Missing in action?
I suppose I should recap what happened last weekend before this weekend starts up. Or something like that.
After work on Friday, I drove down and picked up takaza. We were both pretty tired, so any thoughts that we had entertained of going to see a movie were pretty much discarded. We drove down to the southern ‘burbs and checked into a La Quinta to put us a bit closer to our Saturday destination. We originally were going to go to a nice sit-down place, but as we pulled out of the parking lot, we both agreed that fast food would be cheaper and faster, and we just wanted to hang out in the room. So we elected to eat at Wendy’s instead, then stopped by a nearby Walgreens to pick up some items for Dan. While we were there, we rented a copy of The Lake House from the Redbox, but once we got back to the room we instead decided to watch a Doctor Who episode I had on my laptop and go to sleep early. (I tried ripping the DVD, just for grins, but couldn’t figure out how to easily get around the encryption key. I didn’t work very hard at it, though).
On Saturday we headed down to Urbana, where we were to celebrate Candlestick Lane at Mirkowuff‘s. We got in at about noon and hung out at his place for a bit, then ran some errands around town (Mirabelle’s is a mighty fine bakery, by the way!). We checked into the Champaign La Quinta (Bing! Dan scored some free upgrades with that room stay), and ran into Roho and Genet there. Dan and Roho decided to brave the mall for some last-minute shopping, and Genet and I stopped by the grocery store for snacks and libations, then headed back to Mirko’s. A decent crowd started showing up shortly thereafter, and we enjoyed a pleasant evening of good company, tasty food, Christmas lights, and electric sex.
Sunday morning we gathered most of the crew from the previous night for yet another gluttonous breakfast at the House of Lard. I just can’t say no to their huge western omelet, but thank heavens I passed the pancakes that came with it to Dan, ‘cause I couldn’t have eaten them. We bade goodbye to the Urbana-Champaign metroplex after breakfast and made the short drive home, a trip made rather enjoyable by a very exciting Bears game, including a detour to swing by Soldier Field towards the end of the fourth quarter, just because we could 🙂 The rest of the day was spent quietly relaxing; Dan went to take a nap at 5:30 PM and wound up staying asleep until 1 AM.
The rest of this week has been a train wreck for me. The commutes home have been bad, with me getting home at 6:15 or so each night, and then we’ve been heading off to bed by 9:30. Not a lot to time to get stuff done, unfortunately. I’ve tried to get some Christmas shopping done, but unfortunately the one item I was looking for for Dan seems to be out of stock anyplace I go. This time of year is always frustrating and distressing for me because I feel like I haven’t been paying attention all year to what Dan might have said he wanted for Christmas, so when it comes time to look for gifts, I have no idea what he wants. In my own twisted logic, this makes me a bad husband; don’t try to figure it out, it’s certainly not a rational thing. But there it is. So I’m trying to work through that this week as well, and I’ll admit it’s making me a bit moody and cranky.
Looking at the traffic reports right now it looks like it’s another ugly day on the roads. Fortunately, I just got an e-mail from Dan suggesting I pick him up after work and we can get some dinner and poke around the ‘burbs a bit before attempting to fight our way back into the city. That makes it a much better afternoon indeed…