Earth Day 2013

I guess it was Earth Day. That's what it said in the ads in the Sunday Tribune. I didn't seem to hear about it anyplace else.

But perhaps I wasn't fully paying attention to media over the weekend. I was in Chicago and north suburbs, having a grand ol' time with family and, all too briefly, friends on Record Store Day (Saturday). Good food, good company, and just a pleasant break from the previous week's flood of talk about Boston bloodshed, shoddy journalism, Texas fertilizer plant explosions, failing gun regulations, and, indeed, flooding — in my home metro. As my aunt and I drove around with my granduncle, we noticed a couple things along the way that looked like little ponds and lakes — with trees sticking right out of them. The remains of something that had shut down the Edens expressway for a bit, and that none of us had actually been around to witness, with one of us downstate and another in Nashville. But, for the moment, lovely weather and vibes in Chicagoland.

Alas, good times don't last. I drove back to and through the flatlands Sunday afternoon, stopping twice to get gas, empty the bladder, call a far-away friend who had asked that I call them that weekend when I had a chance, and otherwise hitting 96 miles per hour at one point on my way to the promise of the world's greatest meatloaf. I criticize my mother about many things, but, in her own words, [she] sure can cook! It was goooooood...!

On to today, which it is for about twenty more minutes here. I awoke to the sound of Mom yelling at Dad for falling, as though he does it on purpose when it happens. He has rather a history of falling on occasion. I really don't think anger is the way to fix such a problem as that. But my father rather is the sort of person that, summarily, deserves his own post on here. He's a wreck. And today was one for me to see to him. He has a sleep aid with which he's struggling to get to work properly. I drove him across town to a fruitless appointment for that, among minor errands. As I've been typing this post, I've heard and gone to investigate hysterical laughter from the bedroom, catalyzed by the sleep aid machine making "fart noises". If and when I can, I'm supposed to fix a sleep mask that's in pieces on the dining room table and wasn't discovered until after the appointment. Apart from that, I hooked up a new television receiver in the bedroom, assisted with dinner in my usual sous chef role, and got called to assemble dessert and do other scattered things in the middle of a cyber-chat with the friend that I had called from Bourbonnais. Supposedly, somewhere between all the family engagements, I should be working at a steady job.

Perhaps I will go ahead and apply at the simple place that that friend mentioned — right in the face of my disapproving family. And pursue a visit, maybe a full-out stay, with them, over two thousand miles from here. They, the friend, might be right: I "need to look to myself for once in [my] life".