and we could have booked any date the symphony was playing, but instead we decided to book a concert on a night when we–thanks to working all day at the Boo Bash–would be guaranteed to be absolutely exhausted. It wasn’t too bad, but the music was a bit inaccessible to a newbie like Steven. The whole second half of the program was a choral work sung entirely in Latin. What kid doesn’t like listening to a choir singing in a dead language for an hour?
Sunday was church day, as always, and Steven and I helped out with the four- and five-year-olds, playing a bee (me) and a caterpillar (Steven). Ridiculously goofy, of course, but the kids ate it up.
And now, we are preparing for a dinner with some friends of ours. I have floors to vacuum and onions to caramelize and potatoes to roast and hamburger patties to make. So enough of the typing. It’s a beautiful day and I’m sitting inside typing! What’s wrong with me?! Not like it matters, I got crap to do. That’s what weekends are all about… two solid days of non-stop obligations. Am I right?! No, of course I am being sarcastic again. I get all cranky when I don’t get a nap. So overtired! Maybe tonight as we grill burgers with our friends the Butlers, a little Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat will put out that fire. Ah, sweet alcohol… is there anything it can’t do?
Confessions of a political agnostic (warning: political content herein)
No matter who you’re supporting this election, I think we can all agree on this:
The dude who lives here is clearly a total kook.
The number of political signs in your yard–regardless of your party affiliation–directly correlates to the amount of crazy in your head. The guy’s even got a speaker playing snippets of audio! He’s ten kinds of nuts, but you have to kind of admire his willingness to go the extra cuckoo mile.
Just so you know, I didn’t post this because I’m a Democrat and want to make Republicans look like madmen. Truth is, I’m not a big fan of either party anymore. While I’ve been pretty loyal to a particular party most of my voting life (and those of you who know me know which party that is), the past few years I’ve fully converted to political agnosticism. (Check the link and watch the video, it’s worth your time.)
In fact, saying that I’m not a fan of either political party barely scratches the surface of my antipathy toward the Democratic and Republican parties. And hey, since I’m on the political subject, I may as well get this off my chest: While I have no doubt that Senators Obama and McCain are good and decent men, they are two of the worst presidential candidates I have ever encountered and I cannot in good conscience award either of them with my vote. I refuse to hold my nose on Election Day and vote for the lesser of two evils.
Just to be clear:
I will not vote for Barack Obama.
I will not vote for John McCain.
Frankly, neither of them deserve my vote. Or yours, either. It’s become all-too-clear to me that the only thing that’s ever going to change in Washington, D.C., is which political party is ruining everything. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ll still vote on November 4th. I just haven’t decided which lunatic third-party candidate I’m going to vote for.
Did you hear that, Political Establishment? I would rather vote for some crazy person than vote for either of the two Monuments to Mediocrity you’ve put forth this year.
You want to leave a comment to try to change my mind? Go ahead. Try. But you’re gonna have to do it by telling me why your candidate is so great. You can’t convince me by telling me that the candidate you hate is a terrible choice, because I already think that.
UPDATE: After speaking with a friend of mine who may have misunderstood some of this post, I thought I’d clarify. Some of my statements were a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I really am going to vote third-party. I will not, however, be playing “eeny-meeny-miny-moe” in the voting booth. I will vote for the third-party candidate that best represents my views, to send a message. It’s a message that probably won’t be heard, but there you go. It’s my little way of hacking away at the destructive two-party system, because I no longer believe that system is in the best interests of this country. Like I said, if you disagree, comment away.
Gliding over Boulder, Colorado
Video highlights of my sailplane flight over Boulder, Colorado. October 13, 2008.
How do you solve a problem like the Weekend Roundup?
Wow… it feels like I haven’t done one of these Weekend Roundup things in weeks! Specifically, two weeks, which is exactly how long it’s been since I’ve done one of these Weekend Roundup things. I was out of town last weekend on the Colorado trip I won’t shut up about. (I posted some photos the other day; later in the week you can expect a hastily-thrown-together YouTube video of my sailplane flight over Boulder.) The trip was wicked awesome, so much so that I, of course, did not want to return to my humdrum, workaday life here in the City of Fountains, but alas, all good things must come to an end. Wait, that statement seems to be implying that my regular, ordinary life isn’t good, when nothing could be further from the truth! Why just look at all the good, good things we did this weekend:
- Friday night, the kids and I ate homemade tacos while Shannon was out at a meeting. That’s pretty exciting, right? I mean, come on… TACOS.
- After dinner, while we were waiting for the Mom-type to return, we watched The Lion King. (The kids have had Simba on the brain since someone from the church anonymously gifted us with tickets to see the massive Disney stage production last week.) Okay, so that’s pretty good. The Lion King was a good movie, right? Right?
- After Shannon got home and the kids went to bed, we watched O Brother, Where Art Thou? That won some awards and stuff, didn’t it? Well, it was at least nominated for a bunch of awards, so that’s good, isn’t it? And we both really liked it even though it was kind of odd, but then, what do you expect from the Coen brothers, who produced some of my favorite movies ever? See, watching a good movie… that’s almost as good as climbing a mountain.
- Homemade waffles for breakfast on Saturday. That’s basically like winning the lottery!
- Helping a friend go pick up a washing machine, lugging it all the way back to his house, unloading it and hooking it up, only to find out that it doesn’t work? That, my friend, is good. Very good.
- We cleaned house all day. Scrubbing toilets, dusting furniture, vacuuming carpets, mopping linoleum… I don’t know about you, but spending a sunny fall Saturday pulling down cobwebs and wiping up dried pee is the very definition of heaven on earth.
- Shannon and I pawned the kids off on a babysitter and went to a friend’s house for an exquisite dinner, where the wine flowed freely and the food was fan-freaking-tastic. Seriously, this was eight kinds of awesome. I’m not being sarcastic on this one item; you’ll just have to take my word on that.
- On Sunday at church, I was helping out in the pre-kindergarten large group area, and I got to play a nerdy cockroach named Cosmo. Typecasting, if you ask me. I am perhaps a bit thankful that there were no video cameras present. Anyway… pretending to be a cockroach for a bunch of rambunctious wee ones? It’s more than you did.
- On Sunday I ate a peanut butter sandwich and took a nap. Try to top that, smart guy.
See? It was a weekend chock-full of incalculable joy and delight. Hmm… maybe I’m laying the sarcasm on a bit thick. Yeah, maybe it wasn’t a weekend for the history books, but I’m sitting here late Sunday afternoon and looking back over it, and I can’t really complain about anything. It’s a beautiful day, the house is clean, we have lots of leftovers from that great dinner last night, the dog is snoring at my feet, the kids are playing quietly and contentedly. Maybe it’s not as thrilling as standing on a snowy ridge 13,000 feet high or gliding over rock formations in a sailplane, but a man could do worse. A lot worse.
So forgive my snide comments about the weekend. I’ve got a smile on my face as I think about the little joys I’m experiencing right now. My trip to Colorado was an adventure; it was refreshing and new and I am thankful for the opportunities it offered me. But life here in Kansas City–eating a fine meal with friends, tickling my daughter, soaking up the light autumn sun on a cool October afternoon–brother, that ain’t too shabby.
Colorado Pics
Yeah, you probably noticed there was no Weekend Roundup last weekend. Why? Because I wasn’t even around, that’s why. Thanks to a surprise gift from Shannon, I was in Colorado hanging out and relaxing and exploring. Enjoy this photographic evidence!
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
The Weekend Roundup wanders around aimlessly
It wanders aimlessly around Gladfest, our little town’s annual fall festival. Of course, we spent so much time walking around and stuffing ourselves with giant turkey legs deep-fried Oreos that I’m too exhausted to write about it.
I can, however, post a mediocre highlight video! (Warning: eardrum-shredding girly screams about 40 seconds in.)