Oh my God, I haven’t blogged yet!  Why you might ask, as if this emergency post’s title doesn’t tell all?  Well, the answer is that I spent Friday night out at the barroom, instead of at home, busily writing.  Captain Don and DJ arranged a happy hour on Friday night and Anne and I attended.  Don has joined the Groupon / Hot Sauce craze, so he had money to burn / save, depending on how you want to look at it.  A group of us convened at the 6 Row Brewing Company, on Forest Park Parkway, just west of Grand.  The brewery’s name, 6 Row, has to do with the number of barley kernels on a stalk.  It sounds arcane to me, but the beer was good.  Also in attendance were Chris & Sandi, Mark & Merri, Ron, Susan, Steve, and Stew & Nancy, all Team Kaldi’s members.  After a couple of beers, most of us decamped to Pizza-A-Go-Go, on Ivanhoe, just south of Arsenal.  We had hot and tasty, Italian style pizza, neatly packaged in a small neighborhood pizzeria.

Years ago, way back in time, like BC (before children), we would regularly attend Friday night happy hours.  Sometimes these rendezvous used euphemisms, like the technical staff meeting, but generally they were much less organized.  After a while these happy hours became the capstone of our work weeks.  A couple of enduring friendships came out these watering-hole rituals, Bob & Nink and Dave & Jill, but along came the boys and away went our happy hours.  We’re empty nesters now, but also older and wiser too.  I don’t see us making a habit of happy hours, like we use to, but one in a while is fun, especially on a cold winter’s night.

I only had a four-day work week, so it should have been an easier than normal week at work, but it still seemed like a longer than normal work week.  Coming back to work after a week off always feels like this.  Anne also had an abbreviated work schedule this week.  Even so, it took all of her natural fortitude to drag herself to school on Friday.  I could tell that by the end of the week that she was tired, because she made a verbal slip when I asked her how school was.  She has been an elementary school counselor this week, but since eight to twelve-year olds don’t require much actual counseling, her main function has been one of disciplinarian.  Her slip came when I asked her how her day had gone.  She responded, “Fine, I only had one detainee today.”  “Detainee”, I asked?  She quickly corrected herself, “I mean buddy in the buddy room.”  I’m still wondering which nomenclature is worse, “detainee” or “buddy”.

Anne took the picture with this post.  It is an iPhone picture and as such it is upside down.  It shows a duck swimming in the Park.  The clouds and the trees are reflections in the water.  Even the floating water plants look like reflected trees.  Sometimes things look different from another point of view.