I was supposed to grab lunch and meet my mom and grandma at the downtown Northbrook Starbuck's. Unfortunately, some asshole dump truck driver thought it would be funny to zip up and sideswipe Mom at a lane merge on IL-137. And then he flags down a buddy to tell the cop it was the other way around. Where's Gil Grissom to point out the mirror on the Blazer was broken forwards when you need him? The accident happened in some remote Lake County suburb where it took the lone cop 45 minutes to respond, so that killed coffee and her nail appointment. (But the cop was cool about it, he saw what was really going on but was bound by procedure. He let her keep her license, since she was flying Saturday.) Wound up eating lunch sitting in the car with Grandma, which is odd but Works.
It was booksale season at North, so I dropped by to take a look at the cafeteria renovations they did last year. The expanded C424 (I refuse to recognize the silly renumbering) is nice and airy. SA Hall hasn't changed, and for some reason the world clocks at the west end still haven't been fixed. On closer inspection, the championship sign in the gym for boys' basketball fails to recognize our '92 sectional title. Slackers. I poked my head in Royer's office--he's retiring from the activities AP gig after this year. Bloch's already shanghaied him as New Trier's frosh-soph golf coach. :-) I found out my classmate Robin Shepard (nee Wise) got picked to succeed Mr. Rosholt as the Social Studies department head. Half of our teachers are still there, now answering to a former student. The lunatics have returned to run the asylum. :-)
I was considering chasing down friends before the rehearsal dinner, but ran home instead since I still hadn't seen Mom since I got into town. (Everyone was asleep when I got in at 12:30, then left for work long before I got up.) Mom expects the economy to tank after the election if Shrub gets reelected, and I certainly can't argue. And we laughed at Alan Keyes.
I caught up with Kumar, Lavanya, and Smera on Sunday afternoon, then met Dad over at Ronnee and Matt's for Malnati's and HD Olympics coverage. (IMO, NBC is doing a really shitty job with its HD coverage. Instead of an HD feed of whatever the network's showing, it's Something Completely Different, badly edited, with the compression quality too low (water in the swimming events was pixelated) and a single Sony commercial repeated endlessly alternated with the same collage of Greek vistas.) I again wasn't able to catch Jason and Karen. It's not my fault they moved to southwest bumblefuck, which was an hour's drive when the family still lived in Northbrook. (It's now over 90 minutes.) Between the wedding, the short trip, and the need to see family and new nieces, that just can't fit.
Dad got stuck with a day off on Monday, so for once we had a chance to go do something. (Inevitably, my trips home leave me with downtime during the week, but busy on the weekends while he's home.) We went to Steak & Shake and caught The Manchurian Candidate Monday afternoon. It was good, but I'm kicking myself 'cause it took me 'till the end of the movie to spot Buzz Kilman. He was the guy in the sunglasses in the security cam footage. (Buzz is currently Steve Dahl's newsman-bluesman on WCKG, and a frequent cameo player in boyhood pal Jonathan Demme's movies. See also the Ruthless Sniper in Married To The Mob, amongst others.)
I got home late last night, then spent too much time trying to figure out why my mythtv box was fux0red. Spent the half-day I had left dealing with football prep issues. I thought better of my inclination to plug my iPod into the stadium PA while I cleaned and mopped the press box. The neighbors within half a mile, in their multimillion-dollar homes, probably didn't want to hear NoFX during the dinner hour. The NWA that follows probably would've sent them into conniptions. :-)
