The Lost Week.

Occasionally, we have a week that went away with little to show for it, and little regret for that, either.

Two or three months ago, I made reservations at the local hostel near Phlegmmy's, to enjoy a weekend at her now Almost-World-Famous Phlegmfest. Either my calender or my reckoning was off, because I was scheduled to work that weekend, which I only realized a week or two before the date. I had just gotten a memo from my Human Resources person at work, informing me and my boss that I was no longer accruing vacation time, as I had maxed out at 360 hours. Also, I still had 56 of my 80 use-it-or-lose-it holiday hours left on the books, to be burnt no later than September 30th. This gave me some leverage to get a weekend off, and my supervisor was kind enough to make it happen.

As we were down to one car for the weekend, and that one sans air conditioning, my bride declined to attend the event. So it was that I called Ambulance Driver, en route from Louisiana, and caught a ride with him and Katy Beth.

It was remarked upon by someone that the 120 year old renovated B&B that some of us were staying at during the weekend may have quaint and rustic, but also seemed to be designed (with its hardwood floors and tin ceiling and transoms and brick walls and such) to magnify the acoustics of amorous endeavors. Thus it was rather ironic that I should have drawn the most remote of the upstairs rooms for my solitary chaste self.

We shot at LawDog's club range on Saturday (a write-up of the Mustang Pocketlite later), and discovered that some fathers don't parent their kids at the range. Another patron of the range, intent on showing off to his buddy, corralled his 7 year old son only once, that I saw... when the boy ran some 15 to 20 feet forward of the firing line during a hot range. The boy then continually ran among us as we unpacked firearms, spraying us with volleys from his very real-looking electric MP5K sub machine gun toy. This made us twitchedy. In fact, Stingray found himself raising his voice at me about TIME TO GO! YOU SAID AN HOUR! IT'S BEEN AN HOUR AND A HALF! And pointed at his watch, inquiring if I in fact knew how to use one of these. Stingray is not a noted fan of juvenile humans. (Katy Beth is a noted exception.)  We left, and enjoyed good cheer again for the departure.  (It's a decent range. But Annoying Kid was Really Annoying.)

While I was driving us back, I whipped into the drive-through a Braum's for some ice cream for AD, KB, and me. This of course was the only thing that made us immune to this beautiful piece of marketing by Dairy Queen, just moments later:

(Click to embiggen.) (Photo Credit: Ambo Driver.)

Well played, Dairy Queen. 

The next day, I went to training in Addison, TX, for a silly court officer class. In our small department, all the patrolmen have to do a monthly or bi-monthly rotation as bailiff, and we all serve municipal warrants. I was NOT looking forward to this school, even though it was held at a rather nice hotel. Actually, the classes were pretty good, and I got some ideas for skip tracing and for grants that I'll import to my regular job. The food was superb, too. I called my wife and asked her to take a day off of come join me. When I got out of class the third day, she and I went to a movie. Moonrise Kingdom, which I'd never heard of before, was actually a nice dry comedy that gave some nice tastes of what summer Scout camp was like. It's set in 1965, and even though it's got some big names, it seems to be something of an art house flick.  My wife and I gave it two thumbs up. 

When I got home on Wednesday evening, it was storming. I got the fire page that a house was burning, and I went in and suited up, still wearing my business casual work outfit from training. We fought that fire for hours, but we lost it. 

Though I crossed the threshold of it pulling a hose to attack flames within, I certainly wouldn't claim that I made an "interior attack" on a fire, because there was blue sky above me while I did it.

The next day, I had lunch with Mr. Fixit, a firefighter and Texas lawman his own self, whom I'd spoken with on the phone several times before, but never met. It's embarrassing to be late to meet a guy for the first time. It's more embarrassing to discover that you've forgotten your wallet for lunch and have to beg off of him. It's MORE embarrassing to afterwards discover that your best slacks were badly split open, from the events of the night before.

Friday, I went with my partner to do some work on a grant that we received, and assisted my coworkers in the briefest possible way on a warrant that they put together on a child molester. (Always a satisfying thing to do.)  Then, leisure man that I am, I went to go see Promethius. I was very impressed. Go see it in 3D. Go see it in the theater. Do not do any research about it. Don't let anyone tell you anything about it. I will only say that it is a science fiction flick with an easy-to-follow plot, that it is visually stunning, and that it has some scary scenes in it.

After the movie I had some beers with Scott, and we debated yet again the issue of the contents of a classic martini (which neither of us drank).

Today, I dropped off my elder daughter to go on her youth mission trip (she was so excited that she couldn't sleep last night) and my wife took my younger daughter to stay with her grandmother down in Austin.

Beers tomorrow night with my partner. One might almost wonder if I ever work. :)

What a great week.