Rain and lots of it

I got up and going by 5:45am Friday morning. I had the benefit of not needing to prepare a packed lunch for Mindy or myself. Mindy often has a friend bring her lunch on Friday’s and we were having a pizza day to celebrate our 6 new hires. It wasn’t raining when I got up but it was cloudy, but the weather forecast & radar validated that the rain was coming. Aside from a handful of banner days, October’s been a very rainy month. To put it in perspective, September & October are often two of our driest months. We have had almost 8.5 inches of rain the last 60 days. In comparison, Portland, Oregon has only had a smidge more than 2 inches over the same time period and they’re often thought of as a very wet city. While poking around at the official weather stats I couldn’t help but notice that Portland averages almost 6.5 inches of rain in November. I found that surprising given that I’ve visited the past five Novembers and can’t ever recall an overtly rainy visit. Instead, what I remember most are some beautiful blue skies. Because we were having a pizza lunch today at the office I left for my run early – 11am. I planned to finish my run by noon and then cruise to the Hilliard Pizza Pan by 1230pm to pick-up our nine pies. I carried out my plan like clock work. But by the time my run closed and I left for the pizza it was raining pretty good. In fact, it ended up being a very raw and rainy day. The temperatures struggled to rise above 45 degrees. I decided to check on Ashley on my drive to pick-up the pizzas. She confirmed her intentions to have Mindy and I watch Olivia Saturday night, and she gave me a happy update on Olivia’s vitals after her first visit to the pediatrician. When I arrived at the pizza shop the pies weren’t quite ready. To kill time I decided to call my dad to see if I could borrow his 4X8’ trailer Saturday morning to pick-up some firewood. I had been putting off contacting him for confirmation all week long for no good reason. When I reached him, I wasn’t at all prepared for what he was about to tell me. And in usual dad fashion, I couldn’t get a word in before he began telling me about my step-mother Sheila and her current medical condition. He went on for about five solid minutes describing some very sobering bad news. I was floored. I couldn’t breathe very well at all. She is seriously ill. Before hanging up I remembered why I had called and went ahead and confirmed that it was OK for me to use his trailer. I stood outside pondering the news for another five minutes before the pizzas were finally ready. My thoughts naturally turned to my own children and how they would handle similar news about their parents. I decided to call Ashley back and share what I had just learned. She was very somber and sad, too. Back at work I put my personal life aside for a spell and enjoyed some pizza with my team. Later, I sent brother Glenn and email asking when a good time to call might be so that I could share some news. He said 1:15PDT (1:15 EDT). The rest of the afternoon was like most Friday’s. We were very busy. My focus was a bit keener since I would be the on-call manager over the weekend. It’s never easy getting excited about the weekend when I am on-call. Instead, I generally dread what knowingly lies ahead. At 4:15pm on the dot, I gave Glenn the news. I left the office just after 5pm. On my way home I called Mindy then brother Tommy to share the somber news. It’s not like I wanted to gossip, but the news needs shared and shared in a timely fashion. I arrived home before 5:30pm and went about my usual Friday chores. The house needed a little picking up since Mindy had to leave in a hurry with the kids in costume to her school Halloween party. I spent about 15-20 minutes doing that after walking Ykraps and then settled down and relaxed best I could. Lindsey arrived just after 7pm just as planned. She had to work some overtime which she was more than happy to get. If I didn’t mention it, Mindy had Lil’ Rocky with her at the Halloween party. Once Lindsey was settled, I shared the news with her. Sometime around 7:30pm Mindy and the three kids arrived home. After the initial excitement, we began getting the kids ready for bed. Our plan called for getting them in bed before leaving for the Barley’s Halloween party. We got them in bed and to sleep by 8:15pm. They were exhausted after a long action packed day. Lil’ Rocky and Lindsey planted themselves on the couch while Mindy and I prepared to depart. We chose not to get into costume after the day we both had, but instead we went simply to enjoy a relaxing evening out. We arrived close to 8:30pm. I ordered a beer off the firkin – Jack Frost. It was hard to drink. It had zero carbonation and a bourbon-like finish. I couldn’t wait to finish and get my usual IPA. Mindy bought us three OSU football pool squares. We ordered food. I had Gates of Hell wings and sauerkraut balls. Mindy had salmon. We hung out with Jeremy and Courtney most of the evening. Bob and Mary Ann were absent. And yes, it will be noted on their report cards! We left Barleys sometime after 11pm. We arrived home very tired so we went right to bed.