The state celebrates today as a holiday, but since the rest of the country does not many of us don't get the day off. I'm not complaining. My company gives us a ton of holidays... just not this one.
It is also Marathon Monday, as the Boston Marathon is run today. In fact, the race is about to begin. It's 9:06 by my clock, which means the wheel chair racers will be starting in about 11 minutes. (wheel chairs at 9:17, elite women at 9:32, and elite men at 10:00) 26.2 miles from Hopkington to Boston. Frankly, I think you have to be nuts to run that far without having a tiger chasing you, or something like that... but folks do it.
A high school classmate of mine is running the marathon to raise money for Dana Farber. Among those whose memory he is running for is my friend Jeff's son Justin who passed away nearly three years ago and remains the bravest, strongest human I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.
It is also the annual marathon Monday Red Sox game at 11:00. They start at that time so the game lets out at about the same time the leaders are hitting Kenmore Square. I've done it once, it was a blast.
More importantly, game three of the Bruins playoff series with Buffalo is tonight and the B's are riding the momentum. I am actually excited to watch tonight. I might be at the gym for the start of it, but I will be watching it there. I'll bring my iPhone with the radio app that gets 98.5 FM so I can listen. It should be a lot of fun.
This weekend was pretty quiet. On Saturday we had a steak and cake to celebrate my father's birthday. My step kids weren't there (it was a dad weekend) but the rest of the family was. Both not-quite-babies-anymore were in fine form. They both said my name, and they both let me play with them. Who is the happiest Uncle in all the land? I am.
Of course I had the whole evening with my niece and nephew and I failed to take a single picture. I must be slippin'!
Sunday was spent at home recovering from the trip to the gym Saturday morning. We had done our regular treadmill/elliptical 15 minutes or so, and then Jen wanted to check out some of the weight machines. We did a few seconds on maybe four or five different machines and it totally ruined both of us. Pain, agony, suffering, the works. Sunday we had planned to go back but decided to error on the side of injury prevention and wait until Monday. We went three days this week. That seems like a decent amount for starters. Maybe after another week or two we'll up it to four days and see how it goes.
The rest of Sunday was spent doing chores. Jen spent the day on the couch with her work computer working like a demon. She has a release coming up in the not too distant future and she cranked out the code last night as if she were on fire. It was something to see.
Robbie did laundry. Lots of it. I also did some cleaning upstairs and took care of a very simple lunch and dinner. I felt like John Lennon during his house husband days. To be honest, I kinda like taking care of my wife. It makes me happy. She makes me happy.
Today we car pooled to work. Jen wanted to get to her office as early as possible so we left the house at about 6:50am. Yup, before 7:00! We were able to take advantage of the Patriots Day traffic and make the hour drive to her building in 30 minutes. All highway, no traffic at all. It was glorious.
Had I gone straight to my office from hers I would have been in the parking lot before 8:00am. I decided to use some of that extra time to make a little celebratory detour. I drove down route 225 to River Street in Carlisle, which turns into Monument Street in Concord, and I drove past the Old North Bridge in Minuteman National Park. The site of the first real engagement between Colonists and British troops. Every year on Patriots Day the battle is re-enacted. I think there is a parade too. Concord Center is decked out with souvenir vendors and all sorts of good stuff. It's one of those things that every year on this day I think to myself, I should have taken the day off and gone to this... next year I will.
Half the fun of driving through the area is the random sighting of a re-enactor in full period specific (I think) costume. Last year I saw a couple of small groups of "soldiers" casually walking down a couple of different roads heading toward the "battle". This year I saw a good sized group of them lining up outside of the Colonial Inn, in Concord Center. I wonder if they stayed there, or were they going to breakfast or something.
So in summation: Happy Patriots Day, Happy Marathon Monday, Happy Red Sox Patriots Day Celebration, Happy Bruins Hopefully Taking a 2 Games to 1 Series Lead Over Buffalo Day!
Go Bruins!
No comments:
Post a Comment