Ready....GO!

Our weekends are generally low key, just hanging out with Maggie and heading to the park etc. Not this weekend. We were going every minute and generally in all different directions.

Maggie and Steve had a cultured weekend. On Saturday they went to the deYoung museum, usually one of Maggie’s favorite places. That was less than thrilling because the museum is preparing for the arrival of the King Tut exhibit next week and lots of things were in flux and not available for viewing. Bah! Undeterred, they spent Sunday morning at the watercolors exhibit at the Presidio Officers’ club. They both enjoyed that.

I did not join them on either jaunt for other, less culturally sophisticated reasons. On Saturday, Tim spent the morning looking for a job with mom as the driver. (Cannot spend time, energy, or money you do not have on parking when you are job hunting.) On Sunday, I met up with my high school girlfriends for 24 hours of eating, drinking, and talking each other’s ears off. We accomplished all three goals. We stayed in a hotel in Fisherman’s’ Wharf and ate in touristy places and had a ball.

When I returned after 24 hours away, Maggie was less than thrilled with me. Before I arrived on Monday morning, she was, according to Steve, acting like a pill. This girl is S P O I L E D and does not approve of any change in the program that is not previously approved by her. Mom is supposed to BE THERE in the morning. Dad and Tim are capable, but not acceptable, substitutes. She was happy to see me, but not happy with me.

In addition to all that, we had parties for two cousins graduating from high school (yay!) and another cousin leaving San Francisco after a year at USF. Saturday afternoon, Steve and Tim loaded up his stuff and drove to the East Bay where his parents (Steve’s brother and sister in law) were scheduled to arrive at the grandparents’ house. At the same time, I headed to the North Bay to my sister’s house to attend the first of the two graduation parties. Maggie stayed home with the nurse.

Monday afternoon after arriving back from time with my girlfriends, we headed to Oakland for the next graduation party. This time Steve, Tim and I went together. Again, Maggie stayed home with the nurse. She was not pleased. The combination of Memorial Day traffic and the large set of stairs at my sister’s house made that decision for us. We were not gone very long because the nurse who was here needs help with all the procedures for Maggie. That gave us a total of three hours to be gone, including 30 minutes of driving each way (without possible traffic delays).

I nagged Steve and Tim to get ready so we could maximize our three hours between procedures. I was pleasantly surprised that there was no traffic at all on the way over there. We arrived at 1:30. Interestingly, there were no cars in front of my sister’s house. Hmmm. I looked at Steve and Tim, those kind and patient members of my family I had rushed out the door and said, “Uhhh, it might start at 2.” We went in anyway (don’t you LOVE people who show up early to a party!) and helped with the last minute preparations. My sister and her family just laughed at us.

Of course, we still had to be home by 4 to help the nurse, so our time at the actual party was even shorter than originally planned. Mercifully, there was very little traffic on the way home too. After all that running around, I had to take a nap. The nurse left at eight and I just hung out with Maggie on the floor and tried to make up for lost time after barely seeing her over the weekend.

She forgave me. She always does.