This was one of those weekends where lots of little good things were scattered throughout the days.
Saturday evening, the Little Miss was growing restless. I picked her up, and pulled her into my lap as I sat in the rocking chair in our bedroom. I put on some Bing Crosby music and I rocked her to sleep. I get a little sleepy myself and the Little Miss and I ended up sleeping through dinner. But what a delight it was to have her cradled in my arms, with that old music playing in the background and a cool autumn breeze blowing in through the windows.
Sunday morning, the entire family took advantage of the cooler weather to walk to Ballston for breakfast (about 4 miles round-trip). The weather was perfect. Afterward, I sat out on the front steps and started reading a “new” Willy Ley article in the September 1942 issue of Astounding. There was a comfortable breeze blowing and the smell of old pulp coming off the pages of the magazine and if I focused on the page and allowed my surroundings to fade into the background, it almost seemed as if I might be a ten year-old kid, sitting on a stoop in Brooklyn late in the summer of 1942, trying to take my mind off the War with the stories presenting in Astounding.
Later on Sunday, Kelly took the Little Miss out for a few hours and me and the Little Man where home alone together. We decided to go out front and toss a football around. We went into the street, he and I, and he did a great job of catching the football for a three year-old. Later, when we switched to a whiffle ball, he did an even better job of throwing it. We must have tossed the balls around for well over and hour, running, laughing, racing for the sidewalk when cars passed by. I did my best to teach him how to catch and throw the ball without trying to seem pedantic or bossy and the Little Man did a great job of appeasing me and making me feel like a good dad. We had a blast!
Three little slices of heaven over the course of the weekend that in their own way, added up to more than my wonderful experiences at Worldcon the weekend before.
How was your weekend?