Like A Sexy Hamburger

Well, I don't know about you, but I enjoyed my Labor Day weekend. The weather was perfect for grilling or heading to the park. For pretty much anything else you'd care to do in the wanning days of summer, really. Not so elsewhere, as word from my brother in sunny California is that the temperature crested 110 degrees over the weekend. They're stuck in a heatwave and I took the opportunity to get my barbs in. I consider it only fair because it's only a matter of time before I have to hear about the eighty degree weather and lack of fabric in bikinis at the beach while I'm heading out to scrape a foot of snow off my car.

I hear there was some sort of football contest over the weekend which, were I to acknowledge it, might have ruined my mood. However, I've selectively edited my instance of reality to completely remove all traces of any football program at my alma mater. This took several careful hours of drinking and blunt force trauma to the cranium but I'm largely happy with the results. Ignorance truly is bliss.

We also used the weekend to celebrate my mother's birthday. It actually falls today but the holiday and the promise of a backyard feast of unheralded proportions was enough to unscatter the clan for a few brief hours before the winds took them again. I commandeered a barbeque, the better to foist my homemade chicken basil sausages (The secret ingredient? The barest hint of fresh mint.) on my ravenous relatives. But otherwise it was a pretty lowkey celebration. I spent most of the time running around time trying to get a last minute present together.

Made the mistake of going to Eastland in my quixotic search for the pair of white t-shirts which were my assigned prey (My sister, the other one, treats birthday lists like scavenger hunts.). Just like every other time I've been to that mall in the past five or so years, I was reminded just why I need to stop going there. It was getting bad when I was growing up and Eastland was a quick walk from the halls of my high school and a favorite place to hang after (*cough*during*cough*) classes. Getting rundown and shabby what with stores closing and leaving and all, but by now it's a shell of its former self. And, as my DJ friend would no doubt say, the merchandise has skewed distinctly urban, along with the clientele. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but not exactly what I was shopping for. Still, I had to get something. It probably would have helped if I had gotten any kind of ideas more than 36 hours before the gifts were to be unwrapped. Ultimately, though, I returned from the hunt successful. Benefiting from my last minute shopping with some healthy Labor Day discounts. Or it could have been just clearance price slashing as they try to get the last goods out the door before bulldozing the place, either way I wound up spending far less than I had planned to, in a good way. The surplus went towards a nice assortment of chocolates – also on sale – because you can't go wrong giving my mom some tasty sweets.

Late word out of the ancestral compound of the Pepperino dynasty, however, reports that I wound up getting the wrong sized shirts. I kinda thought I did, but my policy when buying clothes for females is to err on the side of getting things too small instead of too large – anything to avoid the “you think I'm fat, don't you?” speech. This sad state of affairs will now kick off a circular relay of receipts, returns, and rendezvous as my mother descends into the third level of retail hell. Attempt to get the right items and right slip of paper in the right hands at the right store before those shirts become irrevocably, irretrievably, irreturnable. We must, you understand, for they were on sale!

In other words, it was a great break. Came at a good time, too. Things...haven't been good lately. I'm sure I'll wind up talking about it in more detail at some point in the future. For now, though, I've spent enough time worrying about what's been done and undone. I'd rather focus on the positive. Because refreshed, replenished, renewed I'm ready to get back into it.

It's a new month, a brand new day, and I'm anxious to make sure it turns out to be a good one. Black nights behind, brighter days ahead.