Weekend Update

Our weekend passed by in a dizzy blur of new cars, menus, friends’ faces and NCAA game upsets. Yes, we were busy and didn’t have much of a chance to relax. But that’s okay because we enjoyed ourselves. And that’s rather the point of the weekend, isn’t it? Okay, so it’s also an opportunity to catch up on things like laundry and housework, but we don’t need to discuss our failings and shortcomings, do we?

A generous friend gave Vince complimentary tickets to the Columbus Auto Show so we went Friday night after work. We wandered around looking at both new cars and classic cars on display. We picked up some brochures and even sat in a few of the new cars to see how well they “fit” and to catch a whiff of that new car smell. Some of them fit really well and had a whole lot of cool new bells and whistles, but I’m not sure why I bothered sitting in any of them as I just paid off my Mazda 6 and have no intention of getting into another car payment anytime soon.

Perhaps it was an opportunity for me to realize that the purpose of my vehicle is to get me from Point A to Point B and not to serve as a trash receptacle. I looked at the interior of my car this morning and hung my head in shame. I have magazines and catalogues and books for those reading emergencies that are sure to crop up while I’m waiting at a red light. I also have miscellaneous jackets, mismatched shoes and a couple errant gym socks for those clothing occasions when I might want to dress like a wrinkled bag lady with two left shoes. And there are enough long blonde hairs that have fallen out of my head and onto the carpeting that will surely clog any commercial vacuum cleaner the next time I try to suck it all up in an attempt to make my vehicle a little more presentable.

Why did I bother purchasing a nice car if I’m going to treat it like a big junk drawer on wheels? Now that Spring has officially arrived, I’ll have to add “major auto cleaning and renovation” to my list of Spring Cleaning chores. Yeah, I’ll get right on that – right after I check off “Rent Dumpster” from the list and hit the store for bottles of every imaginable cleaner and disinfectant. I might even spring for that “new car smell” scent that you spray in the car to fool any passengers into believing the vehicle isn’t really old and hopelessly out of date. (“Ahh, LOVE that new car smell! But…wait a minute. Where’s the GPS system and keyless starter? Hey! This isn’t a new car!”)

Fortunately, I didn’t spend too much time this weekend dwelling on the growing list of chores I must tackle in the not-too-distant future. Instead, we met a lot of different friends out for a lot of different meals. It was a great opportunity to see people we hadn’t seen in a while and catch up on each other’s lives. It also meant we spent very little time in the kitchen either preparing food or cleaning up afterwards, which was a nice bonus. I do not, however, wish to think about the budget-busting aspect of all those restaurant tabs. We’ll just chalk it up to an unusual number of social opportunities and plan on raiding our own cupboards this week to get back on track with our budget.

While we were at dinner Saturday night we heard a great roar from the crowd at the bar and thought there was either another natural disaster occurring somewhere in the world or the Health Care Reform Bill passed – or failed (depending on your viewpoint). It was neither – #1 ranked Kansas simply lost to 9th-ranked N. Iowa in an upset of seemingly biblical proportions. As Kansas was my pick to go all the way in the NCAA March Madness, I could have let that loss ruin my weekend. But, as I hadn’t guessed too well up to that point anyway, it was just one more drop in the rankings for me. Currently, Grady the Cat is sixteen spots higher than me on the list. Geez, since I’m losing pretty spectacularly to a cat, I suspect my bracket is headed for the trash. Let’s just hope I can refrain from tossing it in the backseat of my car.

Excuse me, but I’ve got to go. I’m feeling the need to look up the number for Rent-A-Dumpster…