So, this past weekend, stuff happened. Warning: post will contain life.

I worked a short week last week, as I will this weekend – it’s the end of the year, and for the first time, accumulated leave, and my inertial habit of not taking all that much during the course of the year (especially when my schedule gives me every Friday off as it is) meant that I had some “use-of-lose” leave to blow. It’s a new experience, that. I need to think more about taking a few more days during the year to avoid the crunch; not that things don’t slow way down in mid-December anyway…

Digression…likely to be a problem here. Sorry.

Anyway, being off Thursday, I took care of a couple of things. The Christmas tree went up, and it only took Lady Sif, who is experiencing her first Christmas, about six hours to knock it down. Good thing we still haven’t hung ornaments on it – we probably won’t at this point, given that she’s now figured out how to climb the tree without knocking it over, and balancing herself halfway up. The little motion sensing bird thing I hung on the lower branches to deter climbing doesn’t work at all, either – the cats whack it on purpose so it makes noise. It’s their house, I guess – the rest of us are graciously allowed to stay in exchange for petting and food.

Also, on Friday, I got to experience the inverse of the Hot Girl in the Comic Shop phenomenon by including a run to the fabric store for my lovely wife so she might have materials to continue crafting holiday gifts into a solo errand run. As I waited in line to have my portion of polar fleece cut from the bolt, I learned lots and lots of details about the lives and cats and dogs and neices and nephews of the various middle-aged crafty women in line, and also the receipient of a bunch of confused looks. It was an interesting adventure.

Saturday was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. The central event of the day was a funeral. The first week of December, word reached us that an acquaintance, well on the way to becoming a good friend (he’d joined up with the usual hiking and gaming crew a bunch of times, and fit right in) had died suddenly. No expectation, no reason, just one of those things where something pops in an otherwise healthy person. He was 41 years old, and left behind a lovely wife and three kids, the oldest the same age as my youngest.

Yeah.

His memorial service took place on Saturday afternoon, and was, you might say if you were putting it mildly, difficult; beautiful in it’s way, but difficult. We all felt for the family left behind, and those of us of a certain age were confronted rather intimately by the prospect of our own mortality. I hope, for everyone’s sake, that none of us (including you, dear reader) have to experience something like this any time soon.

The rest of Saturday was a little better; my lovely spouse and I left the children in the care of their teenage sibling while we went out to a divey little jazz bar in the city to catch a set by my friend Steve’s band Cha Cha’s Cadillac. the show was supposed to be a “CD Release Party”, though the bill filled up with several other groups, so CCC got an hour or so to play around 9pm. While it didn’t exactly work out for the band, it worked out for us, who got to catch a great rockabilly set, socialize with a couple of friends who came out, and be home getting ready for bed by 11pm. Not bad. Also, the CD, Battle Hymns, is excellent – go find it on itunes or CDbaby or whatever – it’s great stuff.

Sunday involved a bit of running around, being delayed by excessively slow customer service, and getting the girls (all three of them) into Chester Christmas Parade, which involved dropping them off at one end of the route, and racing to beat the intersection closings to get to the other end of the route so I could pick them up at the end. Luckily, the route was only about a mile and a half long, so it wasn’t too bad. Anyway, they all jigged and reeled the whole way as part of Heart of Ireland School of Dance‘s parade presence, dodging horse poop and insistent handbill guys pushing a FREE CHRISTMAS CONCERT (with a side order of evangelism) along the route.

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Also, since this weekend round-up comes in a little late, I’ll address Monday as well. We had my office workgroup’s holiday luncheon/party/whatever yesterday afternoon at Maggiano’s Little Italy, where my work team, and our various spouses, gorged ourselves into a food coma of excellent Italian food. We did the same thing last year, so our little workgroup has established the annual holiday tradition (since this is only the second year our division has existed). Lots of good food, excellent chocolate cake, and the need for expandable pants. It was a nice experience, especially as I got to share my work family with my lovely wife, and my lovely wife with my work family.

Also, it was kind of bittersweet, because this is probably the last time all of us will get to do this together. As to why, that probably deserves it’s on post.

How’s that for a cliffhanger, stay tuned!