The Weekend in Review...

Saturday:

We hosted a fair amount of people at our home for our daughter's 8th birthday on Saturday. After having spent several hours outside prepping the yard, then a few more eating food and cake with our family and friends, I spent yet another hour cleaning up the yard, then yet another hour fixing the garage door which decided to break (entirely on a whim, no doubt). After all of that excitement in the scorching afternoon sun, I retired to the sofa with a nice case of heat exhaustion. I still didn't feel well on Sunday, nor did I on Monday. By about that time, I figured it was a virus.

Monday morning:

We hoisted the kids' bikes into the car and drove up to the local small-town parade. My wife got sick and raced for the nearest bathroom (not one to throw up in public, I guess), while I was left herding the 8-yr old, the 6-yr old, and pulling the 2-yr old in a wagon. Did I mention I was also carrying a folding chair for my now absent wife to sit on? We hit the parade route, where the bicycle parade had started just minutes before.

The 8-yr old, not wanting to be left behind, raced down the road, with the 6-yr old closely in tow. I pulled the wagon, looking for an acceptible shady place to plant my bones for the next hour. About the time that I was really getting antsy that my daughters were nowhere to be seen, my wife walks up. I go to hunt down the girls when I spot the 8-yr old. "Where is Liv?" I ask her, to which the standard blank look crosses her face. "She was behind me" McKay says.

To make a long story short, I ran to one end of the course (probably a 1/2 mile away; you'd be impressed if you knew what kind of shape I'm in), and my daughter - who has infinitely more common sense than I do (she's female, after all) went back to the beginning of the course and let the parade officials know that she was lost. Those same parade officials announced my name several times over while I was at the other end of the course, well out of earshot. End result: Even though I found my daughter (most important part), the entire town now thinks I'm a negligent parent.

Yay me!

Monday Night:

Stayed home from fireworks, but watched them from our bedroom window. 1:30am, youngest daughter starts bazooka barfing all over the place, and continues to do so for the rest of the night.

Tuesday Morning:

Stayed home from work, due to having been barfed on many times that night, along with a killer headache and a stiff neck. Meningitis, perhaps? I wasn't so lucky. Just sleep deprivation and strange sleeping positions (to avoid the barf stream).

My wife and I take turns sleeping for most of the day. I watched "Rhapsody in Blue" on the Turner Classic Movie station. Good show. Slept some more, ate a little for dinner, watched a little more TV, and then went to bed.

And then I was hit by the munchies. At 1:00am. It's not a pretty thing to be shoving handfuls of potato chips into your mouth to satisfy a salt craving. And no, I wasn't stoned. Haven't done that in 17 years. I'm just paying for the way I abused my body earlier in life.