Friday
We were talking to our next-door neighbor about South Dakota (she and her husband grew up there), just yelling from our backyard into hers over the grinding noise of Victoria's riding toy on the driveway. Then her husband arrived with ice cream and asked us in, so we ate ice cream and told South Dakota stories. Theirs were better, except for this one: Vacation Bible School lasted all day long for a month every summer. During recess, the kids would fill pails with the undrinkable wellwater from the church and dump it down prairie dog holes until soggy prairie dogs would emerge. Then they would chase them down with baseball bats.
Saturday
Cookout! Victoria and I took Metro, which was unusually efficient so we got there at the crack of afternoon and helped
simonator set up. Brian drove by later in his Brand New Car and after a while he and Victoria were all partied out so they went home. I was too busy gabbing and drinking and drinking. And drinking. On the train home I was feeling kinda rough and I thought that I might have overdone it a bit. One of the few things I remember from several disastrous semesters of German is the phrase Das letzte Bier war schlecht. That and the story about Franz and Willi meeting their boss at the spa. But I digress. Happily, the walk home from the metro was all I needed to feel chipper again.Sunday
Festival! This music festival is a warmup for Winfield, which is where we're headed later this week. Victoria is mad for dancing things and when we dropped in on the swing band she really let fly with her choicest moves. She's also mad for singing things and the banjo man had pulled out all the stops, singing all his biggest hits and inviting kids up the stage with him. She's also pretty good at sitting and listening. We got there when it started at 11am and we should have left at 3:45 when she was still going strong. Unfortunately, I missed the meltdown warning signs and many festival-goers were subjected to the effects of cranky V right around 4pm. Too bad.
Now I have a very short week here at work, which is also fine.
