A Busy, Busy Weekend

I've been even more frenzied than usual the last two days (and, of course, this would be the beginning of Daylight Savings, so I had one less hour to cram everything into).

Yesterday I dropped The Wife at work, the Things and most of the minivan's seats at my mother's, and my overgrown hair at Mario & Gerard's (on Valley Road in Wayne; a fine old-fashioned Jersey Italian barbershop that I don't recommend anyone else ever go to, since it's already too busy), then shlepped myself across most of NYC to help my brother move apartments about six blocks through two Brooklyn neighborhoods I don't know the names of. (It's the section between Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery; he moved from the Park side of the Prospect Expressway to the Cemetery side -- whatever those two bits are called.)

It only took four trips in the minivan; the streets were only ordinarily crowded, narrow, under construction and one-way; both apartments were second-floor walkups, but he doesn't have any huge furniture; the big rain came while we were in the car, working out the way to the new place on the first trip; and all my exercising over the past year or so has left me in better shape than I've been in my adult life -- so everything went better than I expected. It was tiring, sweaty work, but moving always is. I moved him into the old place two years ago or so; I hope he sticks around longer this time. (And then he took me and his girlfriend, Barbara -- can't forget Barbara; she was there the whole time, too -- to a Mexican place deep in the unknown depths of Brooklyn called Pacifico, where we shared a really good fried-cheese and nachos appetizer and I had a very tasty Killer Quesadilla. I even parallel-parked the minivan -- really badly, but I did it -- on the way there, and did the double-park slalom, too.)

Then I got to drive home, but that was actually fun -- I've only been driving since about the birth of Thing 2 (roughly five years), so I'm still getting into the groove of it, and this was my first longish solo trip. (One hour each way, with two tunnels and a bunch of roads along the way.)

So that ate most of yesterday. Today, Thing 1 and I went to a show at the New Victory Theater (our last tickets of the season, sadly -- I really like the New Vic as a venue and have enjoyed everything we've seen there over the past couple of years). It was a really funny English comedian who bills himself as the world's only comedian for kids (and maybe he is; I wouldn't know otherwise). I think I actually liked him better than Thing 1, but then I paid for the tickets, so I deserve more entertainment, don't I?

Before and afterward, I've been trying to catch up on laundry, and then we went to the other grandmother's for dinner, and a futile attempt to hook up her new digital cable boxes (which failed to come with any coaxial cable, so I'll be doing that again next week with some cable in hand). Then I watched Blazing Saddles while exercising and folding laundry (I've been Netflixing a lot of comedies from my youth lately, and folding laundry is a great thing to do during a movie you want to see but already know pretty well). And that's about all I've gotten done in forty-seven hours. I'm sort-of looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow, just so I can get some things done...