Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Plodding onward...

A zillion thanks to everyone for their concern. Still no details for you, other than the past couple of days have made me open my eyes to some things, realize some things and acknowledge some things. There's a long road ahead of me, and echoing what I said earlier, there's gonna be some changes. Still need the $5K, though.
One thing that won't be changing is HNT. Still going strong! Let's get some pics in for "...the Other HNT", too!
Father's Day wasn't too bad, considering the mental state I was in. BIL3, his dad and my nephew had to back out of the golf date. The nephew's baseball team was "supposed" to get to the championship game on Sunday, but they lost Saturday, so played the consolation game. So S2 and Mom filled in for them. Dad's game was off, but considering his health over the past year, it's not surprising. He's finally accepted the fact that he can't hit the ball like he used to, but he doesn't like it. I was less than phenomenal, but satisfied. Especially since I got home late the night before (3AM--see below). S2 and Mom amaze me. I don't think Mom was in the rough all day. Straight down the fairway, relatively long for her age, and just missing a short game. S2 had the best front nine she's ever had, but wilted towards the end. After golf, we all congregated at my parent's where S2 took over the BBQ duties from Dad (since we were celebrating both his bday and Father's Day). S3 and BIL3 were also celebrating their 17th anniversary (that's the furniture (old) or watch (new) anniversary, if you're interested...). All in all, a good day.
Among the things we did was to watch the end of the U.S. Open golf tournament. I'm not a big Phil Mickelson fan, but watching anyone collapse on the last hole as badly as he and Colin Montgomerie did was just painful. Which isn't to say that I haven't done the same thing! Just not while trying to win the U.S. Open!
So why was I out until 3AM the night before? We played for the PRIDE dance. Of course, this is Montana, so we don't get the over-the-top displays of gayness that other towns do. They were almost {GASP} normal! Which is nothing new to us--we've been playing for this crowd for 8 years. Definite shift this year, however. I mentioned earlier that it's usually been mostly girls on one floor, and boys on another. This year was much more generational. We had an "older" crowd, with more committed couples, and an even mix of guys and gals. They even {{shudder}} danced with one another at times! Upstairs was more of a meat market. And alot younger. And alot of "interested spectators". There's not much to do in Helena, MT on a Saturday night, so if there's a place with a DJ and alot of techno/dance music being played, you'll pay your cover charge to get in and dance the night away with "them". And I think that was the cool thing. The younger crowd didn't look at it as a PRIDE dance--it was more of a chance to DO something. Were their eyes opened? I'm sure that some of them were. After all, it WAS a meat market up there!
Just to pique your curiosity--cops were involved. Twice.

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