This is what it's all about

In the play, "Our Town" by Thorton Wilder, the main female character gets a chance to come back from the after life and visit any day in her past life she wants. She doesn't want to pick a special day, just a normal day. When she comes back to her normal day, she's awe-struck. Every thing is so vivid and beautiful that she is almost overwhelmed. But she is dismayed when she looks around and sees the people in that day, her family, aren't even noticing it. They are just going through it and not breathing deep the wonder of the gift of this simple day. When we did this show in college, it made an impression on me that I vowed to always remember, and never forget to look around and take special note of those "Our Town" moments. Today was one of those days.

In the morning, I slept in till the sun got too bright in the room and woke me up. Had a good cuddle good morning with the wife, and as much as I love them, it was a wonderful cuddle because it went on without an avalanche of kids jumping all over us. The vortex of Saturday morning cartoons held them fast in the living room.

I had to leave shortly after, though, because this weekend is my marathon writing session so I can get a script together for the play we'll be doing in about 6 weeks. I left at about 10:30 in a cool, perfect spring morning right out of the song "Pleasant Valley Sunday" by the Monkees. I went to our wonderful coffee shop in town, the only one, in a old brick building with wood floors and a used book library at the back. I tucked myself in back with the books, put on my headphones and had a relaxing, peaceful day of writing. The writing was slow but steady and I feel like the progress I made was worthwhile.

When they closed at 4:30 I came home. The kids we off with my mother-in-law watching the new animated movie "Madagascar". So the wife and I made dinner together without any chaos, while the Bear slept. We prepared an unrushed salad and cooked porkchops on the grill. As we were beginning to eat, the wife heard bear and brought him out. He sat down to dinner with us outside on the patio, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The temperature was so perfect that you didn't even notice it, and there was no breeze. None was needed. The sun was low enough that we were in a nice light shade from the house, and breathing the air was like a wonderful side dish to our simple dinner.

After we finished and casually picked up the dishes and loaded the dishwasher, we strapped Bear into his stroller and had time for a relaxing walk around the neighborhood before the kids got home.

When the kids arrived back there were hugs and rapid fire descriptions of the movie, every one so excited that no one could finish a sentence before the other person picked it up and finished it for them. And strangely, they did this like it was scripted, no one getting mad for being cut off. Then the Lemur went to a friend's house, the wife took Kitten shopping, and Robo and I set down to the Playstation to hash out some Tetris (an old school game that I have a chance of holding my own at).

It wasn't too long into our game play (and I must admit that I was schooling him, even after spotting him 10 points), that there was a knock at the door. Robo jumped up to get it and I heard him talking to his friends. I started making adjustments to the game to set it to one player, because I was sure that he would be out the door, spending his last hour of daylight. But then he came back in and sat down.

"Who was at the door?" I asked.

"My friends."

"What did they want?"

"They asked if I could play. I told them I was spending time with my dad."

Dude.

Yep. This is a day I'd come back to in a second.