Memorial Day

It’s chilly and gloomy again in Minnesota. I think we last saw the sun on Friday. Too long.

I like these three day weekends, especially when they’re not traditionally busy holidays, like Christmas, there is no obligation to spend time with family or anything. This third day is like an icing on the cake day, an extra day to get things done, or a day not to have to do anything at all.

I did go to the gym and worked out. There were not a lot a people at the gym, in fact, when I was in the locker room taking a shower, there were only two of us. Nice. I did spend a few minutes in the sauna. Isn’t it great to get warm and sweaty on a cool unofficial beginning of summer day?

I swept out the garage. I cleaned out stuff in the basement. I caught up on downloading my photos.

No grilling or picnics for us today. It’s too cold and icky. I had my family over yesterday. We went to the Minnesota Zoo and then had dinner at my house. In the house – where we were snug and warm.

When Joe and I went to the cemetery on Saturday, we stopped by my grandparents’ graves. There are two babies buried next to them. The babies’ names were Patricia Ann, which was my mother’s name, and that’s why I remember it, and the other baby’s name was Paul Virgil. Patricia Ann only lived a day and Paul Virgil lived four days. The babies were born in 1958 and 1961 and share the same stone.

But the interesting thing is that there were flowers on these graves. I’ve never seen that before. It’s wonderful someone remembers them, even though their lives were very short. A mother? A father? A sibling?

It’s frustrating for us to drive through the cemetery this time of year, because we know it well, but a lot of people only come out once a year or once every several years, so they kind of stagger through the cemetery, looking for their loved ones.

I helped an older woman find her section, she had a map, but the map is really confusing. It’s a HUGE cemetery and every grave looks the same, so I can understand why people get lost. The first time I went to see Ray, I had to ask a maintenance where he was, because I couldn’t find his grave, and I had a map, too.

Joe and I are going to see “Star Trek” in a little bit. What else is there to do on a cool and cloudy bonus weekend afternoon?