This weekend (again)

This weekend was not a normal weekend for me. Rather odd, but fun, nevertheless.

On Friday, Alex got in touch with me (He and MikeE were in California at Harrison and Mary's wedding). He needed me to go pick up my car so that when he gets back, he will have his car and doesn't have to make a trip to Front Royal. It's a doable request -- nothing too hard or far-fetched about it.

I talked to Pat, and asked him if he was going down to Front Royal this weekend. He said that he could go, but that he had no set plans. I explained the situation to him, and he said that he could drive me down. So, Pat drove me down to pick up Alex's car.

I should probably tell you that MikeE and Alex both have Hyundai Elantra's. There is one year difference between them, and MikeE's is pale green, while Alex's is a light tan. In the daytime, it's easy to tell them apart. At night...

We pulled up to Sarah's house, where both cars had been left from the previous weekend. There was only one Hyundai Elantra there, and Pat dropped me off and drove away. I tried the handle of the door, only to discover that the car was locked. I tried to flag Pat down, but by this point, he was already gone, so it was pointless. I tried another car door, but the whole thing was locked. This was unusual for Alex, especially since he asked me to pick up his car, but then I remembered that this car has a tendency to lock itself. Just to make sure, I walked around to the front of the car. Alex's car has a small hole in the bumper where he was clipped by a passing car. This car is not Alex's but MikeE's.

Just to make sure that I didn't miss it, I looked up and down the street. Alex's car was not there. Odd, because Alex said it would be. I call Pat to see if he was within range, but I only got his voicemail.

I called Sarah next. She told me that the car hadn't been there all week. This was also news to me, and I'm sure to Alex. Well, after this phone conversation, she called back and told me to go inside. Christine and Carissa were on their way back -- they'd be back in a few minutes.

I went inside, but I felt a little weird waiting in the girl's house without them in it. After a minute or so, I went back outside. I sat down on the stairs to wait for them.

…There are days when one is just not operating at full capacity. This was one of those days for me. It was raining off-and-on, and what happens when it rains? The ground gets wet. Well, I realize my stupidity and stand up. Of course, my pants are pretty well soaked through. Being a little bit self conscious, I leaned against a dry part of the wall and wait for company.

Sure enough, Christine and Carissa showed up in a couple minutes. They both seemed to have this look in their faces which says, "I know why you're here...", but they asked me anyway:
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to pick up Alex's car."
The look came back to their faces.
"Jordi has it."
"Oh."
"Yeah, he's had it all week."
"Really? That's news to me..."

Anyway, we went inside. Christine showed me an Il Divo video, from them live in concert. We got to talking, and the girls asked me, "Why don't you take MikeE's back? It needs to get back anyway." It sounded like a reasonable idea to me, so I agreed to it. Carissa said that she would deliver it to me after she got the car inspected the next day.

By this point, Pat arrived, and drove me to Guardian Angel. No one was awake. I was supposed to get in touch with Colin M. to give him my music hard drive. I called him, and explained the situation to him: I don't have a car, and besides that, I'm really kind of tired, so I'd just give him the hard drive first thing in the morning. He suggested St. Kevin's as a place to sleep, so I walked over there.

As I said, I was rather tired. Just as I was walking out of the Guardian Angel parking lot, I looked at St. Kevin's in the distance. The walk from Guardian Angel to St. Kevin's seemed like it would take forever. I struck up a brisk pace to get the old blood circulating, and in the process, I almost bumped into a car. Come on, dude, wake up. When I arrived to St. Kevin's, I crashed.

+ + +

On Saturday, I woke up "early" at 09:30, and I set my hard drives out upstairs. Colin and Mike were still asleep, so I put my music hard drive in the most conspicuous place that I can. I was scheduled to meet Dr. P. at Christendom at 09:45, so I started walking.

I picked up the music books from Dr. Poterack, and as soon as I'm done there, Carissa called. She told me that Christine was going to Mass, and that I should look for her, because she would take me back to their house so I could get the car. This sounds good to me, so I call MikeE to let him know the plan. I left a voice message, and then went upstairs for Mass.

After Mass, I turned my cell phone back on, and discovered that I had two voicemails: one from MikeE, and one from Carissa. MikeE said that the plan of me getting his car back to Herndon sounded just fine to him. Carissa said that she was on her way back to Christendom with the car. Christine ended up not going to Mass, so Carissa was going to pick me up. I drove Carissa back to her house, and then drove to Kevin's to get my stuff.

I went to visit Colin M. and Mike P., and to get back my music hard drive. Sarah S. was also there, and I got to talking to them for a bit. They showed me a clip from their movie. It looks pretty darn cool. :) They loaned me Discretion, and I went to Guardian Angel to watch it.

Imagine my surprise when I drove into Guardian Angel's parking lot and there, at the end of the lot, was Alex's car. It was the same car that I also bumped into the previous night. When I said, "Wake up, dude," I guess I really meant it...

Anyway, I fired up Discretion, and five minutes into it, Emma F. called. Well, well, well! I put the movie on pause, and chat with her for a bit. All of a sudden, I realize the time. I need to get moving. My plans for the day included going to confession at St. Andrew's as well as returning the cars. It also hit me: how is singular me going to return two cars? Walk? I could. It would take a couple weeks, but it was feasible.

I told Emma that I'd call her back, and I went to Eric W.'s apartment. I'd been hearing music pumping downstairs, so I knew that he was there. Eric said he would help drive the cars back, so we took MikeE and Alex's car's back to Herndon. On the way to drop the cars off, I called Emma back and we kept talking.

We stopped at St. Andrew's where Eric and I went to confession. The plan from there was to drop MikeE's car off at the apartment, and then get Eric back to Herndon. As I pulled up to the apartment to get a parking tag for MikeE's car, I saw a very familiar-looking couple walking up to the apartment. It was Josh K. and Lesie. I drive alongside them for about 100 feet, just to be annoying, like I always am, and then parked really quickly, got upstairs and got the tag. I told them this story up until this point, and then went back to park MikeE's car.

Eric and I decided to keep Alex's car, because it ran better than mine, so we parked MikeE's in the lot, and then went to get some food. We decided on Uno's Chicago pizza. The pizza was great! Major thumbs up! But we had a gay server -- major thumbs down.

We went directly over to Regal Cinema's from Uno's, and checked out what they had playing. We decided to watch the Jennifer Aniston/Vince Vaughan movie, The Break-Up, partly because nothing else was playing any any better time, and also partly because it was on one of our "summer movie lists". Read that post for my thoughts on the matter.

I called John E. to see about visiting for a while. He's up for it, but he also had to work in the morning, so we had to not go too late...

Back at Guardian Angel, Eric showed me the introduction to Nintendo's newest game system: the Nintedo Wii. {insert choir here} Talk about simply amazing! I really want to play that when it comes out!!!

I visited with John and Paul E., and we were soon joined by Jonny D. It was a fun visit, but it went much later than I had intended. I ended up leaving at 12:30 AM. I saw that I missed a phone call, and I checked my voicemail. Pat S. had called. He told me that the police were everywhere, and to be sure not to speed at all, because they were pulling everyone over. I collected my stuff and drove home. I arrived back at almost 2AM. I set my alarm for 6AM, because I had schola practice at Old St. Mary's at 8:00 AM.

+ + +

On Sunday, I woke up to sunlight pouring into the room. It was 08:45, and I had slept through both of my alarms. Mass in DC started in 15 minutes. There was nothing I could do. It would take me forty-five minutes to an hour to get there, on top of the fact that I still had to shower and shave, etc. I would miss Mass if I went there. Instead, I opted to go to a local Mass. St. Veronica's had a 10AM Mass, which Pat S., Laura H., and I attended.

It wasn't too bad. Some punk kids cried through the whole thing, and we all know what I have to say about crying kids: "Shut 'em up, or shut 'em down!"

After Mass, we came back home. Pat and Laura made breakfast. It was really good. I helped with the dishes, which is about the only thing that I can do right in the kitchen. However, I'm not even perfect at that, because I overflowed sink all by myself -- ain't I clever? This is particularly ironic, because tha was the day that we chose to use the dishwasher, so the sink shouldn't have even been full, but I did it...

After that, I went to the Mike M.'s house to visit with him and his family. He was in town for a couple days, and then he was flying back overseas again. We chatted for a while and had dinner with the family, which was awesome, as usual!

At about 6PM, I headed back to the apartment. On the way, I called Mom and Dad, and had a good conversation with them.

I got back home and tried calling Adrienne, but I could only get her voicemail. I used my espionage tactics to successfully locate and call Lizzie. Oh yeah. I'm just that good... ;)

After that, I watched Fun with Dick and Jane, and after that, it was time to pick up Alex S. and MikeE from the airport.