weekend update:

[mrlich]

Friday: Friday just didn't start out well. Earlier in the week, a young dude down the street backed into my truck. I was at a dead stop, and he backed into me. His intention had been to back into a parking space on the right side of the road (beside my truck) and he (I'm guessing here) never saw me. Even though I laid on the horn for several eternal seconds. That had me in a bit of a mood to begin with. Then I knew that I had to work later than usual at the bank as part of the arrangement that my boss made when he pimped me out. I normally don't have a problem with this (especially when xtingu    is out of town) but this weekend I had plans with both my father and kar0na    in the Lehigh Valley - so I was kinda itching to get out of there. Of course chaos ensues which means that I don't go to leave the bank until 9:30 that night.

When I finally got done with work I headed to the parking garage. They had closed up shop and LEFT THE PREMISES at 7pm. Yeah - it was THAT kind of night. Poor kar0na    was already waiting for me. So I call the company, they send some guy out (surprisingly fast) and he charges me a $10 fee plus the $8.50 'maximum rental' for the day. 20 bucks to be let out the damn door. Embarrassing? Yes. Could it have been much worse? Yeah I guess so, but my mood was none too pleasant by the time I left there.

I raced home, got changed, talked briefly to Quito and bolted for the door so that I wouldn't have kar0na    just leaving the house at 4 in the morning. Got the the ol' LV at almost exactly midnight. Being the good hearted soul that she is, kar0na    humored me and we headed to the Starlite which is a local diner formerly owned by a friend. And they serve booze. Happy Matt. We had a really good 're-connecty' conversation, she showed me the progress that she, metikulos   , and their friends and family have made on the basement. It was quite impressive, a good time, and it felt a little like coming home after a long journey.

Saturday: I woke around 9:30am - which these days feels extravagant - and helped my Dad move an azalea in the front yard. He's rearranging one of the flower beds on the side of their house so that they don't have to man-handle a push mower on the side of a steep slope. Since my pop ran a 64 acre nursery for the first 15 years of my life, doing anything botanical with him really does my soul good. Chalk up another 'touching home moment' for me.

My folks thought that they had to run a bunch of errands, so they took off, leaving me to have some (as always with me) welcomed 'down time'. A short while later, they called me back because they had come to the conclusion that they didn't have to do all that they thought that had - only a smaller portion. So next was Perkins. Ahhh Perkins with your fluffy pancakes that I just can't say no to.

After breakfast, Mom broke off to do the few things that she did still have to get done while Dad and I did some shunpiking down to the Quakertown area so he could show me some new construction. I had a ball just driving down those old country roads just gabbing with my Dad in my big ol' red-necky truck. Next we hit a thrift shop that has become a recent favorite of his (he got a stationary bike there) and I have to say - as a guy who's been to a lot of thrift shops in his day, I found this to be one of the best. Clean, fairly well organized, and a pretty broad spectrum of product. My kind of place. Next up was a super brief stop at a bicycle shop in Emmaus. I'm linking them here because these guys were some really good dudes. My pop was looking for a specific pin for the afore-mentioned stationary bike. They had the part, but not that exact size. So what does the guy do? He just gives my Dad two of them (of close (and probably usable) size) and says "I have exactly 10 more than I will ever need - and this way? If they don't work? You didn't spend anything on them." Nice guys who obviously care about bicycling a lot. I'm not a cyclist, but if any of you are, and you find yourself in Emmaus...

After getting the parts for the bike, we returned home to pick up Mom and some of my old sketchbooks. I have a little project floating in my head (two of them actually) that required my picking up old sketchbooks from my folks. Then Dad jumped in his car, and Mom jumped in the Matt-Mobile and we headed back down to the Quakertown area to see a movie. It was perfect getting to ride down with Mom because that meant that I got some good quality one-on-one time with her like I had with Dad earlier. I don't mean to pat myself on the back too much here, but that seemed like really good planning on my behalf if I do say so myself. As to the movie, Dad and commented a long while back that he wanted to see Wild Hogs with me. He's long been aching to get on a motorcycle again (he used to have a small one when we lived back in MI that he loved to put around on) so this just felt like the right movie to see with me, and we wanted to catch it while it was still in theaters. The short version? While it was highly predictable, it was so VERY worth every moment. A real good time with some laugh out loud scenes that aren't to be missed. And may I state, for the record, that there is just something about Marisa Tomei... Hubba frickin hubba.

It was a little sad to leave, but after the movie, I jumped back into the truck and headed back here to DE. xtingu   had arrived late Friday night and I was just dyin' to see my girl. She, poor thing, had come down with a bitch of a head cold and was sick as hell. On top of that, a bit had flipped which demanded she clean her entire place from top to bottom. Good thing, but at quite a cost given that she was already not feeling well. I grabbed some chinese, and hit her place with X-Men 2 in hand. That's two movies in one day, which I haven't done in a while, but it was the speed we both needed. And what the hell? Snuggle up on the couch with a beautiful girl and tasty (if unhealthy as hell) food and watch a super hero movie? You're not going to have to twist too damn hard. This, btw, was also the only movie in the trilogy that she hadn't seen yet. What was even better than the movie and the snuggling and the... well... ok... not better than the snuggling, but right up there? We got some time to just talk and get back in touch with the current events in both our lives. We never seem completely out of touch or anything, but I have to say that it does me worlds of good to hear her voice and see her face, and watch her eyes smile when she talks.

Okay, okay - I'm done with the sap-fest. You can uncover your eyes now.

Sunday: We slept in. What a delight that is. Then we loaded up xtingu  's stuff for her next gig and went to get some breakfast at the Golden Monkey. After breakfast (and some more awesome chit-chatting) I drove her to the airport. After getting home, I poured through some of those old sketchbooks I mentioned. All I can say is that it really disturbs me what went into some of those books. Not on a 'omg - he's a psycho killa' kind of level, but more of a "Wow. Was I way off base. I really just didn't get it." kind of thing. It's good to know that's in the past. It's a great sense of accomplishment, which is something I don't see in myself nearly enough.

After a while, Quito came home and he brought in the tv a friend is letting us borrow so that we have something to watch dvds on while we work out in the newly modified 'Romper Room'. We made some dinner and did some catching up as well.

I spray painted the weight bench (for the Romper Room) and set it up to dry.

Now, here I am leaving this for you. Thanks for reading. :)