The labor day weekend is usually supposed to be a celebration of beer and barbecue in the backyard, then getting stuck in traffic on the way home. Because the Lockardugan house is a poor house, we were content to lock the doors, grill some burgers, drink cheap beer and hide out to recharge our batteries. We had grand plans to “get lots of stuff done”, which is a blanket statement that means “planning an impossibly long checklist of stuff we’d never accomplish with four friends in two weeks.” I had hoped to make serious headway on the outside windows by finishing off the front of the house and working my way over to the side. Jen had hoped to get out into the garden and battle the weeds that have taken over in her absence. Three days seemed like a blank check to have all of this done and more. What actually happened was a lot of sleeping, some lazy consumption of food until noon, halfhearted attempts to motivate into a productive phase, an early cutoff for dinner, and then more sleeping. We did get the second-floor front windows finished, and the side garden dug out. Unfortunately Jen’s ankle met with an unscheduled twist in the backyard, and we postponed our afternoon for a visit to the St. Agnes emergency room, where the diagnosis was a bad sprain. Mother and ankle are resting comfortably on the couch with warm soup and grapefruit juice.

Did anybody else realize that this dude on CSI: Miami was Slater from Dazed and Confused?