Everybody's Working [on] the Weekend

Ah yes. That's right. A song-title post. And so fitting for so many reasons. It's an awesomely 80s song, which will segue nicely into my next post about my trip to see Julie. But it also says everything there is to say about my Memorial Day weekend at work. Everybody was working on that weekend. At least at the funeral home we were :). An though the song title says it all, I'll share the details and pictures :). Because you know me. I've always got to tell the stories!

Basically, Saturday started out normally for me. I got up and got to work. But with everyone being at work, that was strange. We had a pancake and egg breakfast cooked for us, which was nice. I'm not much of a breakfast person, but it's all good. I ate it and pretty much wasn't hungry for the rest of the day. Work was actually pretty exciting, since we weren't inside all day. Not that I mind my usual day-to-day work. I don't. I really enjoy what I do. But it was fun and different to be out in the park helping people a lot. We even had rented 6 golf carts (4 that seated 4 and 2 that seated 6) for the weekend. So, I got to drive a golf cart multiple times for the first time in my life. On a less glamorous note, I also crashed a golf cart for the first time in my life that weekend. The four of us in the golf cart at the time have discussed it and know exactly what happened. And everyone pretty much agrees it was a comedy of errors and not entirely my fault. It turns out that golf carts are pretty light vehicles, and having a lot of weight on the back can mess up the steering, because it pulls the front wheels off the ground a bit. And then, when the passenger has gotten out of the cart to help turn the cart left, since the steering isn't working well, and then that same passenger jumps back in while the cart is suddenly moving very quickly toward a (low) wall of rocks and that passenger sees the driver somehow get bounced out of the cart and that passenger slams his huge foot on the brake, only it hits the gas instead. Well yeah. Then the golf cart hits that (low) wall of rocks and everyone somehow ends up off the vehicle instead of in it. And nobody gets hurt -- not even the cart. But it's a comical story that the four of us now share. And I wish I could have been an outside observer on that one, because I am willing to bet it was very hilarious. In fact, one of the people says it was like a clown car. It hit the rocks, and everyone just "poof!" fell out. Hahahaha... Okay, so golf cart crashing is not funny. But, there you go. I learned a valuable lesson in golf-cart driving: stick to the cement when you have lots of weight aboard. Don't try to cut across grass and then get back onto the cement. It doesn't work really well when the cart is off-balance.


I do have to say we ate very well the entire weekend. We had our breakfasts (to include fresh blueberry pancakes), and we also had sloppy joes one day, burgers and hot dogs grilled one day, and prime rib for dinner on Memorial Day. And that was good. Only I had to make sure to get the cooked end pieces. I don't eat raw meat. Blech. See, the guy who was doing all the cooking for us is a friend of one of the employees here, and he is an executive chef in Seattle. So, we benefited a lot. Oh, and my mom and I made empanaditas to bring up here and they were consumed rather quickly. I learned that Memorial Day around here is largely about the food ;).

I will say that the park was beautiful. The Scouts came out and placed flags on the graves of all the veterans. We had several large flags up around the park. It was really neat to see the park like that. Literally hundreds of flags all across the park.


On Sunday night, we had a big service. There were probably about 150 who came. And I somehow got suckered in to reading a poem in front of all of those people. It wasn't too awful, since the attention of everyone was directed toward the Table of Remembrance rather than at me. But I was still nervous. See, I thought Mary was going to be emcee-ing the event. So when I was asked to read the poem, I figured it was no big deal. Turns out they were just joking about Mary. But I'd already committed to it. So I had to sit in front of everyone the entire time, and toward the end, Doug was in the crowd and made this huge motion around his head and mouthed the word "Melon." And I was trying so hard not to laugh out loud, but I couldn't keep myself from smiling. And my mom got it on camera. Classic.


So, we laughed and joked. We had a wonderful time. We helped people, who were very grateful for our help. It was neat. And the weather was beautiful. We couldn't have asked for a better weekend, weatherwise.


Oh, and p.s.... I also got to drive a Gator for the first time. I sure am racking up the firsts ;).