Not to diminish the reasons and motivations behind the actual celebration of Memorial Day, a worthy day of remembrance and celebration of the service of our nation’s veterans, that more people perhaps ought to consider (particularly, you know, people in power right now, and those seeking power), but I’d honestly rather just put this particular Memorial Day (and the hours immediately following) behind me.

Allow me to elaborate. I shall try to rein in most of the ugliest details:

While I was out of town this week, everybody in my house spent a couple of days dealing with a particularly nasty stomach virus. A virus that was waiting for me when I got back. I didn’t get out of the house (or more specifically, a particular room of the house) much this weekend. At least I got some reading done. I hope that I’ve basically shaken it now, but one never knows. This was the defining element of my weekend.

Also, Catherine popped two teeth over the weekend (one on top, one on the bottom; she looks kind of like a lopsided beaver), and given that she’s still new to the whole “teeth” thing, she wasn’t having a good time of it. When Catherine doesn’t have a good time, nobody has a good time. At least she was pleasant when she wasn’t howling.

The worst of the weekend, however, didn’t hit until it was pretty much over. I was awakened by my lovely wife VERY early Tuesday morning with the news that the formerly well behaved and perfectly sweet hamster had finally embraced her true nature and escaped her cage. Rodent hunting at 3am is not a great way to start the day. Luckily, she was found relatively quickly (thanks to the kitten, who pretty much cornered her under the refridgerator). Still, at this point, given that I was keyed up and less than two hours from my usual wakeup time, it was hardly worth the bother to try to go back to sleep.

Besides, Catherine’s teeth were making their presence known again. As was the virus I thought I’d shaken. Argh.

Colleen, for reasons of her own, decided she wasn’t getting any sleep either, and turned on her computer to see check the mommy board chatter. Guess whose computer wouldn’t connect to the router? Neither of us were happy about that, and our frustrations were each feeding the others, which is never a good thing.

So, after another trip to the reading room, I decided to pack up and head into the office a little early, where with luck, I stand a chance of diving so deeply into software testing that no one will bother me for several hours.

Maybe.