Hey that weekend wasn’t so bad.  Actually I’ve had several “events” lumped into the last week, so I’ll throw out a brief overview of them all.  Last Wednesday, as mentioned a few posts below, was our annual AKL Alumni luncheon at the Brooksider.  Organized by our former social chairman James Munkirs, this is always a well-attended event.  Unfortunately I think some have chosen to substitute it for Float Trip, but I guess we all have choices to make.  At any rate, we all had a good time.  After lunch I migrated out to the patio to join the “regular” crowd and stayed a few more hours, making for a fine mid-week break.

Thursday, as you might recall, was Thanksgiving.  As we usually do, we headed out to Mom’s for the holiday feast.  Donette’s cousin Haleigh joined us this year.  She’s a student at UMKC and wasn’t making the long drive home, so it worked out well.  We had a grand spread.  I am quite a fan of the Thanksgiving staples, with the exception of cranberries.  In the spirit of the season, I thoroughly glutted myself.  After eating I joined my nephew in the front yard to toss the ol’ pigskin around a bit.  I can honestly say I haven’t thrown, or even held, a football since the demise of the Turkey Bowl series some ten or twelve years ago.  So severe was the taunting of my peers that I haven’t been able to even look at a football since then.  Luckily my kind-hearted nephew was more forgiving of my unique throwing style than those other bullies.  Plus, there was a 30 mph wind blowing, so I could reasonably blame much of my failure on that.  Given the unseasonably warm weather, I was almost tempted to go battle the crowd down at the Plaza lighting ceremony later that night.  Just almost though, I didn’t end up following through on it.

Friday was a regular ol’ workday for me.  Bummer.  Kind of broke up the tempo of the pseudo-vacation.  Had to be done though.  I put in my time, then ventured on down to the Brooksider for my regularly scheduled Friday gathering time.  Didn’t stay too long though;  The cold weather is kicking in.  Given the early ending to my day, and still in search of more entertainment, we headed over to our friend Susan’s house for some dinner.  After eating we settled in and watched “Hall Pass,” which provided some level of entertainment.  Pretty darn funny, actually.  It must have been relatively engaging, as I actually stayed awake for the entire movie.  Actually I was so wide awake that when I got home I decided to fire up another movie, despite the rather late hour.  I made a brief run through the Netflix listings and settled on “13 Assassins.”  I can’t offer much of an opinion on this one;  I think I was actually asleep before the opening credits were finished.

Saturday I can’t seem to recall what I did all day, leading me to believe it wasn’t terribly exciting.  Given the lack of cable TV at our house, I did wander over to the neighbor’s and watch the “Border War” football game, which despite the favorable outcome pretty much defined “not terribly exciting.”  I’m going to throw out an educated guess that the rest of the afternoon was spent playing Angry Birds on my PS3.  Luckily after dinner a friend from out of town called and rescued me from absolute boredom.  He and another guy were up at 75th Street, so I headed up there to catch up on the latest news in their lives, which, not remarkably, are somewhat more eventful than mine.  I headed home when they decided to move the party to Kennedy’s, as it was getting rather late in the day;  Well past my bedtime.  (This might explain their comparatively eventful lives…)

Sunday I made my long-delayed return to the gym.  Given the end of cycling season, I’ve been meaning to actually go get some use out of the money I give them every month.  So, we headed up there about 10:00, workout equipment in hand.  I’ve always found it best to ease into these things, so we spent the first 45 minutes in the hot tub, then another 20 or so in the sauna.  Then we went home.  Didn’t want to hit it too hard and pull a hammy right off the bat.  The remainder of the afternoon was wasted in typical Sunday fashion, watching football games I really had no interest in.  Donette’s parents came out for dinner, so that broke up the boredom nicely.  She whipped up a fine batch of red sauce with meatballs, which came out quite well.  Heck, she even made some bread pudding for dessert, my favorite.  After that I turned on the Chief’s game.  It was pretty evident how it was going to end up though, so I quit watching it at halftime.  Sounds like they made a run at it, but the end result was as expected.

Wow I’m slumping.  I’ve been on vacation since last Wednesday and haven’t really done a whole lot.  But, as the saying goes, it beats working I suppose.  We originally had a trip planned, but it ended up not being in the cards.  (Or the budget, as the case may be.)  So instead, I spent the last five days “relaxing,” which is code for “laying on the couch watching kung fu movies.”  Good grief, I guess I should be rested if nothing else.  I’ve also considerably expanded my Chinese vocabulary.

I left the house on a few rare occasions.  I made a long overdue trip out to Mom’s on Friday for lunch.  Teagan went with me and got to play ball in the huge back yard, a nice lil’ treat for her.  Had a tasty lunch too;  ham and beans, one of my favorites.  Then Saturday, I spent the whole day up at Martin’s house watching the smoker.  He fired up his cooker and invited everybody over to cook their Thanksgiving birds.  I didn’t take a turkey myself though, just hung out.  I took Teagan up there too, which she thoroughly enjoyed.  Heck I think the dog enjoyed my vacation more than I did.  In another fascinating use of my time off, I drove out to Microcenter on Sunday and picked up a free router they were giving out, then spent the rest of the day trying to get it to work.  (With some success, remarkably.)  And, well, that pretty well covers my five day vacation.  It ain’t over yet though, I’m still off today.  I’m planning to wrap things up big today;  So far I’ve planned to 1) caulk a crack in the stucco and 2) have spaghetti for dinner.  There’s just no slowing me down.

** Edit!!!  I’ve added picking up dog poop in the back yard to this almost impossibly full itinerary.  Considering frying an egg for breakfast but just not sure I can fit it in.

Don’t forget, next Wednesday the 23rd is the 14th annual AKL Alumni luncheon.  (I’m making up the 14th…  Who really knows how many there have been.  If you include “Turkey Bowls” it could be even more than that.)  James Munkirs, Fall ’78 Pledge, will be hosting the event at the Brooksider starting at noon.  They have expanded their lunch menu considerably since last year’s gathering, prepare to be amazed by the quality of the extensive gourmet offerings.  As an added attraction this year, Mr. Munkirs will be cycling from his house to the ‘Sider wearing his riding bibs, a sight not to be missed.

That was a marginal weekend at best.  The simple act of recapping it will likely be a painful experience for me.  I was excited for the new work week, just to get the weekend over with.  It started off OK I suppose, other than my Friday night happy hours might be getting a little tedious too.  I do like a good routine, but it seems to be wearing on me a bit.  Probably for the best;  With the weather turning cold quickly I suppose my days on the patios are limited, and I don’t like going inside anyways.  Guess I’ll need to think of a new Friday hobby.

Saturday was so painfully boring I could barely stand it.  I had the specter of an all night work-a-thon staring me in the face all day, and just couldn’t get motivated.  I pretty much sat on the couch with the dog and watched old westerns.  I guess I mowed the lawn again, but honestly that didn’t do a whole lot to perk me up.  Donette, meanwhile, ran a 5k with some friends, went to dinner and a play, and various other fun activities.  I watched back-to-back-to-back Bonanza episodes.

Sunday was marginally better.  I didn’t get home from work until about the time I usually get out of bed, so that threw my day off quite a bit.  I grabbed a few hours sleep, then we went and met my Mom and sisters at the Lee’s Summit Jason’s Deli for a tasty lunch.  That place is good;  I can’t recall that I’ve ever been to one before.  Kept me from having to watch that disaster of a Chief’s game too.  After lunch we headed back home and I bummed around the rest of the day.  Between the time change and my late night I was quite out of sorts.  After watching the afternoon game, we went to the neighbor’s house for dinner and enjoyed some tasty spaghetti.  After eating we watched “Mean Bosses,” which appeared to be pretty funny but I slept through most of it.  (Sorry about the slobber stains on your couch, good neighbor.)

Once I miss Monday I’m inclined to just skip this altogether.  I had a fine Halloween though, it likely bears a recap.  My day yesterday started off nicely when I was informed my services would not be required for the day, and I was to vacate the building immediately.  After verifying this was not a permanent situation, I merrily hopped on my scooter and headed home.  The rest of the day was a fine mix of chores and entertainment.  First Donette’s folks made the drive down to our house and we all went for a tasty meal at Jalapenos.  After lunch we headed back to our house and visited a bit, then I fired up the lawnmower in a valiant attempt at cleaning up the leaves.  I made a solid dent in that little project.  Feeling like I deserved a reward for that few hours of manual labor, I headed down the the Brooksider to join the boys for the rest of the afternoon.  We hung out there for a bit, then Donette picked me up and we went over to a nearby friend’s house for a Halloween party.  The kids were out in droves in the neighborhood, so we handed out candy for a few hours and then headed home.  When we got home there were still lots of kids walking up and down our  block.  Granted, most of them had likely driven themselves over there, and costumes were few and far between;  Likely because they’d just gotten off work.  Hey, who cares, we don’t want the stupid candy.  We flipped the light on and handed out the rest of our treats, then shut it down for the night.  Our friend Susan came over and we watched good ol’ Halloween Horror movies for a while.  We got a few flicks in, then turned on the TV just in time to catch the last of the Chief’s game.  Whew, full day!

The weekend wasn’t all bad either.  Munkirs and I went on what could well have been our last bike ride of the season.  We took the “Brookside Ride” for a nice 17 miles at a rather leisurely pace.  Good way to wrap up the year.  I finished just a couple of miles short of 1,300 this year, which is a solid 400 miles more than last year.  Next year’s goal will be 1500;  We’ll see how that works out.  Saturday night Donette threw her fundraising party down at the Plaza.  It went off quite nicely;  Made some money, had some fun, good stuff.  Nobody must have been too hungry though, I swear we took home more than we came with.  If we get snowed in this winter we’ll be able to survive on cheese and crackers for at least two weeks.