A Weird Day For a Walk

 



I am trying to maintain discipline as far as my daily walk is concerned.

But it's hard. I work two jobs, something that I have done for going on eleven years now, minus about four months total during that timespan.

So, I'm used to working a lot of hours. Yet, my schedule now makes it more difficult. You see, I work overnights, and often times, have to follow that up with another work shift during the day. Much of that is on my feet, for that matter. As you can imagine, that really eats away at my energy.

Case in point, Friday was just such a day. I got out of my one job, and headed straight for the other one. I didn't exactly feel like working, but since I need the money, there is little choice in the matter.

After that ended, I had to go pick up my son, then head back home. But on the way, I also had to pick up some special prescription food for the dog (he's diabetic), and stopped with my son to get an ince cream cone.

I had promised him some time ago that I would take him to the Lego store and pick him up a toy as a reward for improving quite dramatically both academically and behaviorally in school. But the last few weeks, things kept getting in the way. He kept asking about it, wanting that golden day to arrive already. But on Friday, after the ice cream, I had to rush home to give the dog a shot (again, he's diabetic).

And frankly, once we were home, we pretty much were staying there. I just had no energy to drag myself and him to the mall to go to the Lego store. Barely had the energy to go get some pizza for our Friday night.

He has a fascination with rocks, and I have been trying to encourage that. I promised to show him the "volcano movie" (that would be Dante's Peak), but haven't been able to locate my copy. Just not sure what I did with it. So, instead, I showed him a movie about a volcanic eruption that I found on Youtube.

And in the meantime, I went to the living room, and watched some television, while doing the laundry. Not exactly the most exciting Friday night, but functional.

It was hard trying to stay awake, but I was managing surprisingly well. Or so I thought.

About 10:45, my son woke me up, his face inches from mine. It was a shock, and I kind of jumped from being startled. Also, I felt a little ashamed that my eight year old son could actually outlast me in terms of staying awake.

I went to pick up the laundry, which had been sitting in the dryer for probably an hour or so by then. Brought it back, and folded them. Did the dishes, and got my son ready for bed. Then, I went to bed myself, and was asleep within minutes.

But yesterday, after a decent night of rest, I had some energy. Cooked my son and girlfriend eggs, and then had to prepare for a meeting that was important to attend. It was a bit irritating that it came on my day off, but I didn't want to miss it.

First, though, came the trip to the Lego store. Got my son a small castle set, some figures, and a miniature train by the counter that they were selling for about five bucks. He was very happy, and I made him promise to be well behaved for the meeting.

As it turned out, he was exceptionally well behaved, to the point that almost everyone commented on it! That made me very happy!

The meeting took longer than usual, and we were both very hungry afterwards. So, I took him to a local Portuguese place for some 1/2 chicken and ribs, with fries and rice.

Dropped my son off, then headed back to Hillsborough, wanting to force myself to take that walk, even though I was feeling tired, and desiring a walk. But by that time, the sky was turning gray, as clouds were moving in.

Surprisingly, my girlfriend wanted to go for some ice cream, and so we went. For a second day in a row, I had myself a chocolate cone with chocolate sprinkles, while she had a plain swirled ice cream cone. My son the day before had a vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles, just in case you were wondering.

Finally, when we got back, I went for that walk. She was too tired, so I had to go alone.

And wouldn't you know it? It began raining very quickly after I put some distance between myself and the apartment. I braved it for a while, but cut what would have been my normal walk a bit short, and turned around. Of course, by the time I got back, the rain pretty much had stopped.

But what I saw was incredible! Looking for rainbows, I found a beauty! And since I had the camera, I was able to capture it a bit with a picture. True, it does not exactly do justice to the actual rainbow, it's size and color. In fact, there were two rainbows, and if you look closely, you can see that!

Still, these pictures, however imperfect, show that this was really a great rainbow!

The final picture was one of the sunset, once the gray skies had cleared. It was beautiful, particularly as it set behind the cherry blossoms.

So, I thought it would be worth sharing here, so here they are:

 

 

\