Mid-summer holiday party

I’m totally time-warped this week. The internal clock was thrown off Monday night, when Mrs. Poolman and I spent the night at our church as “hosts” to a couple of homeless families. This is a regular ministry of our parish, and Mrs. P and I usually volunteer to handle the overnight shift. Not a big deal, but it certainly throws the internal clock off.

Yesterday was the 4^th of July, and now I’m back at work for a single day, which feels like a Monday, except it’s actually a Friday. Huh?

Mrs. P and I hosted a holiday pool and barbecue party yesterday. We had several more people than we anticipated, and four more dogs. Individually, the dogs were not a problem. But when you add four new dogs to our pack of two, the result is a lot doggies running around.

Water and beer on the Fourth of July. A bit of a cliche?

Even the dogs got into the action. This was this particular lab’s first time swimming.

I grilled burgers and brats; Son-in-Law provided spare ribs and another friend cooked up some wings. Everyone else brought some side dish or another.  It must have been a good party. We started at 2 pm and had to chase people out at 10:30 pm. It was a work-night after all.

Both our children typically invite some of their friends to our parties, which we encourage.  One couple of the younger generation, Ronnie and Kate, came yesterday with their now-six and a half month old Tommy. We have spent some time with Tommy in the past, and actually were the first non-family members to baby-sit him. Yesterday, he was his usual cute, good-natured self and was totally entertaining.

Mr. Personality

I don’t know what we are going to be up to this weekend, but I think we are partied-out, at least for parties at our house anyway.

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The time-change strikes again!

Where I work, most people bring their lunches. The closest restaurants are a 10-15 minute drive away, so that makes it a hassle on a daily basis. I typically see the same group of people gathered in the small kitchen between 11:45 am and noon. It’s a regular little gathering.

So on Monday, I was a little surprised to see one of our accounting guys, John, fixing his lunch in the kitchen around 11 o’clock. I didn’t think anything of it until he stuck his head into my office around 12:15 pm, as I was finishing up my lunch.

“I wish you had asked me why I was eating lunch so early,” he said.

“Huh?” asked I.

He said he had forgotten about the semi-annual time change over the weekend. So he hadn’t changed the wall clock in his office back to regular time when he got to work in the morning. At 11 am, his clock told him it was actually noon.

“I had been working and I just looked up and saw it was lunch time. Gee, I thought — the morning sure had gone quickly. I also wondered why I wasn’t very hungry, and why the usual crowd wasn’t in the kitchen.”

John said that when the time changes again in the spring, he will organize a clock-changing party so he won’t have to eat lunch alone again.  Good idea.