Another Busy Weekend

Yesterday wasn't so bad -- Thing 2 had a baseball practice, but he's high enough up in age now that parents don't stick around, so it's not a time sink for me. (One of the joys of parenting that non-parents have no idea about is the "drop-and-go." It starts with birthday parties, round about age six, and builds bit by bit -- and every time an occasion turns into a "drop-and-go," you feel happy for yourself, for saving time, and for your kid, for being big and smart and capable enough to handle this alone.) Otherwise, it was the usual Saturday routine -- newspaper, library, dinner at my mother's. And so, consequently, I goofed around and didn't do much of any consequence.

Today, though, we had a show in the city -- Boom Town, by Cirque Mechanics, an excellent new circus/physical theatre/acrobatics show at the New Victory -- and that meant there would be a hole of about five hours blown out of the middle of the day. (The Wife ended up staying home, ostensibly because she was scared about flooding -- there was a huge rain yesterday, and the river nearby did get into the "moderate flooding" range, so she picked up the slack on some house stuff like laundry and cleaning.) The boys and I had a great time in New York -- it was a bright sunny day; I got pulled out of the audience to be part of the show (and did pretty well, I think; two random strangers told me I was "great" afterward, which was gratifying); and we had a Tim Hortons donut before the show and a lunch at Schnipper's afterwards. (Thing 2 is a connoisseur of mac & cheese, as I may have mentioned, and Schnipper's is well-known for theirs. He approved of their concoction entirely, but, as ten-year-olds will, he still holds out that the very very best mac & cheese is made with Velveeta.)

It was all great, but it did take five hours, as expected. (By the way, I recommend both Schnipper's -- which is a good alternative to the midtown Shake Shack a few blocks north, with a wider menu and equally good burgers. Thing 1, who is a connoisseur of milkshakes, now claims that Schnipper's beats the Shack on their namesake -- and Boom Town, though you'll have more time to check out the former; Boom Town is on the last leg of a long tour and will be done after another week in NYC. So grab tickets now if you're interested.)

And I had e-mailed myself home a bunch of work to get done, besides the usual blogging that I always want to do. There were five items, in order of importance, so I did #1 yesterday (it was also pretty quick)...and then started on #3 (which was more fun) this morning before the trip. Before I finally quite to play some more Lego Star Wars, though, I did finish up #s 1-3, and spent another thirty-forty minutes wrestling with e-mail.


So, in the end, I felt virtuous enough -- I did what I needed to do. But #s 4 and 5 are still waiting for me -- I may be able to get to them at work, but who can actually do real dig-into-it, think-deeply projects at the office anymore? That's what weekends and nights were made for, right?