father's day

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. We celebrated with breakfast in bed (Nate thinks this is really odd, but fun), and a walk at Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary (in the rain, of course).

I had a slew of gift ideas for Thad, all of which bombed; I'll share a couple for your comic enjoyment. I thought of buying Michael Lewis' book on fatherhood, but then all the reviews were pretty lousy (one reviewer said he felt sorry for Lewis' kids - yikes!) Then I thought I'd get a grill pan, so Nate and I hiked over to Home Depot to pick one up. After 45 minutes and four or five sales people, we realized they didn't stock the one we wanted, so we'd have to special order it. So off we went to the service desk, conveniently located 1/2 mile across the store, where we spend another 30 minutes while the woman there rechecks the order number that sales person #4 incorrectly wrote down on our special order slip. We finally track down the right item and are told we'll have to pay shipping, but that they will only ship it to the store, so we have to pay to come back to Home Depot to pick up the pan. Whatever. At this point, Nate's been as patient as he possibly could be and has eaten everything in his diaper bag and my purse, so we just order it and go home. A couple of hours later I get a call from the special order lady telling me that we have to order six pans at a time. Even though our grill is large, I think six pans is probably overkill so after we wasted our morning hanging around the Depot, we eventually cancel our order. Luckily, Nate suggested (all on his own, I kid you not) that we should give Thad earmuffs for mowing the lawn. So after my bad luck, Thad still ended up with a gift, appropriately chosen by his son.