So I was sitting out back in my little gazebo tent earlier this evening, reading some Yeats off the Kindle (still can't decide if I like the thing) when I sat back and stared at my Jeep parked in front of our two-car garage. I reflected, as I did earlier this weekend, at how quickly we went from parking both cars in the garage (back when we first moved in) to parking only one car in the garage (when I got fully stocked up on yard gear) to parking both cars outside (now that we own so much crap that there's really no room to do much of anything in the garage, much less park a car).

I couldn't help but reminisce on what life was like for me exactly 20 years ago. I'd just moved off campus hauling all my worldly possessions in a VW Beetle, then tooled around the NY metropolitan area for weeks and then months in that chariot as I searched for a job, then searched for an apartment, and then searched for a life. That car was cool. But today I'd not be able to fit a small fraction of my stuff in it.

My backyard reverie was cut short by the return of Cookie and Mojo. Alane had taken them to the town pool. Cookie came around to the back.

"Wanna know why my bathing suit is completely dry? Because someone vomited in the pool!"

I found his tale of pool-clearing disaster to be utterly fascinating. He filled me in on some further details and went into the house. I followed along myself a few minutes later as the sky darkened and the raindrops started falling. Thunderstorms had been in the forecast for this evening. When the storm got fully going (but before the lighting) I decided we should go outside and experience the rain from under our tent. Da Chimpz thought it a great idea -- until the wind started blowing rain sideways and right into us. As they were hustling through the back door the wind gusted strongly and picked up the entire gazebo tent; the swirling air was about the carry the friggin' thing to the neighboring town of Middleburg Heights before I grabbed one of the posts and pulled in back down to earth. I hastily repositioned it, tried to do a better job staking it into the ground, and cautiously backed away, drenched, to take my sorry ass back in the house.

I was damn-near relieved of at least one physical possession tonight. Serves me right.