Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

Last weekend we drove south to attend my cousin Rebecca’s wedding, get some hang-time in with my Mum and Gil and David, and then spend Saturday night and Sunday with Josh and Jess and Toby and Jake. (Any day which begins with a two-year-old seeing you, calling your name, and running towards you with his arms outstretched… well, that’s a good day, in my book. Toby’s still calling me “Alum,” which I find terrifically endearing, and Jake’s as chill as ever. We had a total ball.)

So that was about 120 miles on Saturday, and about 100 miles back home on Sunday night. Monday I worked. Tuesday morning I drove down to Boston for work (120 miles to the office) listening to Bee Season as I drove. Met David at Shawarma King around 8:30 and spent the rest of the evening hanging out at Glen’s house.

Wednesday morning Glen, David, and I had diner breakfast at the Rosebud (decent diner food, I thought, though screwing up scrambled eggs with spinach is hard). Then I was off to work, then back into Somerville to pick up Kate and David at the Someday Cafe before heading 60-ish miles north to Exeter, New Hampshire, where my two sole surviving grandparents live. (Long divorced, separate paths led them there, story for another time.) David radiated stress when I picked him up, and he got even more stressed on the ride up as he made a series of very cagey-sounding phone calls to and from his girlfriend, his boss, and who knows who else. Attempts to draw him out fizzled pretty quickly, which gave the throbbing headache I’d left work with a chance to subside.

Up in Exeter, my mom cooked an awesome dinner of pan-done salmon with passionfruit-hollandaise, shelled edamame, and rice pilaf, and we tucked in, showing my grandaddy our pictures from New Zealand for a bit before he kindly but bluntly kicked us all out. Said our good-byes, packed a still-stressed David into the car, and drove the 68 miles down to Luke and Lindy’s place, rendesvousing with David’s girlfriend on the way to hand off David and let them start driving back to the midwest.

That was Wednesday. Thursday I followed Luke in on his morning commute to the office (45-50 minutes during rush hour), drove our auditors to our production cage, then back to the office. After work, drove back into Cambridge for a much-needed rehearsal with the band . As usual, the first rehearsal after a hiatus produced some good riffs and fun variations on some established songs, including a little rap after we played “Careful.” Jeff broke his high E-string twice in two hours.

After rehearsal, I drove out to Luke and Lindy’s (36 miles) to pick up Kate and drive home, but the clock was ringing ten as I pulled in. We decided to call it a night and drive home early this morning during daylight hours, which we ended up doing. (141 miles.)

It feels great to be home. Tomorrow night, though, we’re going back down to Boston to crash with Glen before we attend a knife-skills class at the Cambridge Center for Culinary Arts (sadly without Jessica; phooey). And then Sunday we’ll drive home again. And then I’m putting off going back until the third week in February. As much as I like my car and like driving (and thankfully the new battery I put in my iPod is working great), this week has contained too much of it.