You know, the weekend, for all the running around it involves, always turns out surprisingly restorative. When Monday comes I feel so much more rested, so much more inclined to take on new challenges, learn new things, and, yeah, maybe even write a post about it.

With pictures, even.

This was a special weekend (in Summer, aren’t they all?) because we celebrated my 33rd birthday. (Technically it’s my 34th, counting the very first one on July 19, 1977, but we generally leave that one out of the official tally.)

We piled in the car to come down to Indy early, on Friday, and spent the afternoon at the pool with Veda. Despite being unable to swim, she’s great company there, and never at a loss for playmates. (I didn’t get any pictures of that, though, since the camera was stashed out of soggy harm’s way.)

Then Mom came over to Katie’s house (where we were staying) with homemade Gardenburgers and we had a nice dinner. I’m reporting the facts of the weekend in order as best I can remember them, in hopes of either filling in the blanks with more interesting insights later or, at least, being able to look back on this post *much* later, like in December, and remember what a hot summer weekend feels like.

After dinner came presents, and Mom got me her usual… undershirts and Mike & Ike candy, in addition this time to fun stuff like kites and a shirt that says “Distorted Sound of Rock N Roll.” She got Katie some stuff too (her birthday’s just three days before mine), but I don’t remember it as clearly as I’d like, because I’m a self-absorbed jerk. Apparently.

Oh wait! Katie got lots of brightly colored ruffly tops and dresses and stuff. She was thrilled. We wore hats – silly birthday tiara things. I remember now.

Saturday was different from the usual. Veda was up early, probably on account of sleeping in a strange place, and I figured that Katie and Penny would love to sleep in while Mom, on the other hand, was likely already up. Plus I missed Vince, who was staying with Mom so that Katie’s crazy cat wouldn’t pluck out her own fur in a fit of dog-induced anxiety.

Cats.

So Veda and I headed over to Mom’s for a visit. It’s fun surprising your Mom at 7:30 in the morning with her granddaughter. Surprising your dog is a nice bonus.

And the light from the skylight in my old bedroom (now Veda’s room) made for a strangely intense-looking baby in my arms.

Our days these days are divided into sections: Early Morning (pre-Mama), Breakfast, Morning (there’s usually a walk for Vince; sometimes I get to come along), Nap, Lunch, Afternoon Activity, Nap, Dinner, Evening Play, then Bedtime at 7 or so. After that Pen and I can do whatever we want as long as somebody’s here to listen for Veda, and if that someone is us (almost always), that whatever we want to do is relatively quiet. (I usually work, which is quiet and stationary indeed.)

We try to pack a lot into those stretches between naps during the day. That’s our time to go places, run errands, check out stuff. On Saturday we checked out the new 100 Acres Art & Nature Park at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

There I anticipated very little splashing, so the big camera came along, and we got lots of fun photos of different scenic stuff. There was “Team Building (Align),” two massive rings suspended over a patch of grass. During the summer solstice (missed by three measly weeks!) the rings’ shadows overlap perfectly. On July 10th, they just amaze little redheads named Veda.

There was “Park of the Laments,” a huge square within a square, connected by an underground tunnel, that the artist Alfredo Jaar intended as a refuge for “purging global atrocities.” That said, I’m pretty sure Veda missed the point. But she did enjoy running around in it.

And the first picture above was from all of us on one of the 15 parts in “Bench Around the Lake,” a series of sitting/looking/playing spots that encircle the 35-acre lake on the grounds. Wowseph.

Even the visitor pavilion was scenic. Very much so.

Then it was back to Katie’s for lunch and projects, like replacing the lights outside her garage, troubleshooting a faulty sensor in her house alarm and landscaping in front and back. Followed by more swimming, strolling, drying and showering.

Then, a date. Mom watched Veda while Penny and I went out with Katie and her new beau, and with three, count ‘em, three destinations (Santorini Greek Kitchen, New Day Meadery and The Brass Ring, all neat and all in the grittily charming Fountain Square neighborhood of Indianapolis), I got to break in the new foursquare social media/traveling around app that my friend Ryan hipped me to.

On Sunday Veda was up extra early (midnight, as a matter of fact, and Penny brought her to bed with us to ensure that *nobody* slept soundly that night), but at 6 she was up for good and another visit to Mom’s was in order.

So we played with my Mom, and let Veda’s mom snooze until 9.

That left enough time in the morning to finish up Katie’s garage lights (I didn’t know photocell-sensor things could go bad with time, but bad they went) and the yard projects Penny and Katie had started.

THEN it was up to Fishers for some baby shopping with our sister in law Niki. Penny’s mom wanted to get her something nice in person, rather than just bringing a gift to the shower. (I abstained from the Babies R Us adventure, and instead dropped them off and took the car to go read books in a nearby Barnes & Noble. Also ended up stranding them all outside the baby store, since my phone somehow lost all service inside the bookstore and I never got any of their pleas for pick-up. Thanks, AT&T!)

And then, finally, we hit the road for home. It had been a full three days, and pretty different from other birthday outings.

Everything’s Veda-centric now. But I’m not sure I – or we – would have it any other way. And at the end, even though it’s a lot more work to do all this stuff with a 17-month-old (as of today!), and sometimes it kind of wipes you out…

It’s more fun too. And it makes you look forward to the next adventure.