Baching It

baching [BATCH-ing], v., living the life of a bachelor, (esp. for a male:) living without women in one's daily life; see also this

Susan and the girls left early Thursday morning to attend the wedding of her cousin Lee in the eastern part of the state. I stuck around to attend (this evening) the wedding of my cousin Jerry in the northwestern part of the state (gotta represent at both, ya know). I will leave shortly to get there and afterward spend the night with my dad and stepmom. Susan, the girls, and I will all return to Dickinson on Sunday (albeit at different times).

So how have I spent my carefree two womenless nights alone?

• Thursday -- return home from work around 5:15 P.M.; remove dress clothes and put on comfier shorts/T-shirt; lie on bed to finish reading magazine around 6:00 P.M.; fall asleep; wake up at 6:30 A.M. on Friday!
• Friday -- return home from work and change, like the night before; go to the hardware store to pick up supplies for a few projects around the house; go to my friends Chris and Heather's for supper (knowing I was alone, they invited me over); play extensively with their son Keaton (a month-and-a-half shy of two years old), part of whose play routine included bonking first me and then him in the forehead with the bottles of bubbles I brought for him to blow in the backyard, each painful bonking of which was followed by a burst of giggles on his part before repeating same

One unit on campus at DSU has recently been cleaning out its supply of gag gifts and novelties (used at children's fairs during alumni days and at campus family events) and donating them to me for our unit to use as door prizes at our various events. I've been sorting through them and, knowing I was going to Keaton's for supper last night, I set aside a bunch of the better (read: "less cheap") toys for him. It was like Christmas when "Nen-nin" ["Kevin"] arrived and starting emptying the box of dinosaurs and cars and baseball-themed stuff and bottles of bubbles and inflatable animals and puzzles, etc. His mom and dad might not have been so pleased about the sudden influx of crappy toys, but I had forewarned them, so they smiled patiently.

Last weekend, our unit was responsible for all-day-and-into-the-evening orientation sessions for incoming students on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, which were preceded by hectic days of preparation the previous week and have been followed by days of exhaustion this week. We've been walking around the office like zombies, tending to the tasks that require the least amount of mental concentration to complete. Well, I think Thursday night's 12-and-a-half hours of slumber just might have been my body's way of catching up on lost sleep--d'ya think?