Sunday’s Ten And A Half Hour Shift

Sunday started out like any other day.

No, that’s a lie.

Laura and I knew going into Saturday night that Sunday was going to be a long slog.

And it was.

Waking up Sunday morning at 6, the plan was to load the van with all the stuff being stored at my house, take a shower and be over to conduct business at 7.

It took much longer than expected to get everything together and loaded. I wound up not having time for a shower and arrived at 7:30.

Starting late. But that’s alright, because what I was doing was participating in holding a pancake breakfast to benefit the Boy Scout troop and Cub Scout pack. I wasn’t there as a scout leader or parent, but in my role with the Knights of Columbus, who were putting on the fundraiser.

I worked non-stop from 7:30 on through the morning and was so busy I didn’t have time to take any pictures. We raised a good chunk of money for the BOy and Cub Scouts and even had a bit of fun in the process.

Unfortunately I had to leave early during the clean-up process.

The kids had a cross country match that afternoon which started at 1. Laura was handling the business of getting all the kids where they needed to go. One was at a sleepover, one was at the pancake breakfast helping, another had a friend sleeping over, etc. She showed up at the pancake breakfast, picked people up from wherever they were, and got the kids to the cross country meet on time.

She had to leave well before any of the kids ran to get home and put Tevye and Grace down for nap. That meant I had to get there.

While I felt bad for leaving early, the clean-up operation was going well enough that it would get covered. I instructed those remaining behind to finish cleaning to simply leave everything that did not belong in the kitchen (all of the Knights of Columbus equipment for example) to leave everything stacked inside by the door and I would be by after cross country to pick it up.

I raced (ha) to the cross country meet, saw a miraculous parking spot on the street and took advantage of it rather than spend 20 minutes trying to find something closer.

And I’m glad I did that because I was literally just in time to watch Xavier finish his race.

Then I was there with the kids as each of them ran, keeping them corralled, refereeing their disagreements, and generally trying to be supportive of four very different people as they competed.

Dropping them home I went to the store to pick up a couple of things, most notably whole milk for Grace. Then I went back to pick up all of the items that were left from the pancake breakfast. Loading that all in the van, bringing it home and unloading it, that was the end. It was 4:30 in the afternoon.

My legs and feet were sore. Oh, and how grateful I was when Laura suggested going out for dinner. The Mexican food was good, but it was the margarita that I enjoyed the most.