For all of you who yearn for the good old days of the former Soviet Union, happy May Day!

I was about to leave my greeting at that, but I feared that in doing so I may be showing off the vastness of my ignorance. So, not wishing to appear quite as dumb as I really am, I went off in search of knowledge. First, I tried doing a search on the internet. This led to the discovery of a number of sites devoted to the holiday. Almost immediately my fears were realized, I am just as ignorant as I thought. While the old Soviet Union was notable for celebrating May Day as a kind of socialist Labor Day, May Day predates Labor Day as a worker’s holiday, and originally had little to do with organized labor. May Day originally was (and remains) a celebration of the blooming visible signs of spring. In the United States and Europe, it appears May Day was the original “Labor Day”, but with a more activist flavor. Several web sites claim that May Day had it’s activist origins in the struggle for more reasonable work hours and conditions in the late 19th century. Fearing that anonymous web sites may not be the most reliable research tool, I checked the Microsoft Encyclopedia (Encarta) web site. Sure enough, the article on May Day verified most of the claims by the other sites. So, it appears that you can observe May Day without being a “commie” after all.

Wednesday was notable for a conversation I had with a recently departed, former coworker. I’ve had many similar conversations with this person, and this may have been the last. Although, I hold out hope that it will not. The coworker in question filled an indispensable niche in our office, one that will be sorely missed. She was office confidant, gossip; and, for me – affirmant of worth. Her kind words always made me feel better about myself, even when I felt that I was not worthy. Anyway, Wednesday came and went, and it meant that there was one less day that she would be around.

What can I say about the weekend? It was a weekend, which is inherently good. I didn’t mow the lawn, also good (unless you are my wife). After a prolonged stay in the Apple store (Beth was having a wonderful time with the iMacs on display), we bought Beth a new game for her iMac at home, as a reward for filling another “treat sheet.” Then, after a nice long Saturday of doing nothing in particular, we enjoyed a “first birthday” party with some friends on Sunday. My wife and I both worried that it would be a typical April afternoon, relentlessly sunny and hot. We were pleasantly surprised that the afternoon was positively lovely. Cool breezes and lots of shade ruled the day.

This week was notable in that another milestone came and went. This was not a milestone like a 16th, 18th, or 21st birthday. No one asked me if I wanted anything to go with my milestone. I just felt…well…, I didn’t feel much of anything really. I was shaving one morning, looking intently at my refection in the mirror, and there it was, a gray hair. Some people react poorly to this phenomenon. They might look in the mirror and mutter some explicative. Me, I laughed. It’s not exactly cause for celebration; but then, it’s not cause to take some medication that you might see advertised on T.V. either (…if you suffer from clinical depression or severe anxiety disorder, ask your doctor if Lipiflex is right for you! – may cause dizziness, headache, bleeding gums, loss of appetite, hair loss, or severe intestinal cramping). It was just one more thing to prove to myself that I really am growing up.

We finish our tour of the last week with another day in court. Most notable was the return of the “greedy woman defense” in family court. It’s remarkable to me that anyone believes that this will be a successful defense to a petition for child support, particularly in the kinds of cases that we see, cases where the petitioner clearly does not have sufficient means to support herself (or himself) and a child comfortably. And yet, I’m somewhat surprised that it has been so long since our old friend has paid us a visit. It was about as regular as they get before disappearing for a while.

Ah well, Beth said that she wanted to play football tonight, so I guess that’s it for now.

This is my attempt to put creativity on a schedule. Odd you say, to force yourself to do something that you should enjoy? True, I enjoy my feeble attempts to create, but I find that I rarely have the time to do it. My thinking is that maybe if I make time for it then I will do it. O.K., maybe I’m not explaining myself well, but at this point I don’t care. No one is likely to read this anyway so what difference does it make if some nonexistent reader understands my rationale. I’m writing it. I’m the only one reading it. It works for me. Everyone else can just go on with their normal lives and continue not reading this.

I figure I’ll try to update the site with a new installment every Wednesday, reporting on the events that occurred the previous Wednesday through Tuesday. I figure this will work the best for a writing week. Most things happen in my life on the weekend. Since things are happening I have less time to write about them. However, I do work full time, Monday through Friday. Putting this thing off until Wednesday gives me some time to get it all in. Why not put it off even longer, say Thursday or Friday? Well, I’m glad you were not around to ask.

Wednesday of last week was an unusual opportunity to go to court in Clearwater. Let’s see, Clearwater court = get out early, last Thursday and Friday = days off, two days off = eureka! Thursday and Friday I did as little as possible, mostly hanging out with my sister and her husband who were in town for Lisa’s wedding. I’ve learned the value in doing nothing in particular with your free time. After all, if you make a lot of plans then your time is no longer free.

The wedding was great. It began with the preparations at my parents house. Lisa doing her thing and the rest of us mostly hanging out. The photographer took some posed pictures of the preparation and we were out the door, not to return until much later that day. Beth was supposed to be the flower girl, but her duties went largely unfulfilled. First, she was hesitant to walk down the isle solo, so I agreed to accompany her. Then, about half way down the isle she announces in a louder than conversational tone, “daddy, I don’t want to carry this any more.” She was talking about her basket of flowers which she was trying to hand to me. Feeling that this was not the place to argue, I took the basket and we continued to walk. Does a girl walking down the isle with her daddy sans flowers still count as a flower girl? In any case, Beth was a hit, and made the wedding memorable for me if no one else. The reception at Innisbrook was a refreshing change of pace from the other wedding receptions I’ve experienced. The most notable welcome change? No dancing. No Chicken dance. No conga line. If you wanted to fall asleep in your chair no one was going to stop you. Cheryl did not enjoy the reception quite as much as I did, largely because she felt Beth was being difficult. I didn’t notice so much, but then I was off taking pictures more often. Oh well.

Perhaps the best part of all was the trip to Epcot on Sunday. Me, Cheryl, Beth, my parents, Christy and Mike met Mike’s family in Orlando for an Epcot encounter. The trip was one of the best I’ve had to the park. Outwardly, I’m sure I projected not nearly so glowing a reception of the park. I had this persistent monster of a headache that I just couldn’t shake for much of the day, so I’m sure I didn’t look enthused. However, I still left the park with an overall feeling of joy. Any trip that can overcome that kind of pain must have been pretty good. Further, I think it was just about the most fun that I’ve had with Beth at an amusement park. It was the first time that we all could do the same things together. There was no waiving and waiting while Beth went on another kiddie ride. There were no fits of impatience while Beth waited for a grown up to get off a “big person’s ride.”

Tuesday was notable in that it was an interesting day in court. Most of the folks in court had been wading in the shallow end of the gene pool. As my coworker noted, the missing link has been found! It was just one of those forehead smacking kind of days.

Anyway, that’s about it. I know that this isn’t much. It’s probably boring as sin (assuming that anyone actually suffered through this), but I hope I’ll get better with practice. Why I would think this is anyone’s guess. It certainly isn’t based on real world experience.