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How to Judge an “Interesting Weekend”
I had an interesting weekend last week.
First off, I woke up Saturday at 3:00 am and could not get back to sleep. What made it worse I had to give a talk about one of my books at Baytown, 30 miles from my house, at 10:00 am. That is a long drive when you’re exhausted. On top of that I got lost looking for the place (Baytown apparently has a West Main Street and a North Main Street. They do not connect. The first exit named “Main Street” when you are coming from the west is West Main. It took me an hour to find the right Main and get to the venue.)
I also had a book to finish, about 2000 words worth. I had to fit that in between the talk, and all of my normal weekend shopping and cleaning errands, while totally exhausted.
And I woke up again before 3:00 am on Sunday morning, and again could not get back to sleep. Now I am going through a second day where my combined hours sleeping for both days were less than I normally get in one night. And I have to get a roast in the oven before church because a bunch of guests, including my middle son and his wife, coming over for dinner at 5:00 pm.
Then at dinner that evening, my son says he is likely to be leaving Houston (where I live) to take a job in San Antonio.
Does that sound like a lousy weekend? Some might say it was.
Except, there is the rest of the story.
There was a good crowd for the talk. Moreover, I sold 25 books to the audience. I sold every copy of the book on which the talk was about (The Battleship Texas) that I brought and ten others on top of that. I normally consider myself lucky if I sell five books at a talk. Twenty-five doubles my previous record of twelve at a talk on the Cruiser Houston at the annual Cruiser Houston dinner. Plus the hosts paid an honorarium and gave me a quart of peaches and a pint of mayhaw jelly. It was a morning well spent.
Dinner Sunday was a shoulder pork roast that had to cook eight hours, it was worth the effort. I think it was part of the best meal I ever prepared. We had the mayhaw jelly with the buttermilk biscuits I baked. I host a family dinner every Sunday. With my nephew staying in my house I sometimes joke we are a low-rent Nero Wolfe-Archie Goodwin; kind of in the same league as Leo Haig and Chip Harrison.
And the job my son is likely to land? He just got his P.E., but the company he is at had to let him go. An engineering company in San Antonio contacted him the week he was let go. They want him to head up their newest department, which is in his specialty. He is to start it up: Hire the people. Run it. And they are offering a generous salary and benefits to boot. It is a lot of opportunity for a man in his mid-30s, and opportunities like that don’t come along often. Of course, he should grab it.
I got the book done, too, despite being dog tired.
If I concentrated on everything that went wrong I would conclude I had a bad weekend. Some people I know would do that. Me? Despite all the aggravations, I have to say it was one of the better weekends I have had this century.
Some time back I used the following quote as my quote of the day:
When you wake up each morning, you can choose to be happy or choose to be sad. Unless some terrible catastrophe has occurred the night before, it is pretty much up to you. Tomorrow morning, when the sun shines through your window, choose to make it a happy day. – Lynda Resnick
What happened to me last weekend is an illustration of what she meant.
Published in General
Yay for you and your family! – o his way to work your son will get to have breakfast tacos at Bill Miller’s! And sometimes you’ll get to have them with him and see him thrive. And finally – I LOVE Sunday dinner with family, broadly defined. It’s the best. Long may you reign.
Choose this day whom you will serve.
Solved any mysteries lately?
Heading a department is a very good sign. What is his specialty, if you can say?
From the sound of the meal, we need to include Fritz in there somewhere.
Any day on the right side of the grass is a great day.
I heard recently that it doesn’t matter where you sit during a funeral as long as it’s not in the coffin. I can attest that Mark gives a great talk and his book sales are not surprising.
Way to go, guy!
Just the same, I wouldn’t sit between the grieving widow and her kids unless there was a very good reason for it.
I have things to grumble about and usually do, but I also am sensible enough to be completely delighted that my son and his wife (and our, um, grand-dog) come for Sunday dinner every week! And it was his idea! I never imagined I could be so lucky.
You give me hope as I sit here wide awake at 3:30 am.
Some of us are here everyday. I did get in about 20 minutes around midnight.
Good day.
More good day.
When you add waking up twice (forget how early), I’d say it was a good weekend overall.
He is a pipeline engineer.
Heh, that’s what she said. 😜
Had a friend who said, “Every day above ground is a reason for celebration.”
“Growing old isn’t easy, but it’s better than the alternative!”
It catches up with you though. After 3 or 4 days of waking at 4 am and not being able to get back to sleep. I went to bed about 10 last night and slept in until 9 a.m. this morning, my parrot didn’t even scream me awake.
Delight about your book sales.
When we moved to Rochester NY before consumer GPS I was really confused trying to find addresses on East Henrietta Blvd. and West Henrietta Blvd., until I discovered they are not the east and west ends of the same street, but in fact two different streets that run more or less north-south.
I have run into that kind of thing before. My home town of Ann Arbor has a North University and a South University running east-west and an East University running north-south. It makes sense because they mark the north, east, and west sides of the original University of Michigan campus. (State Street runs where West University should be, because the UM campus was part of a failed attempt to get the state capitol to move from Detroit to Ann Arbor. Lansing got the capitol, so the land was offered to the University.)
This was frikken Main Street. Two Main Streets in one town? Perpendicular to each other. That was a new one on me.
In Britain, the main street is usually called High Street, but that’s a very different topic.
I can think of a few US cities where High Street would be more appropriate than Main Street. Many are college towns.
Back to Ann Arbor. 😁
I am likely to overemphasize in my thoughts the negative things that involve me as signs that I am incompetent and/or stupid. Mrs. Tabby keeps trying to get me to control that tendency, as it seems to have increased in my retirement. I think in retirement I have fewer occasions of success, and so the setbacks loom larger in my mind. Although work provides mishaps and setbacks, the job was full of successes.
Yup.
Time to take up a hobby where you can have successes: jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, other puzzles, building things, etc. Anything that can give an easy accomplishment. You could start writing limericks, for instance.
I would not think you have fewer opportunities for success in retirement. In retirement you decide the objectives and the criteria for success. You just have to pick better objectives.
I was waiting for the eating a live frog for breakfast moment.
You did well Seawriter
Eat a toad first thing every morning and you have nothing worse to look forward to the rest of the day.