Home for the Weekend

It's now the end of humpday which means 2 more days until the weekend is upon me again.

Mr. Roberts and I left early on Saturday. He said he'd leave St Albert at 8, to which I agreed that we should be gone by 9. Unfortunately, there's a lot to be said for clarity, he thought I was being combative and disagreeable, but I genuinely meant the two to go hand in hand, and he didn't show up until just prior to 9.

We made it though, after a genuinely awful experience in the A&W in Valleyview, and about 50 assorted "breaks" to smoke and do other things, and we rolled into Casa Le 'Rents about 5 minutes before my folks were sitting down to dinner.

I ate, drank and was merry until about 10:30 or so when this old girl opted for bed and left the people 25 years her senior to drink wine and eat cheesecake around the fire until the wee hours.

Sunday, Mom got the BRILLIANT idea to put her eldest child to work. So I spent 6 hours washing, drying, grooming and scissoring 2 VERY dirty, VERY smelly, VERY matted Golden Retrievers who had spent the spring being the ultimate in farm dogs and obviously enjoying every surrounding swamp and dead animal with gusto. I should have seen that coming when Dandy greeted us with a dead, entrail-leaking squirrel when we got out of the SUV on Saturday afternoon.

Never fear though.. the scissoring genius was there and made the 'girls' presentable and safe to touch again, and afterwards mom decided to grant me a break by handing me a bucket of varathane paint and a brush and sending me off to paint the new dog agility equipment dad built.

Thank God dogs see in shades of grey... picture the color scheme from The Simpsons house and you know what the new equipment looks like. I can hardly be blamed though since I was armed with purple, cornflower blue, peach and sunshine yellow paint and only instructed to make things a color.

Another early night for this girl, and at 9 the next morning Wayne and I shoved the stuff I salvaged out of the attic onto his lifetime collection of possessions that he'd grabbed from his parents and we were off to make it back to the city before 6 to change cars with Jeanette.

We made it, piled his things into the garage and then gave her the SUV back. Hopped into the Mini and proceeded up to Redwater to get the De Lorean from his friend, Les.

He and his wife Theresa are nice people. They fed us, plied me with red wine and took us out in the TR6, which reactivated my decade long love affair with British sportscars. We had a good time chatting with them, and then Wayne got to get into his Stainless Steel Baby and drive the three of us back to the city.

He's like a kid on Christmas morning when he looks at that car. And he told me tonight that after being at the car show with her the past 2 days he's started to recognize the similarities between car people and dog people. I could have told him that.. we're all crazy about our 'babies', be they furry and prone to anxiety attacks or shiny and sporting chrome bumpers.

For Dustin.. I found the entirety of my Kindergarten crap, and as soon as I get my stuff from Wayne's garage I'll scan everything and post it just for you.

For Corina -- don't despair. I have a whole list of reasons for you to be happy right now since I FOUND our Front Desk Mission Statement and will post it in it's entirety once I'm not drooling on the keyboard.

And for Corey.. remember before you came out and how Craig and I used to tease you and Tonye mercilessly about how your libidos must rage for each other? I found a little ditty I wrote way back when called 'When Tonye's with Corey'.. perhaps you remember it?

And for the rest of you, goodnight and Godspeed. Except you, Ryan.. I'm still mad at you.