Sunday morning coffee

It's been a while since I woke up well before anyone else in the household on a weekend morning, for no particular reason. It's one thing when I'm up early because of work, and just focused on getting my go cup of coffee and getting out the door; it's another thing entirely, and far more pleasant, to be up early with nothing to do but enjoy the quiet. It's a gift to be given the job of filling the house with the first good smell of the day, coffee, and maybe an hour or so later the smell of pancakes or french toast, and then to let that be the way the people you love wake up.

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Two hopeful signs: I left work the other day well after five o'clock, and was halfway across the parking lot to my car when I realized something was different. It was still light outside! Then, this morning, looking out the back window, I saw a single red cardinal hopping along the phone line at the back of the yard. He was only there a few moments, but it was enough for me.

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The best treat, for me, was when I came home yesterday and saw this:

Donuts!

Well, power rings are always welcome at my table, but what made me happy was to see the table full of jewelry-making stuff, and my bride and our daughters all around the table working away. Turns out they spent the whole day like that, working and talking.

MizBubs is working on a necklace featuring a piece of fossilized ammonite and tiger eye beads:



Our eldest put together this necklace, using some pieces that she had:

Our youngest, who collects random antique keys and machine parts, did these:



Then she fashioned this primitive and funky-looking (but very comfortable) bracelet:



Finally she worked on a more involved necklace. The center piece was a locket that she bought from a gutter punk girl on Decatur Street last March. It consisted of a bottle cap containing a picture of a bug, sealed in some type of urethane, and fastened to a strip of lace. She added some items that have been given to her by friends and family, and made this:

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My attendance at a Superbowl Party today marks the end of a 5-day stretch during which I've gone out drinking and eating every single night. First came a training dinner Wednesday night sponsored by the local FBI National Academy alumni association. On Thursday the detective division had our annual in-service training day and spent the entire day shooting, grappling and watching training videos, followed by beer and pizza. There was another work-related cocktail session with MizBubs on Friday, and then a wonderful visit to the Grafton Pub last night.

My stomach hurts.

Along the way this week I attended the wake of an acquaintance who killed himself. It turned out it was held in the same funeral home where my friend who died that way was waked a couple of years ago. I didn't really make the connection until I pulled into the parking lot. Once I got inside I found out the wake was being held in the same chapel, and with the coffin set up in the exact same spot. Unnerving.

I just need to get through this last round of draft beer from plastic pitchers, baked mostaccioli and Italian beef, and then I'm done. The new diet and training regime starts tomorrow. Then it is onward and upward for 2009.

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"There was no point in looking back, fuck no, not today thank you kindly. My heart was filled with joy. I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger; a man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident."

--Hunter S. Thompson