Done and Gone (Are Not the Same)

Catherine and I went our separate ways today; she took the boys and a friend to Comic Con at the Javits Center in NYC (apparently it's a vast venue and after lunch she let them go off by themselves while she wandered alone and collected free stuff and at 3:30 PM she sent me a text that said, "Going to the parking deck now . . . Boys are gone," which scared the crap out of me until I realized she meant to text "done," not "gone") and meanwhile I had another schizophrenic day . . . early this morning I took the dog to the beach-- her first time there-- and it went extremely well: she didn't get carsick (I sat her in the front seat, kept the window open and gave her a Swedish fish at the beginning and middle of each ride, all internet tips that seemed to do the trick) and she loved the sea and sand and surf . . . the water was so warm that I took a swim; then I headed home because our washer/dryer died and I needed to drag four giant baskets of laundry to Wayne's Wash World III, a laundromat "conveniently" located right in the middle of town, so there's not much parking . . . no spaces in the little lot in the back so I had to settle for a spot right across from the place, but on the other side of Route 27, which is quite busy on Sunday; so I lugged the four baskets across the road, washed them, dried them, and then carried them back across the street; my second time doing this I had some serious attitude when I plunged into traffic, I was hot and bothered from digging around in the giant dryer and basically tempting someone to hit me and my laundry . . . perhaps the money from the lawsuit would pay for the new appliances; then I rushed home to meet the guy who needed to flush out our tankless hot water heater and when we cleared some space for him to get to the equipment and hook up his lines, I noticed that under the box that held my wife's wedding dress, there was a bunch of black mold . . . but the beach was beautiful, as was our walk from Ocean Grove into Asbury, it's just unfortunate that it didn't happen in the reverse order (because now all I'm thinking about is cleaning that mold in the basement, instead of the warm surf . . . but at least I have a couple photos to refresh my memory . . . and after doing all that stuff, I went and coached my travel soccer team, which has merged with my friend Phil's team, and Phil carried the ball bag from the goal over to  the bench and then he asked me what the deal was-- he said the bag smelled like vomit and so I told him that was because my dog puked on it and I hadn't washed it yet . . . but that was two weeks ago, hopefully-- with a Swedish fish or two-- Lola won't be doing that anymore).