Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

Don't you just love those racetrack ads where the guy's voice sounds as if the veins in his head are about to pop? I do. Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! It's almost as if it's a religious service and that's the prelude. The rest of the adverts usually sound like a tape on fast forward and have something to do with stock car races, drag races, or moto-cross races. But always races. I've never heard an ad in which the "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!" announced a bocce tournament at the city park or a bingo blast at the senior center. The frenetic cadence of an over-caffeinated announcer had no place in our day today.

Our day would have been properly introduced by a laconic "Suuuuuunday.... Sundaaaaaaaaay.... Suuuuuuuuuundaaaaaaaaaay." We got up at the crack of nine. Or so. Church service on Saturday evening was the victim of an uncleared parking lot. We took a pass on the opportunity to attend other services this morning. Instead, Katie and I checked out IM and saw a friend with whom we hadn't met in quite some time. So we invited him out for coffee at a local mall. It's always good to re-meet somebody. Today was no exception. Curiously, that part of the mall is an amalgamation of my favorite vices. We had coffee at Joe Muggs, where Books-A-Million faces Auntie Anne's Pretzels and the Tobacco Leaf. We indulged in three of the four. Katie got a book, our friend Jim bought the coffees and I sprung for a round of pretzels. Still, the siren song of processed leaves beckons me to return. When I do you can just bet that I WILL put that in my pipe and smoke it.

Grabbing a quick lunch we headed around the beltway to work. Katie, as you can imagine, was thrilled. She borrowed the iPod for part of the visit. The rest of the time she either curled up on the floor of Joan's cube or chafed at the injustice of being forced to go into the office with us. Think of the strain, folks. No IM. No cable TV. We're lucky she survived.

Hopefully, Joan still has a job. She and I slipped away for a moment to work on a document. When we got back to Joan's cube, Katie had jumped on the computer under Joan's login and was avidly perusing her Yahoo! account. That is very verboten at work. It bypasses all attempts to catch viruses before they hit the system. I couldn't tell if Joan was going to faint or pitch a fit. But something was fixin' to happen. She regained control and Katie is still among the living. For now.

When work was over, we got together with a very nice person who was also putting in the Sunday hours there and went to a nearby diner for dinner. Now we're home and organizing our schedules for the week.

We wish you could have been here today. The sky was a lovely blue, with bare trees brushing the fringes along the ridge. The sun was bright and the snow sparkled. Best of all, the flurries of yesterday were replaced by slow drips today. That's such a good sign. Because tomorrow starts my week of doing the evening equine feeding while the kids' Momma goes to Hawaii on business. Somehow my end of the stick seems rather short in this deal.