Weekend Recap...Several Days Late

Sorry to make you wait for this post, but it was too late on Sunday to sit down and write everything and well...as for yesterday, I figured you'd waited that long, what was another 24 hours?

Before I actually tackle the weekend, there are a couple of house-cleaning chores to be done and both come from my Memorial Weekend post. First, I mentioned the town Paw Paw, Illinois early in the post and said that I would get to it later but then never did. The interesting thing about Paw Paw, besides being what my family called my great-grandfather, is that it is now the home to a very large wind-farm. As I was driving up I-39 to get to my parent's house from camping, I came around a bend in the road and what should I see but a field of windmills. These were those sleek modern windmills - not those that you see in paintings of the Dutch countryside. Believe me, there is just something awesome about seeing, what seemed to be, over 100 of these all together. I'm not suggesting that you take a road trip specifically to see them, though if you find yourself in the vicinity of Starved Rock, it might be a nice little side trip.

The other item in that post that I need to clarify was this line...

Watch this space in the next day or so for another exciting installment. I don't want to give too much away, but let me just leave you with this...two cute, young women are involved.

That particular outing has been postponed until next week, so just keep your pants on. I promise it will be well worth the wait.

Okay, that out of the way, let's move on shall we?

SATURDAY
There I am barely awake at 9:30 or so, when my cell-phone rings. Bleary-eyed, I go stumbling around the apartment trying to figure out 1) where the hell I left the damned thing and 2) who would be calling me? I actually had a suspect in mind for the second question and all too soon my suspicions/fears were confirmed....it was my Uncle Bob. Most weekends are the same - between 9 and 10am (usually on Sunday) I will receive a call from my uncle asking me what I'm doing and extorting that it is "Project Day". I remember a simpler time when Project Day meant making a turkey by tracing my hand on construction paper and decorating it using tissue paper, safety scissors and some Elmer's All-Purpose Glue. Today, Project Day has more sinister overtones...I will actually be working. Perhaps working is not the right term, it's more along the lines of hard labor - you know, the stuff they make criminals do on the chain-gang.

The last several Project Days have included such fun activities as pulling out the stump of an apple tree or moving a holly bush 8" so that it is centered on a window or installing a retaining wall. That is Project Day and now you know why I live in fear of my phone ringing on the weekend. You may be saying to yourself, why doesn't the idiot just say no? First, who are you? [NOTE: Originally there was a joke about Nancy Reagan here, but given the passing of our 40th President, I've decided that it may be in bad taste - unlike the $900 per place setting china that she bought for the White House] More importantly, he knows that I really don't have anything else to do and I'm not that much of a lazy slob that I would feel comfortable telling him to F-Off because I want to lounge around the house all day. I have really got to find some friends!

This weekend Project Day wasn't too bad, that is if spreading two truck loads of mulch is your idea of the perfect summer activity. Ahh, mulch. What can I say about it except that it is extremely aromatic (and not in a good way) and that it is surprisingly warm. I guess decaying plant material will be like that. The work wasn't that difficult - pitch the mulch from the truck into a cart attached to the riding mower, drive to the bed that needs mulch, pitch mulch into the bed, spread the mulch, rinse and repeat. However, I really would have preferred to be in my air-conditioned apartment flipping through the channels looking for anything even half-way decent to watch.

When we finished, my cousin Dean and I went to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which we both rather enjoyed. It was not nearly as slavish to the book as the original two movies and the series is definitely taking darker turn - kind of a reverse of the Batman series. Maybe I'll post some additional thoughts about the movie later, but I can see that I'm really starting to run on a bit and there is still aways yet to go.

SUNDAY
Another phone call. This time it wasn't until about 11am and it wasn't my Uncle - it was a guy that I know from work. Actually, it would be hard not to know him since his cube is directly opposite mine. In any case, he owns a boat and a couple of Jet-Skis and I had been letting him know that I would enjoy going out on either in as subtle a manner as I could muster which basically breaks down to me saying something along the lines of "When are we going out on the boat?"

It wasn't the boat, but the Jet-Skis this weekend. This was the first time he was putting them in the water for the season and he wanted to know if I wanted to come along. Fearing my Uncle would call and I would end up putting sod down in his entire yard, I quickly said yes.

Who would have guessed that within about 25 miles of my apartment is a rather large lake. It's no Lake Michigan, but it does just fine for a couple of Jet-Skis. After a quick safety briefing, we donned our life vests and away we went.

In my head, I am not afraid of anything. In the real world, however, I find that I'm a bit of a chicken. I'd been on a Jet-Ski once before about 15 years ago so I had a passing knowledge of the Jet-Ski - basically, if I would recognize one if I went past it. Now, since he owns them, my friend is a bit more experienced on the Jet-Ski than I and he kept trying to teach me how to do quick turns to soak someone, as if this is a skill that I really need to master. In any case, I did manage to get the Jet-Ski up to 50mph on a couple of occasions, but (and this is where the chicken part comes in) there is something about becoming airborne when hitting a wave or wake, even if only for a millisecond nor any higher than a centimeter, that made me more than slightly nervous. I don't know that I can really explain except to say that thoughts of being dumped off the back and somehow snapping my neck kept replaying in my head. Pleasant, huh?

In any case, it was still a lot of fun tooling around at about 25-30mph. Plus, I only fell off twice - both when trying to make those quick turns my friend tried to teach me. Going right, no problem. Turning to the left, on the other hand...well, let's just say I should only travel clockwise on a Jet-Ski.

Whew. As ever, I have just gone on and on. There was going to be a whole section on D-Day plus 21915 days, but I think that it is time to hang it up for the night. Talk with you soon.