Mixed Bag of a Weekend

My wife had to go to a one-day conference on Saturday at a small city about 2-1/2 hours from home. I had planned to accompany her so that, while she attended her conference, I could hike at a place I've always wanted to visit but couldn't justify driving 2-1/2 hours to explore. I mean, what if it were a bust and I'd spent all that time in the car? In any case, when we woke up at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday morning it was raining and the whole thing was settled; my wife drove to her conference alone.

I spent the day at home and got a lot done. My wife does no housework (my picture is in the dictionary next to the work "henpecked"), so this gave me a great chance to get a lot done around the house. After breakfast, coffee, and reading the paper, I balanced the checkbook. Then I finished all my taxes (federal, state, and local). Next, I vacuumed all the rugs. After the vacuuming, I needed a break and I went for a "power" walk (by then, the rain had stopped) with my iPod blasting dance music in my ears. When I got back, I dustmopped the whole house. By then, it was about 4 p.m. I watched one scene from a porno (Raging Stallion Studio's Sexpack 5--completely platonic on my part). Then, I decided that some of the shrubs around the house needed to be trimmed, and I took care of that task. As I was returning from the compost pile, my wife pulled into the driveway.

We had planned to go to dinner when she returned from her conference, so about 7 p.m. we drove to one of our favorite local restaurants--a bistro with Greek and Mediterranean inspired food. The food was good, but the place was crowded so they seated us near the bar, and "March Madness" overwhelmed the meal.

After we ate, we went home and watched an episode of The Mentalist that I had recorded. We decided to go to bed at 9 p.m. because we were both exhausted from the day.

Sunday morning, we went to the super-early (10:25 a.m.), super-cheap ($6 per person) matinee show of Duplicity with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen (pictured above). We left the movie feeling generally unsatisfied. It's overly complicated and offers very little suspense. My wife attributed the general dissatisfaction to the fact that everyone in the movie is a scoundrel, so the audience never really roots for anyone. Clive Owen has a nice hairy chest, which he displays generously during a protracted post-coital exchange with Julia Roberts, but I just couldn't muster much interest in him, in her, or in the film in general.

When we returned home, the weather had warmed up to near 70 degrees, so we walked for an hour in a nearby park. Then, around 7 p.m., the sky turned black and we had a brief but intense thunderstorm to end the day.