lawnrrd | Weekend Details

My cold peaked Friday night, which I spent on the sofabed curled up with a box of tissues. That stage of a cold usually lasts about two days for me, so I'm glad that I got through it this time in about twelve hours.

Saturday morning started kind of slowly. Lauren busied herself with her plants—her various plantings have more or less come to dominate our whole block—while I listlessly tidied up around the house.

The guy came at about 10 to wash the windows, which were long overdue for some attention. I busied myself with taking all the air conditioners out of the windows and then putting all but the broken one back in. At some point, I took Leo out for lunch in our neighborhood, and that became much more pleasant about halfway through the meal, when, with the temperature in the mid-80s and climbing, the restaurant finally gave in and turned on the air conditioning.

We had a grownups-only Kentucky Derby party that began in mid-afternoon, so we had planned to drop off Leo in the Village with our old roommates, where he would spend the night. Leo expected to spend about the whole time playing games on their Playstation, however, so he kept insisting that we take him there as soon as possible. He was not interested in understanding that they wouldn't be ready to see him until about three in the afternoon. But he was eventually delivered to his keepers, and we were on our way to Gowanus for the party.

Before the race, the party moved a little slowly. The juleps were tasty, though, and, thanks to the generous sponsorship of Maker's Mark, they were free during the hour immediately before the race. There were also ladies in large hats and men in seersucker. I entertained myself with thoughts of what I might do for a grownups-only Kentucky Derby party, given the right opportunity.

As for the race itself, horses ran fast on a muddy track. One of them won, and the others did not.

After the race, the party changed to karaoke with a live rock band. I had been dubious, but then the first person to sing did an impressive job of kicking out the jams, motherfuckers, and I had a change of heart. I signed up to sing Green Day's song "Basket Case," but we were both tired, and we left before my turn came up.

After an abortive attempt at dinner we were home by about 8:30. Lauren was in bed by nine, and I had dinner delivered and spent a couple of hours trying to deal with some computer stuff.

I was clearly tired, too, though, because I slept until nearly 11 on Sunday morning. That kid ought to sleep out more often. Lauren and I drove to Lowe's, where I bought a new air conditioner to replace the broken one, and Lauren bought plants and stuff to plant them with. I dropped her off at home, then went to retrieve Leo.

Once I had him, we drove back home, picked up Lauren again, and then spent an hour or so at the Prospect Park zoo with

eleanor, whom I hadn't seen in, like, forever. We spent an hour or so wilting under the heat with the animals and catching up. The catching up was pleasant; the wilting less so.

After the zoo, we went home to unwilt and to do the things that you do on Sunday night to get read for school and work in the upcoming week. We ordered in Thai food for dinner.