The Long Weekend

Long weekends are the lifeblood of adulthood. Children in this hemisphere get two straight months off in summer, plus March break and Christmas vacation. We typically get, if we're lucky, two to three weeks in the whole year.

Though, if your parents were smart, they made the transition more gradual and less jarring by forcing you as a young teen to find work over the summer, babysitting, mowing lawns, a part-time job. Then a part-time job after school throughout the year, which would become full-time in the summer to save for college. Then full time jobs between college semesters, which is four months straight of 40-hour weeks.

By the time you're 22 and out of school and unemployed, you're thoroughly demoralized and ready for the workforce. Time off is not fun because it means you have $0 and it's horrifyingly expensive and you'll take just about anything.

So here we are.

I've been at my job for six years. That's around the time the benefits of longevity kick in. I now have four weeks of vacay. It's not the two months of carefree summer of my youth, but when would that ever be possible again? Retirement, I guess, but with less energy and more applesauce.

The Dude has been working like a maniac. He's been accepting weekend work, making him work six days straight with only one day off, or worse, the whole weekend resulting in 12 straight days. While I admire his gusto for his career, I realize I alone am monitoring his physical and mental health. He's too busy to realize he's ruining his health.

So this three-day weekend was a godsend. I claimed the entire three days from any work, labour or undesirable activity. It was my mission to play a fun few days for him to finally get some rest, partly for his happiness, partly for mine so he could stop being Captain Grumpy. All work and no rest makes Dude a dull boy.

We're on the last day and he's mellow yellow. We'll be capping this weekend of fun and activity off with drinks at a pub with friends. And then True Blood.

Thing about adult life seems to have a theme of quality over quantity. There's not a lot of quantity to be had, really, not of the things you want, like recreation or vacation. So it's either plan for quality or get nothing.