What passes for a day off.

Up at the usual time - it's the only way to ensure I'll get time to work out. Home to the husband lying in wait "I have some bad news" he says. I'm thinking tragedy, but it's just that work has called. I use my dial up capabilities to resurrect a system that has gone bonkers some time during the wee hours of the night.

I make muffins and file paperwork. The boy and I dine and I file and sort some more. We play a game until work calls and I have to dial in again. Off to the polls before lunch. No line, no wait, no hassle. New fancy touch screens for voting. "He can go up with you," says the poll worker, "but he can't touch the machine." I say to the boy loudly as we leave "See how quick and easy it is. Can you believe that some people don't vote because they think it's too hard." I make many poll workers smile broadly with that statement.

I wanted to do something fun. I had thought originally that the pizza place with the large rodent fit the bill, but it was too fine a day for that. Instead we dined on fast food for lunch, and I enticed the boy out to walk with me. We took the park path by the river. Through the piles of fallen leaves, tossing stones in the swirling water. He found a leaf bigger around than his head. We played on the playground. He was enamoured of another visitor just one year old but fascinated with my boy. We walked on to a bridge over a side trickle and to throwing sticks in the water to watch them wash downstream. He was sad that no bridges went over the bigger water - I think otherwise we would have had a game of poohsticks.

Back home to snack time and finishing homework. While I answered the pager call (now 2 hours old) and tried to make sense of yet another issue. Finally the man came home and I went in to work. Somethings my remote access just can not handle.

I got called by the help desk as I was driving to work. Making 2 chores for my visit. On the plus side my bosses boss came by while I was there. "I thought you were out today," he said. "I am" I replied, and got back to work.