Into Every Life

Yesterday at Home - A Scene Ending Way Too Quickly

Yesterday brought to a close the extremely short visit of the Cali-Daughter and Wingman. Pesky requirements such as earning a living demanded they travel back to NYC for the week so she can accomplish her quarterly meeting with her home office. That did nothing to assuage the pain in seeing her leave but it did give me a chance to re-acquaint myself with my old nemesis – the state of Connecticut and its highway system (more on that later).

Miss Them and Their Baby Bump

We enjoyed a lazy day at home which was marked by appropriately rainy weather – providing the perfect context for the emotions of having to say goodbye. We moved the grill close enough to the door to barbecue some steaks. My wife sent me to retrieve a mysterious plastic bag that has haunted the back of our linen closets for the past few decades. She opened it to reveal many of the handmade baby clothes and other paraphernalia from our own introduction to parenthood, namely my daughter. My wife had lovingly maintained the cache hoping to pass them on some day for use by our grandchildren. Needless to say that moment had arrived and it was kind of cool seeing the impossibly small outfits held by the last person to wear them three decades ago.

Going Through the Baby Clothes

I asked Wingman to help me figure out how to dismount my immense television from the wall and connect it to its factory issued base stand since I doubt our future landlord wants us excavating his wall. The only problem was I only had part of the base and several important pieces could not be found. A frantic call to my favorite son to see if we had inadvertently transported the pieces to his house did not meet with any luck. Wingman picked up his trusty smart phone and five minutes later had located the missing pieces on the web and walked me through ordering them. He kind of rocks and not just on stage.

Passport Found!!!!

During the search for the missing pieces I did stumble upon my wife’s missing passport! I am now thoroughly convinced my house is haunted by some weird poltergeist with a passport fetish. I found the passport in the very first place my wife and I looked when it went missing, in other words, the exact same scenario for my missing passport earlier in the year. It really is time to move out of this house.

Now to that reluctant drive through the Nutmeg State. Summer Sunday evening traffic was expectedly bad but we also had to contend with a fairly impressive thunderstorm for almost the entire length of the trip. This meant the usual feature of people terrified of the rain but still confident enough to drive in the fast lane at forty miles an hour. There are few things I hate worse than driving at night in the rain but when you combine that with having to say goodbye to Cali-Daughter and Wingman at the end of the rip – well you get the picture. My wife tried to help out by offering me timely tips and suggestions during the drive. You can only imagine how well received her ministrations were.

I was in a fairly dark place by the time we got home but life then re-asserted itself via a text message from my daughter. She directed us to Facebook where my son and the ABFA had posted their official wedding video. There was no way to be depressed after watching the memories of that remarkable day – although my eyes were as misty as the weather during the viewing. If you’re a friend on Facebook go watch it. It does a fantastic job of capturing in a small way the abundant magic of that August day.

A Photo From Saturday - Photographic Evidence I Consumed
What I Usually refer to as one of My Sister's "Weird Gluten Free Desserts"
Sister Proudly Smirking in Background