My three-day weekend

I always get excited when I have a three-day weekend coming up. It always seems like a good idea to cram stuff into it, to get things done. But I forget that the reason I have that extra day is usually because there is already something in my schedule.

In this case, I had a bridal shower to attend, so I took a vacation day on Saturday. While I had nothing to do with planning the event, cooking, cleaning or really helping out with anything, the party wiped me out completely. It was a four-hour affair that started with a thunderstorm and ended in a mountain of ribbons and wrapping paper.

I tried to stay out of the way, but also be helpful. They finally put me in charge of writing down who gave what on the back of each card accompanied with a gift. There were piles of presents, and a ton of people I barely knew. There was lots of smiling and "nice to meet yous." Half an hour's drive each way from my house. You get the idea.

Albie wanted me to stop by his parents' house on my way home to say hi. He was so insistent on it that for a little while I though this might be where he would propose, so then I worked myself up over that. But it wasn't. I finally passed out - before 2 a.m., which is really early in my life.

Plans for Sunday changed from relaxing and watching TV to driving to my friend Beth's house in New York to help with serious damage control after a flood. Remember the friend I helped with organizing?

Well, good thing I did. Most of her stuff was now in plastic storage bins and could easily be moved outside to dry up while we mopped floors and toweled off some furniture. Oh, did I forget to mention that she wasn't even home? She and her husband were in Vegas for a conference, and three rooms of their apartment flooded. Luckily, her daughter was home and was able to throw towels down while the water kept coming in. The damage was contained. It still took 6 hours to clean, though. And when I left, Jamie had plenty of things left to worry about...

Seven hours on Monday were spent working at my second job - what I usually do on Mondays. But because this week will be extremely stressful at the paper, I decided to stop by the office and get some work out of the way. A few hours turned into five hours when we suddenly found out about a meeting and a vote we didn't know was going to happen. Suddenly, the reporter in me just couldn't go home. After making a few phone calls, I wrote two stories. (second here)

And then I was just on my way out the door, and we got a press release from some umpire association. The retired umpire and registered sex offender who got an award last week was going to have to give it back, the association decided. The original story made national news.

I stayed a few minutes longer to throw it up on the Web. I even got to use our new "breaking news" e-mail feature for the first time...

So... weekend? What weekend? It's back to work!