Bill Roper's Journal

Today was Mother's Day and many things that Gretchen wanted were accomplished, although not all of them. We went out for an early lunch at Texas Roadhouse where she had a lovely piece of prime rib. After that, I picked up my prescription at Walgreens and failed to pick up Gretchen's for completely mysterious reasons. We'll try that again tomorrow. Coffee for Gretchen and K was obtained at McDonald's and brought back home.

Gretchen then took Julie over to Subway to grab a sandwich and for a drive around to check on our local goose population. The young geese are getting notably larger. Meanwhile, I went to Sam's Club to grab dinner supplies, dropped those off at home, and then on to Jewel to get more dinner supplies, including several things that you can't get at Mariano's.

The kids helped Gretchen get the kitchen under control. The recently acquired pot roast went into the oven and was later united with mashed potatoes, corn, and ciabatta rolls. I did three loads of laundry and sent a bunch of dead boxes into the recycling bin.

More cleaning had been on the agenda, but there are limits.

Meanwhile, we caught tonight's episode of "The Equalizer" in and around bits of the Cardinals vs. Red Sox game where the Cards ran away with it, winning 9-1 for their first series sweep of the season. The Cardinals are still *way* below .500 and way down in the division, but this is *much* more fun to watch than an eight-game losing streak.

Happy Mother's Day, Gretchen!

We grilled some bratwurst and made some sweet corn for dinner today; then watched fireworks on TV. It seemed appropriate for the day.

Meanwhile, for the first time in a *very* long time, I was not on deadline for some project that had to be completed by a fixed date. And this meant that I could embark on making a big mess.

A bit over two years ago, I fell off the wagon reading my comic books here at home. This was partly because I *also* fell off the wagon of sorting the series into order so they could actually be *read* in order, which is a pretty useful thing given the nature of modern comic book story telling. And if you can't figure out where you left off, you can't start again.

Today, Gretchen cleared off the dining room table, and I piled up all of the unread, unsorted comic books into similar groups. There were about eleven enormous piles on the table at one point.

There is one pile left to be fine sorted. But that is enough for today.

I think I will finish "Doomsday Clock" now.

Tomorrow starts our three-day weekend for the Independence Day holiday.

I *so* need this.

The one problem with holidays that are tied to a fixed date rather than being allowed to float -- take, for example, Independence Day -- is that it will eventually land on a Wednesday, neatly bisecting the week.

I appreciate the day off, but it's hard to get up much of a head of steam, especially when the weather outdoors is one big head of steam. Nevertheless, things were accomplished today.

Katie and I walked with the Des Plaines Girls Softball group in the town's Fourth of July parade.

Katie, Gretchen, and I cleaned the kitchen and isolated and disposed of the source of the godawful smell.

While cleaning the kitchen, we bundled up 16 grocery bags full of grocery bags and took them back to the store for recycling.

I grilled some nice steaks for dinner.

We watched the new episode of Steven Universe.

And now, we are going to bed. :)