Lost Weekend

After almost an entire weekend of broken communications, a series of unanswered messages and a complete breakdown of understandings, Julie and I finally hooked up last night to watch her favorite show's finale', "Tell Me You Love Me".

She spent the day in Wickenburg at her daughter's house celebrating her daughter's birthday with her daughter and grandchildren doing motherly things like cooking and baking. All of the residents of the house for the weekend are females, except Jack, who is only 2 months old and too young to realize how bored he would be with all that.

It was a beautiful Sunday and I had taken the pups to the park for the first time in over a year. Great Danes don't do well in the extreme heat and park visits are regulated by the cool weather and their owner's willingness to provide exercise to them. Both of my friends were in puppy heaven, sniffing all of the outdoor smells and peeing freely on everything that stood out. I had to laugh as Zoie, my rather quiet and ladylike female marked her territory boastfully broadcasting her presence. This is her first year for marking and I wonder if it's Bogie's advanced age that tells her it's time for her to represent the pack. I'm sure as hell not going to do it!

So Julie called about 3:30 while I was out with the dogs and I didn't return her call until about 7 when I was good and hungry, but ate an English muffin so as not to impose on her. We talked for a while and she asked me eventually if I wanted to come over to watch her show, she had taped it. I arrived and was warmly greeted as usual and she offered me something to eat, but I declined anxious to see the TV show. We watched for about 40 minutes while Jules fast-forwarded through the parts that she said were boring and I tried to keep up with the happenings. As she handed me the remote, my finger hit something that made everything come to a screeching halt and neither of us could figure out how to make anything work. We were going crazy trying to get the damned thing operational, when all of a sudden I looked at her and said, "Don't you dare"! We both know that Julie calls her ex-husband whenever things don't work. We both broke down laughing, as she knew exactly what I was thinking, when I said, "Don't you dare"!

What you need when electronics fail are people under the age of 30. There is an unwritten law that when electronics don't work, call a kid! Her son was due there the following day and sure enough we had disconnected the cable by accident. Everything is back to normal, including Julie and I!

Jules informed me that she and her girlfriend are helping at the woman's shelter in Phoenix on Thanksgiving Day and she will be over at my house later in that day for our dinner. In the meantime, she will prepare the dead bird and the other things that go with it and start things cooking, having me be in charge of basting and otherwise burning things up. She will then return from her day of volunteering and finish things off here. Now, as I understand it, men are generally not welcome at the woman's shelter, so I suggested I dress in drag and infiltrate the enemy and help with the volunteer work. As creative as I get, there's always someone that shoots down an interesting idea like that. This time it was Julie, go figure!