The Severed Cortex

I had to dig through the crates to find out what the last thing we did with Robert (and I wrote about) might have been. Other than the two year anniversary, the last thing I wrote about was the air show at Scott Air Force base. That was a long time ago. We've done a lot of stuff since then, most of which I can't remember. I'm sure there was some guitar hero and food consumption and belching. We may have watched a movie or two. Since I can't remember all the stuff we did I'll just start in with the things I do remember.

Christmas Eve

This was probably the first time that Robert and I had hung out in three weeks. With all the packing and looking for houses and coordinating the move we just didn't have time. Plus Robert has that job as a hedge fund manager and doesn't have a lot of empty slots in his schedule to work us in. Actually, a lot of days we worked in Springfield and returned home at 9:00 at night, only to go to bed and do it again the next day. On Christmas Eve an opportunity presented itself, however. One of the things we rushed through in closing on the house was the inspection. I could have just not showed up for it but it wasn't something I wanted to skip. Instead I figured I'd drag Robert up there with me.
I picked him up really early and we grabbed some McDonald's breakfast before heading out of town. On the way I told him that he was going to be the very first person (other than Nancy and I) to see the house. He seemed to think that was pretty cool and was excited to pick out which room he would stay in when he spent the night. After we dropped off some loan papers at the bank, we headed over to the new house. The inspector was already there and he briefed me on the couple of things he had found. As I said in my post about buying the house, there was nothing major and in the end nothing the builder wasn't happy to fix. Well, maybe not happy, but willing. The inspector was really cool and he got Robert involved in the process by letting him make sure all the faucets ran hot water and all the toilets flushed. He enjoyed helping out but near the end he was pretty tired of the whole thing.

Harlem Globetrotters

We've only really had one bad experience with Robert. We took him to a Harlem Globetrotters game and he didn't want to leave. I wound up carrying him from the Savvis Center parking garage to Union Station. We found out later at the one year anniversary that the thing he liked the best out of all the things we had done together was the Harlem Globetrotters game.
So two years later we get a chance to see them again. They are coming to Springfield but it wouldn't work because it's on a Tuesday night. Instead, we had to settle for a Saturday afternoon in Peoria. Robert's mom was gracious enough to let me pick Robert up on the way home from working in Saint Louis and have him spend the night with us on that Friday. On the way to Springfield we stopped off at the storage area in Glen Carbon to pick up a load of stuff I was still moving. We also stopped at Sonic and loaded up on fried food. It's one thing to eat delicious, fried, fast food. It's quite another to sit your fat ass in the car and have someone bring it to you. Robert and I are proponents of the latter.
If you want to make Robert go to sleep, put him in a car. He fell asleep as we left Edwardsville and didn't wake up until we got to Springfield. He stayed awake for about 45 minutes at the house and decided he was tired and wanted to go to bed. That was somewhere around 9:00. The next morning I cooked a delicious breakfast of pancakes and bacon for us and we were off to the Peoria Civic Center. Surprisingly, at least to me, Peoria is a scant one hour from my new house to downtown. (It was at this moment that I realized I am only an hour away from two separate Missouri Valley schools and would have two shots every year to see SMS play) Our seats were right behind the Washington Generals bench. The Globetrotters did basically the same show I had seen for the 4th time now. However, this time the Washington Generals coach was way more into it. He proclaimed that today was the day the Generals would win and he bet that if they lost he would wear a hot dog costume or a tutu. Crowd's choice, and in true marketing fashion you could vote by texting. The Globetrotters of course won and the hot dog suit was an overwhelming fan favorite by a 2 to 1 margin. Robert seemed to have a good time watching and we stuck around at the end so he could get a mini basketball signed by two of the players. He read the program guide on the way home for five minutes before falling asleep all the way to Alton.

Band Concert

There was no Christmas Concert this year, which I guess was a blessing given our moving situation. Also a blessing because the last Christmas concert was awful. Instead, on what is so far the coldest night of the winter, we headed to Alton on a Thursday after work. Robert said I had to be there at 6:40 and the concert started at 7:00. I reminded him that he needed to be there at 6:40. I could show up right at 7:00, which I did. It turned out to be the same time that Robert's mom and her boyfriend arrived. She told me that Robert forgot his trumpet and she wasn't sure he was going to be able to play. I wanted to knock Robert in the head (figuratively) but I realized it might not have been his fault. He left school on Wednesday expecting to go to school the next day. A day where he had access to his trumpet for the band concert that night. He didn't count on the the below zero temperatures and the closing of the Alton school district. Then again, he should be taking it home every night to practice. I know I did.
The band sounded way better than it did last year. They even played Gary Glitter's Rock & Roll Part 2, which I questioned. You'd think a school district would want to shy away from anything resembling inappropriate behavior with kids when they were a scant one year removed from a band director doing exactly that. Maybe I read too much into things. The 7th and 8th grade bands, of which Robert's sister is a member of the flute section, were actually quite good. It was clear that the band directors are way into their jobs and the quality of the performance showed that. I know Band is a dorky thing but I still stand firm on my theory that those who play music are smarter than those who never have. And because of that I will continue to encourage Robert to keep up the trumpet. I know I did.