4 good days with a sprinkle of misery
After my early morning blog rant on Friday about the neighbor I was up and off to the airport. This was my first time flying Southwest. Being a Southwest noob I didn’t realize the importance of checking in way early for the flight so you get into a better seating group. On the flight from Fort Myers to Orlando I was mid B’s and on the longer flight to Philly I was in the lowly C group.
Despite my location way down the list I was able to score an aisle seat on both flights, albeit one towards the rear of the plane. When you are traveling alone you have more flexibility.
The flights were both just fine. We landed early at both locations and I had no on flight issues at all. Southwest really seems to have their shit together. They are the only airline I know of that still allows you to check TWO bags with no additional fees and they back it up with great service. It’s amazing to me that the other airlines refuse to follow their model and instead prefer to go the fee raping, shitty service route instead. Treat people right and they will be back, it’s so simple.
When I arrived at Philly I found my way to the bus that took me to the rental car area which is near the airport. I rented with Alamo via a promotion with Southwest. Again I scored a good deal, renting a subcompact Kia from Friday to Monday for less than $100.
Of course when I was at the counter they tried to pad those numbers by presenting additional insurance as though it was a required option and trying to upsell me in my rental vehicle. I politely declined both options.
My rental car was a white Kia with Massachusetts license plates. The car was pretty loaded with bluetooth, satellite radio, steering wheel climate controls and more. The only thing that I didn’t like was the lingering smell of cigarette smoke in the cabin despite the NO SMOKING sticker affixed to the dash.
As I left the airport I had two choices, 95 north and 95 south. Without thinking I chose the 95 north route since that was the direction of Reading. Well about 10 seconds onto the ramp I remembered to get to the Blue Route I had to pick it up by heading SOUTH on 95 for a brief period of time. Damn it.
Well instead of getting off a ramp and swinging around I figured I would just continue on 95 north that takes you right through the city. Sure it will take longer but how bad could it be? It was only early afternoon. Haha. What a mistake.
It took very little time before I entered the first of at least a dozen log jams of cars. To just get out of the metro Philadelphia area took at least an hour.
As I was sitting on the highway at a dead stop again and again I found myself getting extremely perturbed for several reasons. First for some reason I decided to not eat something at the airport, I was getting extremely hungry. I knew my first opportunity to get something to eat would be when I reached the King of Prussia area which seemed to be infinitely far at the rate we were going.
Second I couldn’t get the car to stop speaking Spanish. The car also had the voice command feature. The problem was it was set to Espanol. So I would hit the button and try to utter some basic spanish I know to no avail. After three incorrect attempts I would hear “Cancellar” I was getting very pissed off.
The reason I was screwing with it was I wanted to pair my Iphone via Bluetooth to the car. Trying to do so with spanish menu’s exceeded my comprehension ability. I tried various button combos to change the language default. It turned out I was close to guessing right. You had to hold down a certain button for 10 seconds, I only held it for 5 or 6.
I finally arrived in the KOP area and pulled off to grab some food. My meal was a 10 piece Chicken McNugget meal that I scarfed down like a hungry prisoner. I wound up not getting to Todd’s place until well after 3pm.
I haven’t been to Todd’s house in several years. He has a dog named Katie that generally didn’t like most people. I was surprised that after some brief growling she warmed up to me. It appears age has mellowed her out a bit.
After downing two Advil and chatting about my messy commute from Philly it wasn’t long till we headed downstairs to hang out. Todd has a huge rec room set up down there complete with a bar, several arcade machines, shuffleboard table and big screen tv.
Todd, Caroline and I took turns playing some Wii sports games. I didn’t bother creating my own character so I played as Todd which meant I had to do so right handed. I am fluent enough in both hands to get by. I played games against both he and Caroline. Despite her limited years on the planet, Caroline is a pretty good Wii Sports player, especially when it comes to bowling. I barely beat her.
We made plans to go out to eat with my dad, Todd’s girlfriend and her daughter to Victor Emmanuels. I had never met Mindy before. Her daughter is 4 years old and is very cute. She makes the best pouty face I may have ever seen.
Vic’s was busier than the last time I was there in 2008 but we still were able to sit right down at a table without waiting. It used to be on a Friday or Saturday night if you got away with waiting a half hour to sit down you were lucky.
I didn’t have to look at a menu to know what I was getting, I always get the same thing, rigatoni and meatballs. I also had a couple slices of Vic’s famous square pizza. The meal was great. I thought I would be generous and picked up the check to pay it. I’d just throw it on my American Express card. Dad told me Vic’s doesn’t take credit cards.
Huh? I have been frequenting this place for 35 years and never knew that. I didn’t have enough cash on me to eat the bill and still have enough for the rest of the weekend. Instead dad paid the bill as he does 99% of the time and I left the tip instead. By the time we got back I was quite tired since I had been on the go since 4:15 in the morning. I showered and hit the sack in short order, setting my alarm at 5:45 to get up for the tournament.
I awoke without issue but had a brief moment of panic when I stepped out into the hallway. It was bright outside, WTF? I thought that somehow the time on my Iphone was wrong and that I had overslept. In Naples, it is still pitch dark at 5:45 am. After double checking both my phone and the clock in the room I realized that I was not late and instead seeing the difference in Reading versus Naples geography. Not only is Reading 1200 miles north of Naples, it is also farther east, hence the earlier sunrise.
I got all of my stuff together and after a Pop Tart breakfast was out the door while everyone else in the house was asleep. I had extra time before I was supposed to meet Charlie so I decided to try a “back way” to his place. It took me a bit to realize that I went the wrong back way before I had to turn around and back track. I pulled up to his place at almost 6:45 on the nose, Charlie was outside waiting for me. He was very excited to play.
We took his SUV since it had much more room for the gear that was being lugged along which was extensive. He had a tent, 4 chairs a big cooler and more already in there. I added my oversized volleyball bag to the pile.
After a stop for some supplies including water, chocolate milk and a blueberry Tastykake pie we arrived on site. We were very early but that worked in our favor when it came to getting a shelter set up. We landed a primo spot under the treeline.
The tent Charlie has was a cheap pick up he made years ago. It is the old style that you actually put together as opposed to the 60 second EZ-UP variety of shelter that has become the standard.
Assembling Charlie’s tent requires various poles and connectors to be snapped together. They do a decent job of making the process tolerable with color coding to let you know what goes where. In about 15 minutes we had the tent up and looking as you see in the picture.
Around 9am we got called to the center court for instructions. When everyone arrived they didn’t actually provide instructions. Instead they thought it would be neat to stroke the ego of some of the high level players by having us all watch while they played a few points of the first match. After maybe 10-15 minutes they finally gave the instructions, of course I was annoyed by the bait and switch.
After the national anthem was sung I knew what was coming next, the loud fireworks. About 10-15 feet away from us was a woman with a decent size dog. It looked like some sort of boxer mix, bigger than either of our dogs. Knowing that when Nicki was exposed to these fireworks she responded by sprinting out of Ali’s grasp and running 200 yards to our van, I anticipated problems for this woman.
As soon as the first of several dozen bangs went off the dog started freaking out. The dog started pulling the woman down in it’s frenzy. I swooped in and locked a big bear hug on the dog and tried to calm her down. I held on tight as she continued to struggle. I had to hold onto her well after the noise stopped, she was still freaked out.
Eventually she calmed down. The woman thanked me for my help. It wasn’t actually her dog but instead her friend’s dog that she was just watching for her while she supposedly grabbed some food. If I didn’t grab the pooch the woman would have been either drug around the park or the dog would have took off to who knows where.
So we headed back to our net and got our pool assignments. Charlie and I were happy to see we were the number 5 team on the net which meant we had a favorable schedule. After an initial two match sit, you play every other match the rest of the way out which is ideal.
Well as the one team was warming up for the first match a tournament guy came over and called out Charlie and my name. He said the the team that was supposed to be the number two team has one of the tourney volunteers on it and he was still needed elsewhere. So they flipped us from the number 5 team to the number two team. Just like that we went from having the best schedule on the net to the worst. The number two team sits TWO matches (4 games) every time which sucks. You wind up being quite stiff by the time you get to play again. It also meant that we had to hurry up and play immediately, another thing 5 minutes ago we were just saying we were glad we did NOT have to do.
Our game was against two young brothers. I didn’t ask their ages but I am guessing somewhere around 16, give or take a year. Charlie and I played very well in the first match, jumping out to a commanding 9-0 lead before easily closing them out 11-2. We went into game two confident that we would do it again.
Well that overconfidence may have been part of our downfall. We got down early to the kids. Granted the kids were playing much better, they both were obviously primarily indoor players but they both had talent and skills. However we contributed by not taking care of the ball when we should have. I think we wound up losing something like 11-8.
Charlie and I were disappointed splitting that match after dominating the first game. We looked forward to redeeming ourselves later. In addition to our unwelcomed pool position switch, our net had my two least favorite things on it as well, a co-ed team and a father/son team.
The co-ed team had a girl that surely plays A when she is on an all vagina team. Her partner was a guy that could smash a good set but was average in other parts of the game. The father/son team had a kid that I would guess was again close to driving age and a dad that was a very good player. Dad had his ankles taped like a MMA fighter and played barefoot. You knew he was serious.
Our next two matches were against these two teams. We used a similar strategy to beat both, go primarily at the weaker player. The girl arguably was a better ball handler and definitely a better setter than her partner but her flatter hit made for easier digs. We beat them easily the first game but had to come behind from an early deficit to take the second game.
Beating the father/son team we used the same strategy. When we got up by a decent amount I found myself allowing dad a few more chances which he almost always converted on. Like I said he had some serious skills. I had to laugh when he said we should just call his son by his nickname, Nudge.
So after 3 matches we were sitting with a solid 5-1 record. Our last match was against a team that was 6-0. The outcome of this match would decide the final seeding of our net as the top two teams advance to the playoffs.
Earlier in the day I had named this team The Agents, as in agents from The Matrix. They were of similar build and both wore black shorts, black shirts, identical baseball hats, and similar black sunglasses. Charlie and I joked that they would just appear before a match, beat their opponents and vanish.
In reality Paul and Nick were nice guys that had solid skills with Nick having slightly more ability of the two.
I had asked dad to tape the match with my Flip camera. I figured it would be nice to at least have some footage from the day and since this was our biggest match so far it seemed like a good candidate. Unfortunately only about a third of the footage was usable because dad got the on/off functions reversed as you can see here.
The Agents took apart all the other teams on the net up to this point so Charlie and I knew we had to play well. We did exactly that, keeping them off guard with strong serving and good ball control. We beat them by a score of 11-5 or 11-6. Much like our first match against the kids, game two was another story.
The Agents mixed up their strategy for the second game. First of all Nick removed his shirt, revealing his blinding white skin. He also removed his hat and sunglasses, a sly move only an Agent would come up with. They also started exclusively serving the ball to Charlie, forcing us to sideout in this manner. We just didn’t execute it. Before we knew it we found ourselves down 9-3 and on the verge of getting spanked worse than we spanked them in the first game.
Charlie and I settled down a bit and stopped the bleeding, battling all the way back to 9-9 before a couple unforced errors at the end did us in. So The Agents held on to the first spot off our net and we were relegated to the number two spot, oh well. Now we began what seemed like an endless wait.
I knew we would be waiting a long time since our net moved along at a decent pace. I did not anticipate waiting over three hours. Charlie and I filled the time eating food, going to the bathroom and just plain old laying around, watching other teams play. Our cheering section which consisted of my dad, Charlie’s dad, wife, son and neighbor all vacated after our last pool game since the mega wait was not something a spectator need endure.
Finally they brought out the bracket board for the playoffs. Charlie and I found our names. We were a bit perplexed. Next to each team was a number which we assumed was the teams ranking. The ranking is determined first by finish place on the net and then followed by win-loss record and point differential.
When you are a number two team on a net you always will wind up playing a number one team off another net first. Well always except at the 2011 Rumble. We were marked as the 32nd ranked team and we were scheduled to play the 33rd ranked team, wow that is weird.
Ok well the way it is supposed to work is the game is played on the net of the higher ranked team which would be us in this case. We headed off to our home net number 5, where the Agents were already waiting. They asked what we were doing there? They said they were scheduled to play as well on net 5. What the F?
So we go back to the bracket board and ask for clarification. The volunteer said to ignore the ranking numbers (since they were obviously wrong) and that we should go to the other teams net, he said they should be one of the net winning teams.
Their net was a long walk away, down in the fenced in dog run area that had be temporarily converted to additional courts. We arrived at the net, and noone was there. Now both Charlie and I were annoyed. After waiting so long for the playoffs to be sorted out we didn’t appreciate the end result being f’d up.
We ran into another team that we thought were our opponents, they weren’t. They said they were the number one team off the net of the guys we were looking for. This added to the confusion. So instead of playing a number one team, we are playing a number two team? That isn’t supposed to happen.
Well of course there was no way they were going to be able to fix this at that point. The team we were scheduled to play eventually found us. They were two guys in their early 20’s.
The dog run area was not a great surface to play on. The area had numerous exposed roots, rocks and ruts. Our net had a couple ruts that were quite large and easily capable of snapping an ankle in.
The other team echoed our feelings of disbelief that the seedings got screwed up but hey, you have to play somebody so we may as well play each other.
I had to laugh when I saw who the ref for our game was, Jeff. Jeff is a guy that I played against several times at the Rehoboth Beach tournaments over a decade ago. We had some epic games against him. It was very ironic he was standing there. Once I raised my sunglasses he recognized me as well.
The game started and immediately we were in a hole. The one guy immediately served up two ankle burners my way that I could do nothing with. We got into a quick 4-1 hole before battling back to tie it at 4-4.
These guys were both skilled, the one guy especially so. He was smashing anything within 6 feet of the net and backed it up with a wicked jump serve. His skill was way above BB level. Sandbagging is commonplace though in the Rumble because of the size of the field so although it was annoying, there was nothing we could really do about it.
Later in the game Charlie and I made a conscious effort to try to go after the other guy which helped us stay in the game but eventually we lost when I hit the net going after a tight set. It was disappointing but Charlie and I played hard the entire way. Despite their sandbagging, the guys on the other team were nice. I talked to them after our loss.
The kid that was pulverizing the ball was the starting middle hitter for the Shippensburg club team. His partner played on the team as well but not as a starter. For those of you that don’t know much about volleyball, a middle hitter’s role on the floor is to smash the ball and he typically is the best hitter on the team.
Since we lost we were supposed to ref the next game. I told Charlie he could go back and start tearing down our stuff and I would ref it. The Shippensburg guys were scheduled to play Jeff’s team who finished first on his net. I felt a little less bad about our loss after the guys destroyed Jeff and his partner, going up 9-0 before coasting to an 11-2 win. They weren’t even jump serving after getting the big lead. I wouldn’t be surprised if the team that beat us went deep into the playoffs.
By the time I got back to Charlie he had a lot of the stuff cleaned up. I helped him finish up and we rolled out of there. On the way back we talked about various aspects of the day. A couple points here and there would have made a a big difference. If we could have not had that let down against the kids and the Agents our improved playoff seeding may have been a big boost in our final outcome.
The bottom line however was all good. Both Charlie and I have backburnered volleyball on our priority list for awhile, Charlie even more so than I have. We had not played together since the miserable 2006 mud Rumble which destroyed my knees. Despite these circumstances overall we played quite well. If you want to see the full extent of the video coverage from our play you can see it here.
Originally I planned to meet my brother at his girlfriend’s house for a cookout they were having for dinner however it was pretty late by that time, 7:30 or so. I called to find out how long people were going to be there but I was unable to get my dad or Todd on the phone. Eventually I did get ahold of Todd but by that time I told Charlie I would just eat with him. I told Todd I would stop by after I ate.
Charlie and I were unable to partake in our traditional post Rumble meal of A&M’s in Wernersville since they are no longer in business. We settled for subs from another Wernersville pizza place that were nearly as good as A&M’s but not quite there. Charlie was nice enough to pay for my food.
After eating and getting a tour of the many home improvements Charlie has made that I have seen via pictures but not first hand, I got ready to go. I told him that as of now I would be up for giving the Rumble another go next year if things work out schedule wise. He said he was up for it as well. I thanked him for a fun day and headed out.
When I pulled into Mindy’s place amd walked around to the backyard I was greeted by a beehive of children. Mindy has a pool and hot tub and the kids were taking full advantage of it. There were probably 7 or 8 adults there as well. I was introduced to the people that didn’t know me.
It didn’t take long for me to retreat to the hot tub to help combat some of the stiffness that was already settling in from the day of volleyball. It felt nice to sit in the warm bubbling water, until I got out. As soon as my wet body hit the air that was probably in the low 70’s I was freezing. I scurried out to the rental car and grabbed my Nasa long sleeve t-shirt and Adidas training pants. I changed my clothes right by the car with an assist from a towel I held around my waist.
I returned to the cookout and hung out by the table for a little bit. I didn’t really know most of these people and I wasn’t really feeling energetic enough to put much effort into changing that. I had a couple beers, ate a few things from the snack bowls and was ready to follow dad’s lead who had left maybe 15 minutes earlier.
Todd had brought Katie along. I asked him if he wanted me to take her back with me. He said that would be good. So I called Katie out. She followed me out front, somewhat confused when I told her to jump in the back seat of the rental car she never saw before. After some hesitation she complied.
As soon as we started driving she started panting pretty rapidly. Todd warned me ahead of time she normally does this. I put down the windows in the back so she could hang her head out which she seemed to enjoy. When we got back to Todd’s place I gave her some food and a treat before I took my shower and headed to bed. Since her normal human pack leader was not around Katie feel asleep on the floor of my bedroom and stayed there presumably until Todd got home sometime around midnight.
On Sunday morning we made plans to meet dad for breakfast at some small place in Sinking Spring. This was going to include all members of the family and significant others that were in the area, including Dad, Todd, Mindy, Makenna, Caroline, Meghan and her boyfriend Paul. Dad said the place really has some good food and he was right.
They also make some food that looks absolutely gross but tastes delicious. Paul ordered such a dish called a Jomama. It looked like a cow patty with powdered sugar to me but Paul assured me it tasted great despite his blood pressure going up a few points with each forkful.
After breakfast I made arrangements to follow my dad. First we headed to Todd’s rental property where my dad’s trailer and fabled Alfa Romeo currently reside. Dad is planning to use the trailer to tow the Alfa out to his place in Mariensville this week. He had to see if the inspection for the trailer was still current.
It was the first time I saw the rental property in quite a few years. It has some weeds that have grown to the size of small trees. Maintenance of the place is not high on Todd’s priority list since the place is currently unrentable due to never ending divorce proceedings and water damage from heavy rain last year.
After that I followed Dad back to his townhouse in Flying Hills. We took a round about way that took us by my childhood home in suburban Gouglersville. When my dad moved back into the place in the mid to late 80’s he did MASSIVE renovations to the property. Transforming it into something totally different than I experienced growing up there as a child.
Since he sold the property 6 or 7 years ago the new owner went even further, putting the house through another major transformation. I would love to have a half hour to tour my old stomping grounds but it would be sort of rude to ask.
The reason I headed to dad’s place was to set up a computer. It was the computer he sent to me a month or so ago to get working. He had a family friend work on it and got back a PC that was dreadfully slow and basically unworkable. I reloaded the thing from scratch and had much better success. Anyway he wanted it set up at the townhouse.
As I was downloading some updates my dad and I talked about the state of the Duffey family both good and bad. We both thought the upcoming trip to Ireland will be an interesting experiment to see how 12 family members, including three children can get along in close quarters for a week in a foreign land.
I finished up and told Dad I would see him in NYC in a month and a half. I had invited him to go to Boehringer’s with me later but he said Meghan was making kabobs for dinner.
As I was driving back from Dad’s it came upon me that I was going to be going right by my grandmother’s nursing home. I had not given any serious thought about visiting my grandmother while I was up there. It has been established that grandma no longer has any recollection of any of her family members. The times in the past that I visited her before her mind totally slipped were difficult enough.
Even so, as I approached the home on my left, something made me turn the wheel. There was not one ounce of my being that wanted to step foot inside that place that represents everything I absolutely fear about the aging process, yet I knew it was the right thing to do.
I parked the car, took a deep breath and went inside.
I asked the young woman at the front desk what room Betty Cleaver was in, she was still in 416 as she has been for most of the last decade. I slowly walked the halls not looking forward to what I already knew was going to be a very painful interaction. I arrived at her room but it was empty, not a soul around. Hmmm it was around lunch time so I figured that was where everyone was. After checking at a nurses station I was directed to where my grandma was eating.
I walked into the dining room filled with people that no longer walked, they were all in wheelchairs. I spotted what I thought was my grandmother but I was not exactly sure. Evidently grandma no longer has her teeth in, as a result her face looked different to me. Her hair that always was sporting some sort of perm was just combed back and straight.
There was a lone chair in the area which I pulled up next to her and sat down in. I touched her hand and said “Hi Grandma, it’s Shawn, your grandson” Without directly looking at me she jerked her hand away and barked out “Will you leave me the hell alone!?”
I was taken back by the reaction. Mom had told me that she had gotten reports that Grandma had been becoming increasingly belligerent as time has passed but I didn’t quite expect that. Again I tried to speak to her, asking her how she was feeling and again was met with an angry “Why don’t you go away!”
Instantly I felt a wave of intense sadness fall over me as tears started to hit my eyes. I sat there for a few moments and regained some degree of composure. Part of me just wanted to get up and walk out, hey I tried. However I knew I came this far, I haven’t seen her in years, she deserves for me to at least try to be there, even if she is too angry and confused to even realize it.
I decided to turn my attention to some of the other residents that were eating. I shuttered as I looked to Grandma’s right and saw a woman that had a face like Popeye. Her eyes had a disturbing stare that moved about as she ate her food. Well the one eye that was open, the second eye was almost fully closed. The woman could only utter single syllables at a time and the bottom half of her face was covered in food. Imagining my grandmother spending the last decade being immersed in this seemed like true hell on Earth to me and made the sadness well up inside once again.
I got up and walked around the room for a bit looking at the finches, the papers on the bulletin board, anything to try to get my mind out of the dark place it was sitting. I just felt such unbearable sadness.
I saw one woman struggling to get open the cellophane wrapper on an oatmeal cookie and offered to open it for her. She thanked me for the help.
I talked to some of the nursing home staff. They assured me that this was how Grandma now was with pretty much everyone. They said once in awhile she will get talking about K-mart or her cats that she always loved and seem almost normal but that doesn’t happen very much. They were quite surprised to see me since Grandma gets basically no visitors anymore. In fact they said she tells people her entire family is dead, which saddened me further.
I decided I was just going to sit there with Grandma and not say a thing. She continued to slowly eat, not ever taking a moment to look my way. Slowly the staff took every other person back to their room until it was just myself and Grandma left. They asked if I wanted to wheel her back and I said sure.
I tried to be good natured as we slowly traversed the halls, avoiding various residents that were parked along the way. Eventually we got back to her room and we parked her by her bed. She sat in her chair, arms crossed, looking down. Her absolute refusal to look at me actually made me think that she knew who I was, why else would she be so resistant to look at me?
I rationalized that she is angry and embarrassed by her state of existence. I can’t say I blame her one bit. Grandma had something like 11 siblings, 3 children and all the associated grand children and great grandchildren yet there she has sat for over a decade, basically alone.
Although I would never describe my relationship with her as close since we really only saw her during holiday meals I still felt incredible pain in seeing her this way. As I stood in front of her I again tried to interact and this time she would not say a word. I talked with her roommate a bit, a nice lady named Yolanda. She was missing a few marbles but could at least carry on a few sentence conversation.
I stood there in that room for awhile, fighting back the tears as I tried to focus on anything to push back the sadness. I knew that there was a good chance this would be the last time I saw my grandmother and to see her in this condition was simply awful.
I eventually had to accept that she just was not going to talk to me. I told her I was going to head out. I had been there over 75 minutes by this time, more time than I have spent with my grandmother in the past 10 years combined. I asked her if it was ok if I gave her a kiss on the cheek to which she said nothing.
As I leaned down to try to give he a peck on her cheek she swatted at me and told me to leave her the hell alone once again. I could no longer control myself and started to cry. The gravity of the situation was crushing me.
I turned away while bent over at the waist and just sobbed for a minute or so. It’s hard to have to feel that sort of anguish with no insulation. I turned back to her, knelt down and quietly told her, “It’s ok….” I put my hand on her back and told her I loved her and quietly left. The entire time her arms never left their defiant, folded position and her head never looked at anything but the floor.
As I left the facility I tried to avert my watery eyes from others. It isn’t manly to cry.
As I got into the car I thought about just how awful that experience was yet I was still glad that I made the effort to do it. Sometimes we are all guilty of ignoring doing what is right because it is not easy, myself included.
When I got back to Todd’s place I told him of my pitstop to see Grandma and I revealed how sad it was. Todd sort of joked about the situation. Both his girlfriend and I told him neither of us thought it was very funny.
Dad had called me and said that he and possibly my sister Meghan would be interested in joining me in a Boehringer’s run in the late afternoon. None of us ate lunch due to the massive breakfast. Todd, Mindy and the kids had made plans to go do some shopping and weren’t going to go with me.
After they left I spent an hour or so on the couch watching Roy Halladay throw yet another complete game gem against the A’s. Dad said he would call me when he was ready to go. He hadn’t called yet so I decided to just go out and drive around. I needed to get my mind off the Grandma visit.
I decided to head out toward 5th street highway, an area I don’t think I have been through since I moved to Florida. As I drove around I got an odd sense of how close together things are that used to seem far away. In the span of 15 minutes, the time it takes me to get a third of the way through my normal Florida morning commute I had gone from Todd’s place to far up 5th street, past Sam’s. Along the way I passed landmark’s that I always used to think were far away. I realized that what used to seem far away in Reading is actually quite close in comparison to my current location. No wonder people that visit us from up north comment about how it seems like we are driving forever to get places. It’s because we are.
I called my dad from the road to get an updated ETA. He said my sister had not returned but he said he would meet me at Boehringer’s so I wouldn’t have to eat there alone.
I got there a few minutes ahead of him. As I waited I decided to just walk around a bit. On the far end of the parking lot I spotted a BEAUTIFUL 68 Firebird convertible. It was a 4 speed with a 400 motor, a hood tach and original style factory wheels. As I snapped a couple pictures the couple that owned the car came walking up. I spent a good 5-10 minutes talking to them about the car.
Evidently when he was younger he wanted to buy one of these brand new but never got the chance. He bought this car 11 years old and has been living his dream since.
I saw Dad had pulled up so I walked down towards him. He decided to just get ice cream since Meg was making dinner later. I wanted to get my traditional and beloved Boehringer’s meal, a hamburger with just ketchup, french fries and a chocolate shake.
The place was not full by Boehringer standards where it is quite normal to have lines out the door. Still there were a good 20 or so people inside. When we walked in I saw the good old root beer barrel that is probably older than I am. The inside looked exactly as I remembered for the last 30 years.
Boehringer’s never skimps on the help to service the huge crowds. There had to be at least a dozen people scurrying about behind the counter, most of which were college aged girls.
At Boehringer’s the ordering system is kind of funny. If you want to order food you stand parallel to the counter. If you are waiting for a food order to be completed you stand along the windows. The funny thing is the entire customer area is a small 6 foot wide at the most, strip around the counter. If you are claustrophobic you might be uncomfortable.
After about 10 minutes my food order was up and my dad and I found an empty picnic bench. I dug into my food and was quite pleased to find it tasted just as good as I remembered. The shake is the trickiest part. The consistency and flavor is just perfect.
As I ate we enjoyed the sounds of the stream and the company of a few ducks that wandered by. It was quite nice. I said goodbye to Dad for a second time, this time for real and headed back to Todd’s place.
When I got back I spent some time playing with Caroline and a neighbor she hangs out with. After putting on a juggling exhibition I also played some basketball in the neighbor’s driveway with the girls.
Todd had decided to not postpone his weekly poker night despite my presence. He said I was welcome to play but I really had no desire to partake in the gambling. Instead I got all of my stuff organized and ready to roll out early the next morning. I spent my last waking hours watching some pretty damn hilarious South Park episodes on Hulu via my Iphone.
I woke up without an alarm yesterday. Despite my flight not leaving until around 10:30 I wanted to be on my way shortly after 7. With my horrendous commute from Philly and factoring in this time I would be commuting during Monday morning traffic with additional stops for gas and rental car return, I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time.
Todd rolled himself out of bed shortly before I left to say goodbye. Caroline did not want to get out of bed to do the same and told Todd to just say goodbye for her. Gee, thanks kid. I walked up stairs and said goodbye and threw a pillow on top of her head.
I said goodbye to Katie who was in her normal spot in the back of Todd’s SUV, observing the world. I thanked Todd for his hospitality and was on my way.
Of course the first stop was the Dunkin Donuts drive thru for some go juice. After that I had an uneventful commute back to the airport with minimal delay. Along the way I let my buddy Scott who works as a DJ at the local rock station know I was listening to him. He responded by giving me an on air shout out which was cool.
I arrived at my departure gate about an hour before we were due to take off which worked out just fine.
Like I started off this epic long entry saying, Southwest has their shit together. Once again the flight back was flawless. We arrived about a half hour early and 2 minutes after I hit the baggage area my luggage was in front of me. I was very impressed.
Ali had been tracking my flight and thus knew it was early so she was already waiting for me in the cell phone lot which was cool. Even cooler was when she pulled up and saw she finally cut her hair. Gone was the long hair that just hangs there and instead replaced with the shorter, sassy style that fits her much better in my opinion. I threw my hands over my head and cheered out loud in approval.
We got back home mid afternoon. Originally Ali planned to stay home since I just got back. I told her I knew what her work situation was and that I didn’t mind if she went back to work. I am a big boy. Reluctantly she took me up on my offer.
I didn’t waste anytime getting back in the flow of things. I stepped outside and worked on the garden tending and weeding that Ali did not get time to do in my absence. I then decided to work on putting on the new road bike tires that arrived while I was gone. I needed one new inner tube to complete the process so I had the girls hop in the van for an impromptu ride to the bike shop which they both enjoyed.
I struggled a little bit replacing the first tire but used that as a learning experience. Replacing the back tire went much better. I am now comfortable enough with the process that I don’t think I would have an issue doing an on the road tube swap. The new tires with their red accents look pretty sweet with the red framed bike.
If you would like to see all of the pictures from the Rumble you can see them here. If you want to see all of the other pictures from the trip take a peek here.
Remember my 4AM, pre-trip neighbor rant? As I expected, instead of being forced to communicate with us directly instead of through her kids, the neighbor has made other arrangements for the dogs. What a surprise.