Never Fear Another On-Call is Here

It was Friday, and I was up right on time. It was a cloudy start to the day, but no rain expected. It was also mild, about 60 degrees. I completed my exercises and then took Frankie out for a romp. She was deliberate and quick. Inside I moved swiftly through coffee, meditation, and stretching. I delivered Mindy’s coffee along with the pug as my run time neared. Mindy was just rolling out of bed and asked that I place her coffee on her dresser in the bathroom in lieu of her night stand. I dressed in shorts and a long sleeved wicking shirt for my run. I ran the full 4.1 mile track without incident. Aside from the cloud cover, it was a lovely morning. Mindy had eggs waiting my return. They hit the spot. I dabbled in the fruit tray, too, but we were definitely hitting bottom. In fact, one of the 'fresh' raspberries had some mold forming on its side. After my shower, I loaded our snow skis into the Trooper with plans to drop them off at Aspen Ski & Board (ASBCO) during lunch for their annual tune-up. The tune-up’s just $10 per pair if done before October 3rd. That’s one heck of a deal! The kids and I headed out to the bus stop around 8am. Jacob seemed to be feeling better after a battling a cold for the last week. Chrissy shared that Kenny & Jake were going to the Buckeye game on Saturday. That should be a good bonding experience. I let Frankie walk around the back yard briefly before taking her back inside and penning her up for the day. Ashley phoned while I was preparing to leave asking if we would keep Olivia overnight. I explained that this was the 5 year anniversary of the day Mindy and I met, and that we had a date planned. I did tell her that I would be more than willing to receive her bright and early in the AM. Ashley was more than gracious sharing that she would first check with her grandma Rosemary and then her mother. Would call me back. Off to work by 810am. It was a relatively quiet start to the day. Somewhat unusual for a Friday. And given that I’d be on-call over the weekend, I was hypersensitive not only to the current state of affairs, but also to what the prognosticators were saying about the hurricanes churning out in the Atlantic. At the time we seemed to be in no eminent danger. The morning remained calm. Ashley called me back around 11am to accept my offer to keep Olivia tomorrow AM. Said she’d have to bring her over around 6am. Ugh! Getting up that early would suck, but helping Ashley and seeing Olivia was worth the price. I sent Mindy a text to let her know. At 1pm I left for ASBCO. I took our skis in at roughly the same time last year, but it still feels weird being in the ski shop in mid-September. I was the only patron in the store. Can’t remember the store managers name, but he kindly pointed out the flawed technique I used with the ski-keeps. He showed me how to properly place them around the skis thus preventing the edges from rubbing. How foolish of me! Said lots of folks install them as I did. While they completed the paperwork, I browsed the store. Everything in the store was 20% off through Saturday. I had designs on a new pair of ski pants and perhaps a new jacket. I found a pair of Burton ski pants that I really liked. They are heavy-duty and waterproof. Looked good too. After trying them on, I decided to buy ‘em. I felt good about the price, especially after taking 20% off. Said the skis would be ready for pick-up by next Friday. Great! Back to work. As I passed Strader’s, I noticed a fresh load of sod being unloaded. I’ll need to pick-up about 100 square feet here in the next couple of weeks. My afternoon was moderately busy, but I managed to complete most tasks on my to-do list. I prepped and left for home just after 5pm. The only down side, I was taking work home with me – literally. Jimaken was over to fetch the kids, this being one of his weekends. They headed out within five minutes of my arrival home. Right away, I got my laptop set-up and did a little work. I took it easy though, and finally at Mindy’s prompting, I headed out to the deck where we spent the next 30-40 minutes relaxing in the early fall-like weather. By then it was sunny and near 70. Frankie went out there with us too. It wasn't long before she darted off the deck and then ran out front. Mindy chased after her. I followed slowly behind. Frankie ran across the street towards two young black labs on a leash. What made it even worse was the heavy influx of traffic coming home after work. Frankie ran back and forth across the street at least twice. Mindy eventually corralled her and toted her back home. Like me a couple days before, she spanked and scolded her before putting her in the pen. Not really sure what good, if any, that actually does. It does, however, make the owner feel better, at least temporarily.  We outlined the evening’s plans. We decided to head to Barley’s around 7pm. We freshened up around 645pm and left just after 7pm. As we passed Teresa’s house, I shared what I have been meaning to tell her for a week or more, which is to inflate her car tires, especially the left rear. She’s been driving on it almost flat for the past week or so. But it looked like she finally figured it out through another. We arrived at Barley’s to a near full parking lot. Inside, the bar area was equally crowded. That’s not always the case. Rick C. was there early – very rare. Shared that he took some personal time and got off work early to make that happen. We hung with Rick for a while. Meanwhile, I was happy sipping on a couple Centennials. Mindy, on the other hand, was drinking wine, and also ordered some food. She tried to get me to order an entrée but I wouldn’t. I did, however, end up snacking on some of hers. The cream of tomato soup she ordered was delicious – perhaps the best I’ve had anywhere. Can’t recall what else she had. After two Centennials I switched to a Breckenridge 471 DIPA. It was quite good. I ended up having two of those, and a long with it, a pretty good buzz. I think I had one more Centennial before calling it a night. Mindy drove us home after drinking nothing but water for the last couple of hours. I checked on work and then the Reds score before heading to bed. It was close to midnight. I wisely took 3 Advil proactively before bed. I really needed some sleep knowing I would be getting up around 6am to intercept Olivia.