Special Interest in the Weekend

Okay, I have decided in the midst of the political campaigning – and because another weekend has flown by – to start my own special interest group. I think that you will all want to join in. Especially if you’re a Monday thru Friday work-a-day automaton like me. Now before you go running off fearing that I am going to go on some insane political rant about unions or ‘power to the people’ let me say FEAR NOT and read on. The most common thing I hear on Mondays is, “the weekend is just too short.” I am in total agreement with that. My weekend flew by and already I am back at my desk and facing yet another week at the SLJ. Sounds like I have a case of the Mondays! Anyway, I am sure that most of you recognize the imbalance between the number of days we work and the number of days we have off, especially in the average workweek. The ratio of five to two seems unfair, so I want to push for a four-day workweek with three-day weekends AND we leave holidays intact so we would have the occasional four-day weekend with. It’s that simple. Some companies could work M-Th and others Tu-F. That would ease traffic on those two days. As for holidays lets say you work at a M-Th company and it’s a Friday holiday coming up. Well you already have Friday off so you’re thinking ‘what a rip off, I’m loosing a holiday.’ Nope. You get the following Monday off for the holiday. If you work at a Tu-F company and the upcoming weekend has a Monday holiday you’d get the upcoming Friday as a holiday. Now the workday would have to be ten hours long, but most folks put in 9-11 hour days as it is, so I don’t think this would be too big a deal. I never said this plan was perfect, but I think it’s is fairer than the current system.

Okay, so now that I am done talking about my own special interest group for longer weekends let me fill you in on my own personal weekend.

With a memorial service for my grandfather looming and home improvements and homework to do Jenne and I moved our Valentine’s dinner from Saturday to Friday night. We went to That's Amore in Columbia. I have never been to That's Amore, but I have heard about it; Italian food, meals for two, cozy. These words conjured up images in my head of a very romantic place for couples so I had certain expectations. Walking in the door these expectations were blown out of the water. Instead of small tables for two and candlelight it was tables for groups as big as ten and overhead lighting. Instead of romantic couples there were retirement parties and spaghetti tossing rug rats. Not really what I had in mind. Instead of a romantic paradise like the garden of Eden think Olive Garden. They did sit us in an out of the way corner next to another couple and it turned out to be a very nice evening. We made it romantic. The food and service was very good and we did have a pleasant two-hour long dinner. Afterwards we went home, cuddled on the couch and watched movies.

Now we come to the memorial service for my Grandfather, William Kemp. It was a private family affair held at my parent’s home. A few members of the extended family were present. My mom and sister-in-law set up a nice display of photographs and flowers. As I was looking at the photographs I noticed a black box that was about 6” x 6” x 3”. A few photos were propped up against it so the box wasn’t obvious (I discovered later that Jenne never saw it). There was a black and white on top of the box under a photograph. Picking up the image of Gramps I read the label. “This temporary receptacle contains the remains of William Kemp.” I was momentarily stunned. I stared at it for a few moments and thought, “Gramps’ body is in this little box. The physical man that he was fits in this little box.” I just looked at the box for what seemed like a long time. That’s how I’m going to end up someday. Ashes in a box and then ashes scattered on the wind. I asked what were the plans for Gramps’ ashes and Mom told me there were none at present. An urn on the mantle maybe. For some reason that struck me as a little creepy. I want my ashes scattered and I have left instructions for where. The woman who leads the ministry at the nursing home led the memorial service. She knew Gramps for over five years and knew him as Willy. She also knew him better than I did. She spoke of his friendliness, his openness, his compassion, and his humbleness. These are things I never experienced with him. I never saw. I learned some good things about Gramps and how he touched the lives of those at the nursing home and how he was missed.

A few hours after the service we headed over to Lynn & Will's for dinner and conversation. Their English Mastiff, Winston was very happy to see us. He really likes Jenne. He likes me too even though I am not really a dog person. He’s a good dog. I just remind myself that he’s a 150-pound puppy and we get along. Vio-kitty made a brief appearance to say hello and get her head and cheeks rubbed. You should see Vio next to Winston. She’s all of ten pounds and can easily sit on the end of Winston’s nose! It’s even funnier to see a ten-pound cat chase a one hundred fifty-pound dog! He certainly is a big puppy! After a fine meal we walked two blocks west on Main Street to the Pour House coffee shop. I love the names of ‘mom-n-pop’ coffee shops. When I worked in Arlington the coffee shop next door was called Atomic Grounds. On The Simpsons there’s Java the Hutt! The Pour House is a nice place in an old row home on East Main in Westminster. Very Bohemian and artsy, cozy too. The tables have chess boards painted on their surface and there’s a bookshelf full of popular board and puzzle games. On the weekends they have live music and we heard music by Katie Graybeal, and Eric Balkey. I commented to Lynn, “now why didn’t we have places like this in town when we were teens?” We each had a damn fine cup of coffee or hot cocoa and talked about life, the universe and everything. I shot several photos. There were too many photo ops not to shoot. I will post images latter, as I haven't had time to sort through them or work with them in Photoshop. I've only had the time to download them from the camera and burn them on a CD. Latter... I promise.

The remainder of the weekend - when we weren’t out and about and when I wasn’t up on a ladder working on the ceiling – was spent doing homework and preparing for Monday night’s speech class. I could use some more time to prepare as I am having difficulty memorizing the opening of the speech I need to give tonight. Jenne has the Presidents’ Day Holiday off to finish the rest of her homework. I could have used a third day off. Maybe I’ll get that special interest group underway… after tonight’s speech.