One of those rare, if you’ll pardon the pun, joys in life is a holiday weekend during which one is allowed to consume respectable amounts of fire-grilled meat. Yesterday it was burgers at home; today it was steaks at Lil’ & Geoff’s place. In both cases, I enjoyed it to the fullest and then some.

As a guy who’s pretty much broke, I’m considering this the feast before the famine, but you know what? It’s meals like this that see you through the days of sandwiches and ramen noodles. Heck yeah.

On a side note, I also only have a three day work week ahead. I’m taking Friday off because someone special is coming to town. As the kids say, “Sweet!”

There are certain rituals when the kids come to my place for a visit that are becoming, if not time-honored, at least somewhat amusing. For instance: Erica must not like what’s for dinner. Alex must pace, a lot. Erica must give the kitties lots of love. Alex must gaze longingly at the Playstation 2 long enough to work up the nerve to ask if he can play on it. And so on.

Seriously, though, it was a pretty good visit. We even got in a game of Carcassonne… during which I lost by ten points (and I only did that well because I was master of the farmland and the trade goods) and the kids had six points separating ‘em. Erica won, mind you. Maybe I shouldn’t have finished that city of hers, but I couldn’t let her tie me on textiles, now could I?

I also talked Alex into rolling a new character in City of Heroes. I suspect his new Sonic/Sonic Defender will replace his Force Field character before too long.

Anyway, I was glad to have them over. It’s nice to have a change of venue from time to time, you know?

My teenaged son is learning to skateboard. (That is a verb, right?) Now, there are parents out there who would be mortified at this prospect, but to us it just means he’s getting outside… on purpose… voluntarily! As long as he’s reasonably careful, I’m totally okay with this.

My daughter is learning to cope with life in a more positive and responsible fashion. She’s become much more respectful, more helpful, and more protective of her family than ever before. I mean, it’s not like we expect her to be a Perfect Little Angel ™ all of the time, but she’s doing what counts, when it counts. Isn’t that all any parent can ask?

I don’t know how we got lucky enough to end up with such awesome children. I know it’s not anything I did…

So you’re handed an opportunity on a silver platter; it’s the chance of a lifetime. You take it by the reins. You work your butt off, learning a variety of new skills in the arenas of finance, diplomacy and technology. You hear phrases like “saving angel” from those who’ll be responsible for deciding your future in this endeavor.

After many months of this effort, a lot of it unpaid-for, at quite literally the last possible minute… you’re told, “Sorry, we’ve decided to let someone else reap the benefits of this opportunity.”

I cannot begin to describe how intensely furious I am that someone would pull that kind of crap on a good person who’s poured their heart and soul into something for most of this entire year. Words fail me.

As anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock is well aware, there’s been some severe weather down around the Gulf of Mexico. In what could be construed as a sympathetic action, our own weather decided to go into “sturm und drang” mode… just a bit. Okay, so it rained off and on, and there were lightning strikes. It’s as if our climate was attempting to show some solidarity with the climate elsewhere in the country.

And if that’s not an egregious use of anthropomorphism, I don’t know what is. I do know for certain that the heaviest rainfall this evening was saved until the very minute I got off the last bus before home, however. The sky absolutely unloaded for the three or four minutes it took me to get home from the bus stop. Things cleared right up by the time I got inside and up to my room. Go figure.

If one were the highly paranoid sort, one would take that event coupled with the earlier “it’s not raining, I guess I’ll take this box out to be recycled, oh look it started raining just as I got all the way out to the dumpsters” event as a sign that someone up there isn’t happy with me… good thing I’m not that paranoid, huh?