75 degrees and sidewalk chalk art is still up around town, including the big Monopoly board Holly and Carter painted, the GO space at our home’s intersection.
I walked along this board at the end of my run, and an unknown silver cat waited at my back door, but it ran away. Now home, birds are loud outside the kitchen windows.
I was able to see my dad over the weekend. I drove down Saturday afternoon and stopped once for gas and a Cherry Coke. I also bought a King Size White Chocolate Hershey Bar with Almonds to be different.
Then, the day still beautiful, I stopped at a grocery store a half hour later and bought a 12 pack of Cherry-Vanilla Zero for my dad’s fridge and a large bag of Doritos. And then finally, even more miles later, I cruised through a drive thru and bought ice water and a snack.
When I arrived, I helped my dad move furniture. (Two filing cabinets and a work bench out of the garage.) Then we lounged in his living room and talked.
Later, I took him to Cheesecake Factory for dinner, and we brought it home to eat, watching the first episode of Watchmen. (I had pasta and the Oreo Dream Cheesecake.)
The next morning (Father’s Day Proper) we went to my brother’s house for lunch, and my other brother drove in from Buffalo.
We also had a church meeting at home before we left for my brother’s.
And after the first episode of Watchmen last night (which I recommended, having already watched the whole series when it aired) my dad and I went on a three mile hike. (We rambled through the early 1980s ‘burbs of his new home and along back country roads.)
But all of these things on both days were simply accessories to the best part of the weekend, which by chance also happened to be Saturday night, which I suppose is Father’s Day Eve.
See, after our hike, dad lit the torches around his patio, and we sat in the backyard waiting for twilight. I brought out the bag of Doritos and the now-cold Cherry-Vanilla Cokes, and we talked shop and kept it real.
But the very best part was when my brother Matt wandered into the backyard unannounced (his lives only a few miles away) and brought Jones Soda for me and dad and craft stuff for him.
The three of us were then able to Talk Long (well into the summer solstice night hours) discussing our families, the plague, family vacations we took together long ago, a fence my brother wants to build, new car purchases, the ups and downs of raising a Golden Retriever puppy named Simon, etc. etc. etc.
But then the very-truly-best-part, tagged at the end of all of this, when it was dark and just before calling it a night, the three of us took the time to notice Stars.
And way up there among them, we began noticing satellites, too, bold ones zip-gliding first, but then tiny ones, a parade of them in a line even, like clockwork coming out of the Big Dipper, faint and evenly spaced every ten seconds, like beads on a string.
And the three of us said nothing for minutes, gathered the Coke cans, and went to bed.