Friday night was wrapped in silence.
After dropping Jenni and the kids off at a nearby church for their 30-Hour Famine, I went home. Grabbed a container of leftovers from the fridge, poured a large glass of water, locked the front door and headed downstairs to watch a movie.
The cat bounced slowly after me and took her rightful place on my lap for the entirety of the next few hours.
I watched a very strange movie, Mystery Train, which I will not recommend simply because there are more entertaining ways to spend almost two hours. Then I continued my attempt to catch up on Mad Men before they get back to a new season in about a month.
With the cat asleep on a pillow next to me on the couch, I headed upstairs to bed. But I figured I could just leave the gate open so she could come upstairs if she wanted to (normally she’s shut downstairs so she doesn’t wake people up early in the morning). But at 3 in the morning, she was up, crawling around the house crying, convinced, as she always is, that if she’s awake and someone else is in the house, it must be time for her to eat.
I got up around 4. Not to feed her, but to shut the door to the bedroom so she couldn’t get in. But she could cry around it, and by 5, I got up to feed her.
I slept until around 8, got up, showered, then realized just how quiet the house was on this Saturday morning. The cat was asleep, the kids were all gone, and there was dead silence all around me.
Later in the day, there were a couple of errands to be run, but otherwise, I just puttered around with a few self-imposed projects to do. That evening, I joined my family for a dinner at the church where their event was being held, then we all returned home–they exhausted, me happy to have us all back together.
Then came Sunday–up early to wake up Patrick so he and I could be at church early for the Boy Scout troop pancake breakfast. Somehow, contrary to every fiber of my being which works so hard to not be involved in things, I somehow volunteered to work the breakfast as cashier.
Patrick worked the whole thing in the front of house, as it were, busing tables the whole time, and then helping to clean afterward. So thanks to the combination of a tremendous success of the breakfast (one of the best years ever, I was told) and Patrick’s own effort, he got a great hourly “wage” which will go a long way toward paying for his camping trip to Many Point this summer.
Honestly though, I was so proud of him: he worked very hard, tried to get the younger kids to work as hard as he was (he is the Senior Patrol Leader for the troop), and even though it frustrated him, he worked through it, put in a great effort, received a lot of compliments, and demonstrated so much of what makes Patrick a great kid.
We’re all back at it here on Monday, waiting for the big storm…
See you tomorrow.