Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Vacation ends...sadly

It is with a great deal of sadness that my brief vacation has ended and I must return to the toils of labor today.

Because of skillful planning, I combined two days of vacation with a weekend and the July 4th holiday to form a five-day escape from work.

But as I mentioned previously, that ends at approximately 8:20 this morning.

As you are probably breathless in anticipation of my exciting vacation, I will share it with you!

FRIDAY—uh, was the first day of vacation. I, uh, can’t remember what I did. I vaguely recall renting a movie (or was that Saturday?) We’ll call this a relaxing vacation day.

SATURDAY—let’s see, that was the second day of vacation. I, uh, crud, what did I do? Oh yes, the brain cells are not completely frittered away. The wife, mother of mine and I went to Fort Smith and visited my 96-year old grandmother, Rena.

Okay, I have been a negligent grandchild and have not seen her in a long time. Consider me scorned. She has lost a little of her speed over time but is still sharp, although she could not grasp why I could not print off the LeFlore County Journal and show it to her. “It’s a website, not printed!” I tried to say. Of course, she probably has not ever seen a website and has no interest in surfing the old web.

I introduced her to my wife, Trish, several times. With my past marital strikeouts, I can see how this would be confusing.

After that, we went to eat at a Fort Smith restaurant I shall not name because they failed to advertise for their mention or grant me free eating. It was good, though, and I enjoyed making a mess with the peanuts and Trish not having grounds to scold me for making the above-mentioned mess, for once.

SUNDAY—I was actually a semi-sorta bee (or Craig) on this fine day. I mowed a portion of the grass which had not died yet, cleaned the wood floors (which have somehow become my responsibility) and went to a local laundry to clean a rug. Unfortunately, while at the laundry, I forgot an almost new thing of laundry soap. Trish figured this out later on when she decided to do laundry.

I went back to retrieve the soap but somebody had pilfered it away. NEWS FLASH: Thieves terrorizing local laundromat! I have been reading a lot of mystery novels and thought about breaking out Detective Craig, but decided that would probably be a waste. I considered confronting a person visiting our fine country from south of the Red River, but did not want to deal with all the language difficulties. Plus, he wasn’t there earlier so I had to buy a #%$ new thing of laundry soap at a local store, which I will also not name since I did not mention Logan’s earlier.

MONDAY—The big day! Not only was it the birthday of our country, but Trish turned a year older! I would tell you how old she is, but I forgot. So we had a big cookout, I came close to a personal grilling record by knocking out 24 angus burgers and 16 hot dogs (no, not the Anthony Weiner variety).

Fans, let me tell you, it was a hot one as I labored in front of the old grill to make sure nobody went home hungry. I sweated in places that I did not know could or would leak perspiration.

But bravely, I fought through the discomfort, the pain, the constant mosquito attacks and the frequent “when are we going to eat?” questions and I conquered the challenge! The grub was good, also, as you probably expected from a grillmeister of my fame, but no fortune.

After everybody scooted, it was time to watch the fireworks. Fortunately, our homestead is just below the hill and we had a great view of the explosives. After much prodding from my wife to take it easy and relax, which I had been doing since approximately 5 or so, we settled in out front. Coach Andrew Perdue joined us and we rejoiced in the splendor and magnificence of the fireworks and good company, since I was there.

And that leads us to the final day…

TUESDAY—a sad day this was, knowing my parole was fixing to end. I actually slept in (to almost 8 a.m.!) because of the grueling Independence Day and staying up WAY past the optimal sleeping time for Craigman.

Met a couple of friends for lunch and then went to swim at a friend’s house, even though they were home. We planned on having a cookout but I was a little wheezy (probably from the suffering on Monday) and we had to leave before the food was grilled.

So, there you have it! My vacation in a nutshell (or rather long-winded narrative, if you must).

Less than an hour of freedom remains. Now if life had a pause or rewind button.

1 comment:

  1. Good story, Craig. Hard to believe that your grandmother Rena (and my aunt) is 96 years old. Can't blame anyone for not remembering things at that age. It's good to hear about her.

    Sorry that your vacation ended too soon.

    ReplyDelete