Rainy Days and Saturdays...
I knew this feeling. Sunday night. Sunday night at the end of Christmas vacation. Low grade gnawing dread. So it must be Friday evening on Smith Ave. Somewhere in mid-life, unstructured time at home with my family has become my bete noire.

I had been doing better...keeping moving, staying focused. The last week-end threw me a bit. You know, with the exploding bonfires, exploding transformers, the chaos. (Not that any of our explosions matched the drama in San Francisco on Friday afternoon.)

Due to circumstances within my control which I bungled, I am still in possession of another offering in my Byron spree. Hmmm...I doubt if a second viewing would help. Hugh Grant plays Byron Hugh Grant, the role of his lifetime. Even when he's being a vile cad, he's basically Hugh Grant. Hugh Grant the boy with the " girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her." Winsome Hugh Grant - definitely not the Byronic type. Not that he was trying too hard to be Byronic. He was playing Hugh Grant dressed like Lord Byron. Cute.

[The only other riveting thing about this film was seeing Elizabeth Hurley in a pre-Face of Estee Lauder incarnation. This is a girl more in need of a brow waxing than I am. If I had seen this movie back in '88 there is no way I would have believed Hurley was about to be an iconic face.]

Saturday was Bridget's birthday, so rather then spend the afternoon in bed with Hopkins, I was at the Cheesecake Factory for lunch with all the girls. (All the girls. Fortunately, Lily left the Screamapillar routine at home.) Then, before the presents and cake and the "adult children" trooping off to the Silo for dinner a few quality pages of Hopkins followed by a spontaneous short nap. I am tempted to kvetch about the cool, damp weather leading me into somnolence. But hot and humid would have done the same. It's a Saturday thing.

Sunday was better. Sunday is always better. I let out a something of a yelp when I realized that Rick was following me out the front door at 7:10. The well behaved, well groomed von Hubens all marching into Mass together is a memory. Perhaps even a fantasy memory. We were never that well behaved. Were we ever that well groomed? The reality of a split family - the 7:30's and the Noons - was OK with me. What did my 7:30am Mass 'friends' think? ("I didn't know she was married? Is that that sweet boy's father?)

Sunday is always good. Never mind the dreaded cottonwood chunks floating past the window. Grab some antihistamines and lunge back into Hopkins; a long enough book to keep me out of mischief for a bit and, like Flannery, one that I think I will have some trouble leaving behind. I'm sure I'll much more to say when I'm finished. That is, after I spend a few days in a funk akin to the feeling when a friend leaves town after an enjoyable visit. All I can say at this point is that it is exquisite and presents a full, 'real' character, not the 2 dimensional Hopkins often alluded to as a sensitive melancholic in need of fluoxetine and an outing.