Late Start

I woke around 5am and remembered that it was ‘late start’ day. In kind, I granted myself permission to sleep a little late. I didn’t get up again until 6:05am. Admittedly, that was later than I had in mind. I was thinking more like 545am. Hey, I guess one could say that I was getting a late start too. After sit-ups and push-ups I checked the temperature. It was 70 degrees. I then took Mindy her morning coffee to help keep her timeline on track. It was already 6:15am. I could see that she was up starting her shower while I was out walking Ykraps, who was once again very, very slow taking care of his business. As I talked about yesterday, he’s getting older, but surprisingly, he’s looking healthier than ever, and he hasn’t had a seizure in months. It was 645am by the time I was back from walking Ykraps. I needed to get moving if I were to run before Mindy needed to leave. I did my stretching but skipped meditation. And this time because of the warm temps, I didn’t bother wearing a shirt from go. It was 6:55am when I set out for my run. The late start meant that more of my run was in full daylight this first full day of autumn. I was home just after 7:30am. Mindy was just getting ready to bolt. Both Jacob & Bella remained in bed. Mindy saw no reason to wake them given the ‘late start’. Made sense to me too. She left a brief note on the counter for their reading pleasure. Jacob got up shortly after Mindy left. By then, I was already working away. Jacob has become fairly self-sufficient relative to making his breakfast and readying for school. That makes life a little easier for all of us. After woofing down his waffles he was off to his room to watch TV. Bella got up sometime after 8am. She wasn’t too happy to discover her mother already gone. She went on about how her momma promised to tell her goodbye. I showed her the note Mindy left, but quickly realized that she couldn’t read all of it. I read it with her, but adlibbed some too. I told her that momma would see her in a couple of days. She wasn’t too pleased. J She got over it quickly and asked if she could play Mario Kart. Why not? Yes. While she played video games I headed off for a shower. I was back downstairs by 830am and back on my laptop. I took a break around 9am to prepare for Wednesday golf even though the weather forecast looked iffy. I would be prepared regardless. The kids and I headed for the bus stop just before 10am. Right on queue, the bus pulled up and the kids were on their way. I chatted only briefly with Kenny before heading back inside. Before leaving for work, I created a wedding rehearsal photo album online and sent it to Mindy. I would’ve copied other interested family members but didn’t have their email addresses. I’d get them and do it later, I surmised. I arrived at work by 1030am. It was practically time for our weekly staff meeting. That meeting lasted until 12:30pm or so. As it turned out, we didn’t have long before we needed to be in another meeting with our Team Leads at 2pm. The day was flying by. That second meeting lasted until just after 3pm. In a response to an email I sent earlier to my golf buddies, only Bob Imber was interested in playing. We went back and forth a couple of times about the venue but ultimately settled on Phoenix, and both agreed to try and be there by 5pm. With that in mind, I left the office at 430pm sharp. With daylight waning, it’s important to get there quickly. Traffic was much softer than last week. I made it to Phoenix by 5:00pm. I was surprised to see that Bob was already there, had a cart, and already paid our green fees. I gave him the cash to cover my share short $1. We were teeing off the back. I started out decent but bogeyed the first hole after narrowly missing the green with my second shot, chipping on and two putting. Hole # 2 is a 500 yard par 5. I was just off the green in three even after a short (read crappy) drive. I holed out with my PW for a birdie! Wahoo! I played pretty solid save for one hole - a fairly straight forward par four. Problem started with an errant drive into the nearby heather and then I duffed a 6-iron. One thing lead to another for an 8. I narrowly missed two more birdie putts on both par 3s - one from about 12’ & the second from about 5-6’ after hitting the flag stick on one bounce with my initial shot. As a matter of fact, for a brief second I thought I might net my first hole-in-one. That wasn’t to be, and neither was the birdie. I par’d both. The closing hole is that tough one over the pond, but Bob & I both bogeyed after hitting nice drives and decent approach shots. As we drove into the clubhouse the course looked damn near empty. What the heck, we decided to drive over to tee box #1 and get at least one more hole in. We knew if we played holes 1 thru 3 we’d end up pretty much right where we were. Long story short, Bob eagled hole #1. Awesome golf, Bob! It was 7:20pm when we finished our 12th hole. We chatted only briefly then parted ways. I was home by 7:35pm. Mindy was dining out at the Big Fat with school friends, and she was having Jimaken drop the kids off to her there. I asked that she NOT bring me home a gyro. There were plenty of leftovers already for me to choose from, including last night’s pizza. I arrived home and quickly took care of some small chores. Afterwards, I woofed down some pizza while at the same time getting started on Julie & Katie’s wedding album. There were around 240 pictures to upload, and it was estimated to take about 40 minutes. Mindy & the kids arrived home before 8pm. While got the kids ready for bed I mixed up a Jack & Coke then did some reading with network sitcom TV playing in the background. I couldn’t find anything of interest to watch. Mindy headed to bed around 9:45pm. I stayed up but quickly got cozy enough on the sofa that I fell asleep. I woke around 11pm and headed up for bed.