What a week. Lots of very, very nice things to be thankful for.

I spent a couple of days in Buffalo, at the Studio Arena theatre, beginning prep work on the show I’ll be directing there in early 2007. Tremendously cool.

My brother Dominic and his wife, Alesha, have a beautiful new baby boy! I was there at the hospital (at around 1am on Wednesday morning) with the rest of the family for his arrival, and then we saw them all again yesterday afternoon when we took some dinner over for them. He’s a sweet, sweet little guy! And Dom and Alesha are doing well, also.

The reviews came out for Rounding Third, and they were overwhelmingly positive. Go team! We’re making some noise now, and I like it.

The Detroit Tigers beat the New York Yankees in the first round of the playoffs. Holy cow.

Our gerbils had more babies. Yes, it’s only been a short time since they had their first set of babies. Apparently Mom and Dad Gerbil are VERY eager to boost the gerbil population. Yowza. (“They’re just playing, kids – let’s…um…let them have their privacy, though.”)

My High School Reunion was last night. What an odd, fun, melancholy experience. It was fun to see so many of the people I was peripherally acquainted with, and a real treat to get to chat with the small handful of people that I stayed friends with for years after school, but slowly drifted away from as life took us to opposite ends of the world. A nice reminder that good friends are a wonderful thing to have in life, and letting those relationships fade away can diminish us. There’s probably a longer post on this topic brewing, but it won’t be tonight.

Today was a nice day; famiy time, some work around the house, Jeanne’s sister Jackie and her family came over and we played a bunch of catch, and enjoyed an unbelievably beautiful October afternoon. I’m absolutely exhausted, from the whole week, but also from racing my son’s Razor scooter around the driveway with the kids and my brother-in-law Joe. (Zipping around the circular driveway were two scooters, a couple of motorized kid-sized jeeps, and a couple of bicycles.)

For the record: those scooter things are a blast.

Also, for the record; it’s been a while since I rode on anything like one. Witness the following exchange, which is pretty close to accurate, if you allow for the whole “my mind was scrambled so I might not get all the details right” part:

Dad?! Are you okay?
Yes, Maggie, I’m fine.
You kinda crashed!
Yes. Yes I did.
At least you missed the tree.
It doesn’t feel like I missed the tree.
Are you just going to lay there?
Yes. Yes I am.
Can I use the scooter?
Yes. Yes you can.
Cool!

And now it’s after ten and I’m getting ready to call it a night.
It’s been a wonderful week, but one that has just left me absolutely wiped out.
And a little sore.
Looking forward to reading a play while I lay in bed.

And since my week was so great I hope the same was true, and will be true next week, for all of you out there!