My Favorite Things

Happy 47th birthday Kaiuous was up at my usual time, 5:30am. In short order my calisthenics were in the bag and Ykraps and I were headed out the door. It was a lovely morning with clear skies and warm temperatures. We were expecting lovely summer weather through the day, but sadly, it wasn’t expected to stay that way even into Saturday. Instead, rain was in the offing. But for now… After coffee, meditation, and stretching I readied for a run. I was out the door near 6:40am. The run went about as well as expected. Nothing out of the ordinary. I was back by 7:20am and eagerly going about making my eggs and throwing together my lunch. Thanks to Mindy, there was little I had to do relative to lunch. It was all prepackaged the afternoon before. I was off to the shower by 7:40am. Mindy reported sleeping poorly once again. Thinking it might be related to her blood pressure and pulse, she took both soon after waking. Still much higher than she wants, especially her pulse, which has been hovering at or near 100 bpm. Mindy agreed to join me on the deck for a cup of coffee before I departed for work. The summer sunshine was warm and bright, the humidity about where one would expect it. From the deck, we talked mostly about the kids, and more pointedly about working with Jacob on his table manners. In kind, Mindy asked that I try a different approach since the current technique isn’t working. We talked far longer than I anticipated. It was after 8:25am when I checked the clock. Crap! I left for work in hurry. I drove the BM’er, again a very lovely drive in. The morning went along according to plan. We were busy. I easily could’ve worked straight through, but held fast to my plan to run a couple personal errands. First, I had to make a deposit at the bank, and then stop in Colonial Music, with in eye shot of the bank, to pick up a new bridge pin for my acoustic guitar. I found one broken this week. While there, I bought a guitar string winder too. Between the two, I spent a whopping $2.40. I stopped in Lowe’s before returning to work. I browsed but bought nothing. I was back at the office by 2pm. Mindy left a VM that she was headed to the pool with neighbor Kenny and his three kids. I returned her call an hour or so later. She planned to stay at the pool until the 4 o’clock rest period, the 4 o’clock rest period. The day wound down nicely. I was even able to leave a little early. I thought that I might mow the lawn once at home, but wasn’t fully committed to it either. As I figured, by the time that I arrived home, I didn’t want to mow the lawn. Mindy joined me walking Ykraps. We noticed many lawns beginning to brown out for lack of meaningful rain. Ours is nice and green but still showing signs of stress here and there. Nothing like a good summer rain storm to help restore lushness to the lawn. We were still planning a Barley’s outing, and also expecting brother Glenn to be joining us. He phoned around 5:45pm to firm up plans. He showed up at 6:30pm. In between his call and arrival, Mindy showered. I took a nap. Once Glenn arrived, he agreed to restring my guitar. I gave him all the supplies. He ended up snapping off a second bridge pin by trying to pull ‘em straight up and out. I showed him afterwards that they push up and out quite easily. Now I’d have to go buy a few more bridge pins. I should’ve bought more than one earlier. Heck, they are only $.10 each. Glenn restrung my guitar while I freshened up for a night out. Before heading out I retuned my guitar. As expected, the strings were slipping in and out of tune, but even still, the sound was much livelier than the old ones. We headed off to Barley’s at 7:00pm. We got a good parking spot, usually a decent indicator of the crowd, but not always. Turns out, not that crowded at all. Already eating barside were Bob & Mary Ann. Our neighbors, David & Becky were there too, but they were eating dinner at a table. Dan & Paul, at least early on, were the only other familiar faces sitting at the bar. Tom Clark and Tom Wright arrived a bit later. As usual, we yucked it up. Tom, Tommy & I firmed our intentions to golf Safari early Sunday morning. Bob couldn’t golf due to a family commitment. The golf gods weren’t pleased, but perhaps more importantly, Mary Ann was. :) We were at Barley’s until 11pm or so. Mindy was driving home; this we planned earlier. Over the four hour span, I drank five beers. Yikes! Good thing I ate some food. Earlier, we shared sauerkraut balls and a half chicken. We dropped Glenn at my Dad’s by design. We were home and in bed before 11:30pm.