End of the Strada

I readied for the day with a smile all about my face. I was smiling because even though this was a Thursday, it was in effect, my Friday. I was more than ready for a three day weekend having not experienced such an event since the weekend after Labor Day.

We polished off the last of the breakfast strada before heading off to work and school. I had no need for a packed lunch outside of a snack since my packed lunch from Tuesday still sat in the fridge.

I emailed Glenn the evening before asking that he send me his flight itinerary so that I had a bead on his flight. When I arrived at the office it was in my inbox. In addition to balancing and unusually busy Thursday of work, I had few personal errands to tend to. I contacted Sears to order replacement keys for the top tool chest in the roll around. For whatever reason, it has a different key number than the other two and Mindy didn’t know of its whereabouts. In fact, she didn’t even realize it took a different key.

At lunch time I drove to Home Depot to pick-up a few things and browse. I called brother Tommy along the way. I invited him to go hiking with us at Hocking Hills tomorrow and Barley’s that night. He accepted both having scheduled the entire weekend off for pleasure. The work day ended around 5:40pm. I really wanted to get out of there sooner but a couple hot issues kept me at bay. Oh well, I had a long weekend ahead and that felt great!

Mindy was grocery shopping with the kids. She wanted to knock out the chore early on so that she could also more casually enjoy our three day weekend. Once again, Mindy had a list waiting for me on the island. On the list were a few simple chores that I addressed after walking Ykraps. I pretty much ignored the last chore on list - making dinner. I wasn’t hungry and didn’t have the energy. Just before Mindy arrived home, I called my dad to see if he wanted to ride along with me to pick-up Glenn. He agreed. Mindy arrived around 6:30pm. I helped her carry in the groceries.

Jacob asked if he could go to the airport, too. Sure. I thought that he might ask. Glenn’s flight wasn’t scheduled to land until after 10pm. I wanted Jacob to know it would be late. He understood and still insisted on going along. We logged onto NWA.com to check the status of Glenn’s flight -just a few minutes late. We left the house just after 9pm stopping first at dad’s. He was at the door waiting and ready.

We made great time and found ourselves at the airport early – 9:25pm. By the time we made our way from the parking garage to the waiting area it was 9:35pm. Jacob was crashing fast and mentioned being bored & hungry. I eventually caved and took him to the Wendy’s within view. Lucky for him, we got our order in just before they closed.

Around 10:30pm I spotted Glenn wondering up the jetway towards the security area. As usual, he was one of the last passengers to deplane. We were on our way back home by 10:45pm. Dad agreed to join us at my house. I’d run him home later.

Back at home, Mindy was already asleep. However, just as I was headed up to wake her, she started down the steps on her own. For the next couple of hours we sat around the kitchen table talking, drinking a couple of beers, and snacking on some popcorn and chips and salsa. Eventually, dad asked to be ran him home. I obliged him, of course, and Glenn went along.
Glenn and I enjoyed yet another beer after returning. It was 2am. I was more than tired and called it a night.