Friday Night:

Ami was out with her girl group, so TEA and I hung out. We ordered a pizza, watched some television and played Batman. TEA was, of course, Batman, and I was Bane. There is nothing more precious than your soon-to-be four year old, in costume, saying, “Break my back, daddy.”

Saturday:

First there was a memorial service for one of my former managers. He had been sick for a while and he passed Thursday afternoon. I saw a number of my former coworkers and heard some wonderful stories…one of which I will write up later over at SoulCast. There was this crappy new agey classical playing at the funeral home, which my manager would have hated. He would have preferred something from Wagner.

After the memorial service (which I didn’t stay the entire time for), I went home to my loving family. We did some running around; drug store, pet store, Target, et cetera. TEA was so cute the entire time. I must say that I hate the clothes at Target, especially the ones for boys. I don’t want TEA to be a walking billboard and only so much irony in the form of tee shirts should come from a four year old. TEA was good about just looking at the super hero toys, because he is beginning to get that his birthday is only two weeks away.

After the errands, the family went home and I went off to have lunch with my friend Ryan and his fiancé. We went up to BFS (which wasn’t as good as it usually is) and just laugh and talked and had a good time. They are leaving to move to Boston next week, so this was probably the last time I was going to see him for a while. I then had to run to the mall (ugh, a week before back to school) to get TEA a new outfit for Sunday. I was in retail hell and it was filled with people that I can only describe as dirty.

After that, I got a call that the Teasdale-Ulrich’s had finally made it upstate with their moving van. Ami, TEA and I got our moving shoes on, and drove down to Center Square to lend a hand. They have an interesting apartment. I am sure it is going to be a great motivator for them to buy a house as soon as possible. I will venture to say that they may even move during the middle of winter. Anyway, we helped them unpack, brought them beer, and had a good time. We stayed for a couple of hours, and then decided to go out to eat. TEA decided that this wasn’t a great idea, and promptly fell sound asleep in the car on the way to the restaurant. We ended up getting sandwiches at Panera and bringing them home with us, which made the dog happy.

And then, because I hadn’t done enough already, I decided to go grocery shopping at about 10 pm, on a Saturday. Yep, the Saturday Night Grocery Store Run! I am Mister Excitement! One quick story: They moved the garlic on me. I spent twenty minutes wandering around the produce section before I got up the courage to admit that I was special needs and needed the nice young man to help me find the garlic. I also managed to forget to buy shampoo for me and Diet Coke…it was a disappointing trip, to say the least.

Sunday:

Lazy morning. I cooked Ami breakfast, made coffee, and worked on some of the pictures from the Thursday at Saratoga. Then, the family did something it had never done before. We went to church. TEA was really well behaved and has expressed an interest in going to church some more. Being an ungodly apostate who regularly and actively denigrates people of faith (Thank you, BSG), this will take some getting used to.

We stopped by my grandfather’s home on the way back, and spent some time with him. My Uncle Mark loaded us down with vegetarian goodies (which always happens the day after we go grocery shopping). It was a nice family visit.

We came home, I walked the dog, Ami and TEA had lunch and then I headed down to the Teasdale-Ulrich’s to help with boxes and to setup Fred’s PC. It was then beer o’clock, and we had a couple. By the time I got home, Ami had completely organized the dining room, put everything away AND cooked vegan chili for dinner (From Scratch? Fo’ Suh!). That woman is amazing.

Aside from being on dish detail, the rest of the evening was uneventful.

The banality of the middle class is wonderful sometimes, isn’t it?