Monday’s Back…With A Vengeance

Another weekend come and gone. It’s like it never happened, sadly. That’s the story with most weekends, you’re so excited on Friday afternoon that you don’t take the time to stop and smell the roses so to speak. Saturday morning you may pull back on the brakes a bit, but then you get caught up in whatever it is you’re doing and then the next thing you know it’s Sunday. Let’s be honest, Sunday is the weekend day that just reminds us that work is just around the corner. Maybe if you’re lucky you can enjoy Sundays, but I just end up getting caught up in the fact that work returns in 24 hours.

The weekend ends up being generally disappointing because it’s just a stark reminder that we’re here on this earth to spend the vast majority of our time doing something we don’t enjoy…work. 8 hours out of every 24 hour day clocking in and being somewhere that’s not home and not our actual family. Another 6 to 8 hours is spent unconscious in bed, more than likely having anxiety dreams about work or the other myriad of things that are on our mind causing a less than stellar dream cycle. Bills, kids, health, politics, aging,…you name it and it will haunt you in your subconscious as you’re attempting to reach R.E.M. sleep. And when you do, you’re just replaying crap that was bothering you while you’re awake. Might take the form of some absurdist scene that makes no sense, but let me tell you that’s just your brain saying “Hey, let’s screw with em again!”

Don’t take all this the wrong way. I did sleep pretty heavy last night. The problem is my alarm went off at 4 am and I hit the snooze for 30 minutes. I think I slept harder in that 30 minutes than I did all damn night. I woke up at 4:30 am hearing this faint noise in the background. It was my alarm. It was almost masked as something happening in a dream, so I guess I’m thankful I actually woke up. That 30 minutes felt like two hours. Crazy. I could have slept for another 3 hours I think.

Welcome to Monday.

But hey, despite all my blabbering and post-sleep complaining it was a pretty decent fall weekend. Friday was the typical routine: come home, clean house, light candles, ice down some beers, pick out horror movie to watch(it was MadS on Shudder), then have some dinner and then fall asleep. Our 21-year old had dinner plans with some of her high school friends after work, so my wife picked up her Celeste at doggy daycare and took her out for a walk, then brought her back to our house to hang out in the backyard till our kiddo came to pick her up. We thought Celeste would like being able to meander around the backyard but she seemed rather indifferent to it. We had a couple toys out back to toss and see if she’d go grab em, like a ball and a frisbee. She was having none of it.

Still, she seemed happy to be seeing her grandparents so that was good.

Saturday morning I hit the road early with my best friend and we drove an hour north to Three Rivers, MI. Went to our favorite meat market and picked up some stuff for future dinners, and then we grabbed some donuts and cinnamon rolls to take back home.

I’ve come to really look forward to these Saturday morning trips. We’ve been best friends since the 3rd grade, which means we’ve been best friends since Reagan’s first presidential term. That’s a long time, folks. We’d typically get together every couple months back in the day and drink beer and watch movies. As we got older the drinking began to hurt more than it did when we were younger, so we both decided we didn’t want to lose any more days to a hangover. It was kind of a scary proposition because up to that point for the last 20 years when we’d hang out alcohol was involved, so we weren’t sure how those get together were going to be without boozing it up. Thankfully it turned out just fine. I mean, we’ve been friends since we were 8 years old. We weren’t drinking together till well into our 20s. It was actually pretty easy to find our way back to being best friends who didn’t need to drink to hang out.

Saturday mornings are a good 2 to 3 hours together hanging out and talking over coffee. Turns out we can converse quite easily without sharing a beer or 10. I think I look forward to those drives more than I ever did tying one on on a Saturday night.

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After I got back from Michigan my wife and I shared a couple of those delicious donuts from Bullseye Market, then I headed out to work in the yard. Another ton or two of the pine needles needed cleaned, so I ran the mower and bagged them. We’re in desperate need of rain here, and I could really tell while mowing my front yard. It was like a dust storm on the north side of the yard. The backyard isn’t bad as it stays mostly in the shade, so it’s still growing. Had to take some Sudafed afterwards as the dust felt like it coated my lungs.

Sunday morning I was able to get some reviews written, then headed downstairs and worked on some songs. Got a 4 mile walk in as well, then did a little more work on the music. In the afternoon I spun some records, then watched a couple shows on Peacock. Teacup is an interesting show. Possible aliens, gnarly deaths, and people in-fighting on a farm somewhere down south. And Hysteria! is an 80s “Satanic Panic” series about possible devil worship in a sleepy suburban town in the 80s. It’s not a comedy, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously which I like. Also, Bruce Campbell is in it so all the more reason to watch.

Well, that brings us to Monday morning. Hope all was good with your weekend. Only four more days and we can have another one. I’ve got two days to work after that and I’m off for 5 days. I cannot wait.