How I Spent My Weekend

Now that my weekend has passed, I can finally comment on it. I had a great time visiting my sister and her husband, even though it was exhausting.

They both live in northern Wisconsin, and it's a six-hour drive from where we live. We left with my mother on Saturday morning. Before we left, she wanted to fill one of her tires up with air. We looked around for a gas station with a free air machine, and eventually found one. We start filling it up, but it doesn't look like it's working. We try again, and the tire appears to be deflating. The attendant comes out and gives it a try, holding it for even longer. Now, the tire is flat.

I've never changed a tire before. I've seen it done, but no one's ever taught me. The very nice lady who was helping us showed me some tips and tricks and I set to work putting on the spare, and we ran across the street to a car dealership that had a working air compressor, and they refilled the tire. As it turns out, the air machine at the gas station was broken and deflated our tire. There was nothing wrong with our tire at all.

I had to put the tire back on the car now. Have you ever seen those flimsy little jacks they give you for a car? We were on a slight incline, and the jack was bending. We ended up borrowing their pneumatic jack and propping up the car, whereupon I put the new tire on and we drove on it for 6 hours. All in all, that set us back about two hours from our original start time.

We FINALLY get to her house. We had brought along Caramelo, the Official Dog of Downwards Compatible, and he had a great time playing with the Official Dog of Downwards Compatible's Older Sister, who was named Finnegan. Now, Finnegan, or Fin for short, is about the same age as Caramelo. Fin is also about five times larger and liked to chase Caramelo. I couldn't tell if Caramelo was having fun or was scared for his life. I'd like to think he was enjoying himself, because otherwise our laughter would have been cruel. He was chasing Fin himself, so I think he was enjoying himself.

After that, we went for a walk in the woods, and we were plum tired out after that. My sister's husband played some Raphael Saadiq (whom I had never heard of and was pleasantly surprised). The dog was tired, we were tired, everyone was tired. We watched a movie and went to bed.

However, Caramelo had different plans.

He was in a strange place, with strange noises and strange people and animals around. He decided that this would be the best time to go into Hyper Alert Dog Mode, where every possible noise would roust him into a fit of barking. He woke us up three times between 10:30 and 12:30.

The last time he woke us up, I decided to lock him in the downstairs bathroom, because that's where he usually goes at night in our house. That didn't work for him. He kept right on whining and yapping, so I had the let him out.

After that, we were repeatedly accosted by Finnegan and their cat Phyllis. Phyllis is an adorable, sweet cat, but my wife is allergic. She would come over by us and start purring and want attention. If you ignore her, she gets more insistent, eventually trying to sit on my wife's head. I had to get up around 3am and see what it was she wanted. It turned out she wanted to get into a room nearby, so I opened the door and she was in.

After that, Fin kept waking me up my walking over to me and looking me straight in the face with his sad puppy dog eyes. At one point, he laid on me, leaned over onto my wife and wedged himself in between us.

We got up for good around 7am, when my sister woke up. Both the dogs were so excited about it that they decided to run upstairs to notify us immediately. I slogged my way downstairs and had a headache for the rest of the day. I was so out that I could derive no joy from them dancing to Noah and the Whale. On the drive home I slept for a solid two hours, and my dog was out for the whole trip home.

We had a great time, don't get me wrong. It was a lot of fun, but I'm still groggy. I could sleep another 10 hours and it still wouldn't be enough.