Saturday evening in Madison. I’m kind of losing track of time; I had to look up the day to make sure I knew what day it was. One day sick, two on holiday, and now the weekend. I tend to start losing track of what day it is on whatever day three away from work may be, so at least I’m consistent.

I’m still kind of sick. Whatever I had on Wednesday has slowly transformed itself to a slow, hacking cough. Argh.

Thanksgiving in Two Rivers was good. We’d planned on driving across Wisconsin Wednesday evening, but between me being sick, the weather and last-minute funeral preparations, we didn’t do the drive until Thanksgiving proper. We were out of the metro early enough that we weren’t able to listen to Turkey Confidential–unfortunate, as it was becoming a tradition of sorts–but instead got in some audiobook listening in and caught the first half of the Packer game.

My parents’ first reaction to Mathias was surprise at how much he’d grown, followed by about 24 hours of continuous fawning. At one point Mathias spent probably 45 minutes suspended on a comforter between my dad’s legs, apparently loving it. Less than a day later Mathias was in a shopping cart at Wal-Mart pushed by a very proud grandfather, a grandfather already completely intent on spoiling his grandson.

In other words, the visit with my parents went well.

Mainly due to me being a) sick, and b) horrible at communication in general, we were barely able to link up with Ben and Beth while in Two Rivers. We did get to hang out for a few hours, though, sitting in our hotel room along the lake, talking in hushed inside voices as to not disturb the sleeping baby nearby.

After departing Wal-Mart on Friday, Lisa, Mathias and I headed down to Madison on what from that point forward would basically be a funeral trip with detours. Most of the drive was on US-151, a highway I once frequented back what seems to be a lifetime ago. It was probably the first time in over a decade I’d driven it, and with the bypasses and so-called improvements that had taken shape over the intervening years, it bore little resemblance to the drive I remembered.

Madison had a dusting of snow when we arrived, albeit a more modest one than we’d seen along the lake. Much of today was spent out and about as the mom and grandmom took care of errands for the coming days. The funeral will be an extremely proper Polish Catholic two-day affair, which apparently caused some clothing concerns for Lisa and Ann. (The extent of my preparations consisted of making sure my ties weren’t wrinkled and polishing my shoes.) Anyway, we head down to Indiana tomorrow.

We got to see Robin and Andy for a few hours this evening, which we used to have dinner at Dotty Dumpling’s Dowry before catching No Country For Old Men at the new Sundance Cinema here in Madison. Dinner was good, and the movie was great. As usual, Robin and Andy seem to have about five million things going on–I always feel lazy after talking to them–but overall are doing well.

Well, we have to be on the road to Valpo in a nine hours, so I’m going to hit it. More later.

It turns out I was to make two trips to Eau Claire this weekend. One was to photograph the wedding reception. The other was to retrieve Lisa’s cell phone from our hotel. (Shared responsibility on that oversight. Long story.)

I just got back to Minneapolis, and I’m kind of tired. Hello Monday, see you at work in seven hours.

I just spent an evening acting as the primary photographer at a wedding reception. While my rate was rather, uh, cheap, I actually got paid, making tonight the first time in 9+ years I’ve done anything remotely “professional” with a camera.

I’m downloading the photos now, and all I can say is I hope they don’t suck.

Back in Minneapolis. I’ll probably explain this later.

And I’m in Two Rivers again. And now, back to Minneapolis.

I’ll be doing a lot of driving today.

It’s been good to see both sets of grandparents over the past few days, but, all things considered, it was probably a bit too much traveling considering the three-month-old we have in tow.

In a few minutes I’ll be leaving to drive a 1985 Chevy Caprice Estate wagon across Wisconsin. More on that later.

Well, we’re nearing the end of our yearly trip to Door County. Tomorrow we’re off to Two Rivers to visit my folks, marking the first time Mathias will get to visit the Danielson set of grandparents at home.

Not too much to report from Door County. This is a dreadfully relaxing place, if you’re into that kind of thing. Once upon a time this was a good place for kids, but Tom Thumb is long gone now, overtaken by condos like everything else. If we keep coming back, I’m not sure we’ll be able to find something for Mathias to do.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying. And working, unfortunately. The visit to Two Rivers will probably include much of the same.

Spotted on the trip to buy some apple juice this evening: Seven deer, one raccoon, one fox, and one ferret-like creature I wasn’t able to identify.

Well, I ate too much today, so I’m going to go to bed and see if I can sleep some of it off. More later.

Tuesday morning in Madison. This hasn’t been as much a visit as a rest stop on our way back from Indiana. Mathias was a good little baby on the trip down to Valparaiso, but driving all the way back to Minneapolis on Labor Day didn’t seem like that good of an idea.

Last night and much of this morning has been spent studying for my first class on Thursday. I only have about 60 pages of reading to do, but what my homework has lacked in length it has made up for in density. I got through about 25 pages last night and seem to be in good shape, but I wonder how things will be when I transition to a heavier courseload in the spring.

Picking up my books was kind of interesting. In retrospect, choosing freshman move-in day probably wasn’t the best day to head in to the U of M Bookstore, but I survived. It’s been almost a decade since I’ve been in Coffman, so this is was the first time I’ve seen it since the renovation. It still looks distinguished on the outside, but inside kind of feels like a shopping mall. (And if I had to pick a shopping mall, I’d say Southdale.) Granted, I remember it being a bit of a dump the last time I was there, so it is an improvement, but it’s just kind of sad they weren’t able to put together something a bit more collegiate in nature.

Well, back to studying. Next up, the challenges to Ben & Jerry’s in the mid-90s. I wonder if our field trip there a few years ago will help me with this. Hmmm…

We left one day late, but we’re in Indiana. The plan was to head down yesterday, but I woke up with what I thought were allergies, but later turned out to be a full-blown sinus infection. I’m doing better today, enough that I could do the 7+ hours of driving while Lisa took care of the little one in the back seat. Tonight, we’re camping in the living room of some of Lisa’s relatives down here. Tomorrow, we’re off for what may be the last visit to her grandmother.

Not much else to say about that, I guess.

In more pleasant news, I got to watch the Twins/Royals game from a suite at the Dome Friday night. Distracted by goings-on in the suite, I was a bit slow to realize Scott Baker was close to throwing a perfect game, and in retrospect wish I hadn’t: Literally 20 seconds after figuring it out, the Royals got a walk, and shortly thereafter the chance at the no-hitter was gone as well. It kind of went like this:

“Oh, holy shit.”

“No, don’t say anything!”

“I didn’t!” As if to preemptively say, “not my fault!”

Walk.

“Fuck.”