Thursday was Veteran’s Day. I had to work. My wife did not. Vet’s Day is one of those selective national holidays, optional to most corporations and mandatory to federal establishments. So it goes. For me, it is no trouble to remember the veterans in my family. My grandfather was in France in The Great War. His stories of World War I were spare and lacked detail. He prefered to remember things closer to home. Uncle Buster was in the Army Air Corps. Uncle Charley spent quality time on a submarine. Uncle Perry served as well and liked a government-issued uniform so much that he signed up with the Postal Service when he got out. Sometimes I think that their service was just enough to satisfy Fate, because The Draft missed my dad, so he didn’t have to miss any of my childhood or my older brother’s.
We turned Friday into a vacation day for both of us. It felt good to stay in, even just for a few hours.
The rest of the weekend was spent in the upper hinterlands, near the far end of Georgia 400. It was easy enough to tempt us. After all, we had some laundry to do and Nikki’s mom has these veritable Cadillacs of washer/dryer technology. Furthermore, Longhorn gift certificates were offered to seal the deal. How can you say no to steak? Our house-sitting responsibilities were few, mainly dealing with the twice-daily feeding of a remarkably cooperative horse and serving as a lap-on-demand for a very densely proportioned cat. The only exciteful came in the form of a feral unfamiliar feline who challenged the weighty and regal Dorian to a howling match. A couple of widely-chucked hunks of firewood later, Dorian was safely back in the house and Unwelcome Cat was off into the woods. The firewood missed him by yards.
I could’ve hit the “bad cat.” Sure. I was just merciful.
Interestly enough, we did make one sanity-saving trip to the outlet malls. We didn’t need anything and our recent acquisition of several Target gift cards has almost out-stripped our shopping capacity, but the sun was actually out and one can take only so much satellite television. Boots were purchased. A shirt as well. The human cacaphony of foreign tongues made me comment on the surprising international draw of this sub-suburban outlet destination. But most surprising was the find I made at the Borders Book Outlet. The books, well, they looked like standard remaindered fare. But they have a few bins of what look like bargain CDs at first glance, but they’re not. Some of them are actually decent and a little digging revealed a couple of gems for almost nothing. The best of the bunch was the copy of UNKLE’s Psyence Fiction CD from 1998. Back then, I bought it brand new and loved it, but the disc disappeared about four years ago. Who knew it would resurface at a Dawsonville outlet mall? I had to reclaim it.
And today, we’re all back to work.
