It is Monday morning. The backyard is littered with leaves and branches and my hard work of vacuuming the backyard with my leaf vacuum on Saturday afternoon seems, in retrospect, a complete waste of time and effort. It is a bit overcast with a high, thin fog and the sun is struggling to break through.

The weekend was interesting, if not dynamic. Darla and I were able to put a large dent in our Christmas shopping as we were up early on Saturday morning and off to the local Galleria for a day of shopping. Friday night saw the last of David's JV football games for the year. The entire coaching staff had been pink slipped during the week due, I suppose, to complete incompetence. It seemed that they were out to prove the athletic director a genius as the team stuggled through yet another game of inept play calling and bizarre substitutions. For those who don't know, David plays quarterback and strong safety. He lost his starting qb position three games ago after a fight before a game. David was knocked unconscious and ended up with a mild concussion. The backup qb had been elevated to starter and unfortunately is one of those players deathly afraid of physical contact. In this game, the qb threw an interception in the first series and it was run back to the goal line. When David finally was put in, he lead a brilliant drive to the 10 yard line, where he threw an interception. The coach grabbed David as he was leaving the field and yelled, " If my quarterbacks can figure out what the f**k is going on, we might have a chance to win this game!!" One of the parents behind me asked what he said. I said, " He said I'm a FAT ASS!" ( THe coach is pushing 300 lbs and is a lard). Darla and those around me laughed having put up with this dough head all year. What I didn't realize until later was that the coach's wife was sitting behind us.Oh well.

Saturday night, I decided to take Darla to dinner. We stopped again at the Galleria and put our name in at Max's Opera Cafe. We wandered the mall for forty minutes looking at Crate and Barrel and the Home Design Company and The Bombay Co. We were finally seated in a dark corner of the restaurant and I noticed that the spot light above our table was burned out. I ordered and enjoyed a Fresher sandwich of barbecued brisket with red potato salad and Darla had a smothered chicken sandwich (smothered with mushrooms). Our problem was that once our food was delivered, we were invisible. I couldn't get the waiter to refill our drinks, he had to be asked twice to get us "to go" boxes and he took 15 minutes to bring us the bill. We were finished eating for twenty minutes before we finally flagged him down to get the boxes and then I had to ask him again. When he finally brought the bill, I told him that it must be hard to see us in the corner with the light burned out. He didn't quite pick up on my sarcasm as he said, "No. I can see you fine, but we need to replace that bulb". Apparently the fixture was not the only dim bulb in the restaurant. Our meal came up to $28.96 and I left a $1.04 tip and wrote on the bill: "Terrible service. We felt like lepers." Hopefully he got the point, although he probably just thinks I'm cheap.

We returned home and watched a movie. Buddy, our golden retriever, came in and took up residence on his rug by the door. About ten fifteen, Buddy began to seizure and crawled over to me on all fours and had a terrified look in his eyes. He ran down the hall and hid in our room and I had to run him back out where he hid behind the couch. I went in the kitchen to get him some water and the counter was filled with ants, crawling and pulsating in the dim light. I have to admit I came close to losing it at the point and sprayed ant spray like a foaming maniac. We have a pest control service, because an ant nest was built inside our walls. I had the service out five days in a row and we finally solved the problem by placing borax in several spots in the house where the ants took it back to the nest and killed the colony. This was back in the Spring of this year. With the weather change, they're baa-aack. The pest control guy will be out after lunch today when we will resume our acquaintance. Buddy seems to be over his latest problem. he had a bad bout of Parvo as a young pup and still has seizures occasionally. It is not fun to watch and I feel so sorry for him.

So that was our weekend. I hope yours was a great one. I'm off to Reno and will be back Thursday night.