Crunched for time

So much to do, so little time.

Life is busy. Tonight, I'm getting my stuff together for a big trip tomorrow ... and thinking about a doctor's appointment ... and watching the first game of the Detroit Red Wings' postseason. All at once. Life gets crazy sometimes.

I have gotten away from writing (somewhat) and reading blogs, not to mention other things like Facebook. What can I say? Life is busy again.

All last week, I wanted to spend a night upstairs (at the computer keyboard, writing). But PBS was carrying Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, and this week is the 150th anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumter (which started four years of carnage, if you don't know). The documentary was engrossing and was on four consecutive nights, and my wife and I sat next to each other and watched it three of those nights.

On the second night, she watched it by herself. I was away, visiting N. It was the first time I had driven out to see her since late February. We had a nice visit, and it cheered her up--she has been down lately, partly because of spring's very late arrival. She's hardly alone.

As for the things I mentioned earlier: The Red Wings won the game and lead Phoenix in the series 1-0. The trip to the doctor is just my annual checkup. The trip is anything but routine.

This one includes my wife and son. We are driving down to Detroit to visit my son and his girlfriend. We have not visited him since Thanksgiving 2009, when I was down there for the high school football finals. In early 2010, he moved to a new apartment and a month later met a girl. Things have gone very well with them. We have met her twice, when they came up here to visit, but we never got down there in 2010--our team didn't get to the state finals last fall.

So our first family trip of 2011 is to visit them. (They live together now.) We will leave Thursday afternoon, drive about halfway there (to the Mackinac Bridge) on Thursday, complete the trip and meet them after work on Friday and spend the day with them on Saturday. On Sunday, we drive home. That's about 520 miles and 10 or 11 hours of driving. I'm the only one who drives.

Last night, I made the motel reservations. Maybe I will print up a few maps later tonight. I like to study maps and memorize what I can, to familiarize myself with the area before I actually get there. I studied Google Maps last night for a while.

So what else have I been doing lately? Many nights have been spent watching TV with my wife--movies that interest us or things like the Civil War documentary. Or else DVDs. She likes to sit with me and watch TV. Unless I'm watching hockey; maybe that's too much of a sacrifice to make. (But then I don't like Lifetime movies, either. Too many psychopathic boyfriends.) With the Stanley Cup games coming up, we could have more time apart. So I wanted to have some time with her.

One other big thing: I have been writing back and forth with my new friend, K. I visited her for the second time on Tuesday. It was the nicest day of spring so far, with temperatures in the low 60s. We had lunch, went to a local park, walked around, shook our heads over some fool ice-fishing on some very dark lake ice, sat on a park bench in the sunshine and talked for a while. Then we went to my car, for softer talk and some cuddling.

This visit lasted about three hours, and that's as far as it went. She had to go to work, and I had to drive home--I had some stories to work on late that afternoon. But it was a very good visit. The next time we get together, we're going to spend a whole day together. But not the night; I have a meeting back home at 7 a.m. the next day.

I'm not worried about that. We are good friends now. I'm very happy with how things have gone, and I think she is, too.

The slow March (and April) to spring

In late March (about a week and a half ago), I made my long-planned trip to the NCAA regional hockey tournament in Green Bay.

Of course, that wasn't all I had going on.

First, I stopped to have lunch with my new friend, K, before she went to work. That went very well. We had a long chat, then discovered there was still about a half hour left before her shift started. We drove off to a back corner of a parking lot for some serious nonverbal communication. Except for our coats, nothing was taken off, but we both enjoyed ourselves very much. This was our first meeting, so we had not kissed or hugged before.

(Things with K have progressed very well since then. I'm hoping we can meet again, maybe about a week from now.)

Then I drove south to visit my 92-year-old uncle and drop off some very old books that had belonged to my grandparents (his parents)--an ancient photo album with photos of ancestors from the old country, a Danish bible and a Danish Psalmbook. Everything was at least 100 years old. My mom (his sister) had them at her house for many years, but I want them to go to one of my cousins (his son) who has done a lot of research into family genealogy. He would appreciate them more than anyone else, I think.