Some are no doubt wondering what became of me on Friday.  On Thursday evening I was asked whether I might pick up the girlfriend of a certain son Friday night, and although I recognized that this would mean at least five to six hours on the road, I also recognized that there is value in making the lives of my sons a bit brighter.  Then late Thursday night I mentioned this to my wife, his mother, by way of discussing vehicle arrangements–and she cut the discussion short by saying no, I was not to make the trip.  Her reasons are not relevant here, really; I passed them to the boy the next afternoon when I saw him, and he did what he ought to have done initially, which was discuss it with her.

The joke of it, really, is that they came to an agreement that I would pick her up, but neither of them mentioned it to me until late in the afternoon when mother called home and was surprised that I answered the phone.  I would have been there anyway, since pickup was not to be until between eleven and twelve, after the girl got home from work but before her parents would be disturbed by people arriving (even people who sit at the curb and never see them); I left shortly after church.

Along the way, I got a call from the other son who often calls upon us for transportation.  It seems he was chatting with his brother’s girlfriend, and she discovered that he had a stretch of days off from work (which he had created so that he could weekend with some friends), and insisted that he call us and arrange for us to grab him on the way home.  It’s not far out of the way, although what with getting off the highway and stopping and all it probably adds half an hour to the trip.  His plan was to change his transportation arrangements such that the person taking him to the weekend gathering Saturday would pick him up at home instead of at his work address.  So that was added.

Returning home around two, I knew that I could not address the work awaiting, so I did the posting to the Corinthians list and went to bed, so as to get at least a few hours of sleep before church in the morning.

I was fairly tired by late afternoon Saturday, but someone offered to make supper so that I could finish the unfinished Friday work, and my wife asked if I would make a quick run to Wal-mart with her to see whether they accepted a certain insurance coverage for eye exams and glasses.  They did not, but as long as we were there she thought it would be good to spend a lot of money on some things she felt we needed (in fairness, perhaps five to ten percent of the expenditures were for car care products I thought we needed–motor oil and brake fluid).  Between three and four hours later we returned home to discover that dinner had not been made, and it was too late for me to undertake making it, so I spent the next hour or so obtaining and serving Kentucky Fried Chicken (a task extended by the fact that they neglected to include two of the items in the bag, so I had to drive back for these).

At the end of that time, I was entirely exhausted.  I went to my bed, put on that movie I promised to watch, The Last Mimzy, and after getting a very vague feel for what was happening at the beginning, fell completely asleep.

I’m up now.  I can’t really catch up on what I missed–there were too many “extra” things I should have done.  However, I will do today’s work and see where it gets me.  Already the week ahead is looking overbooked, but we’ll manage.  I’ve got to be in North Jersey again on Tuesday, to return said girlfriend and to visit my parents, who have something for me and something for my son, and for whom I also have something.  That’s going to be difficult, because we have a shortage of help on Tuesday, but we’ll manage.

I did get a bit done on a read-through edit of the new Game Ideas Unlimited book; I’ve also been pressuring a few people for feedback on the cover, but without result.

That reminds me:  I was supposed to post on Friday to call your attention to the second article in the archived series, Game Ideas Unlimited:  An Amusing Dungeon.  It describes the juxtapostion of two unrelated ideas into a fascinating adventure.  As always, comments in the forum are invited.

–M. J. Young