Progress, not perfection, lemme get some action from the back section...

We had ourselves a great family weekend. Jake had a wrestling tournament in Fort Bragg. And since Ted lives in Cleone...


...which is a little town on Fort Bragg's Northside, we boarded the dogs, hung a "NO VACANCY" sign on The Hotel Yorba, and made a weekend out of it.

Jake left Friday after school with the team. They spent the night in the gym at Fort Bragg High School in sleeping bags on some mats. We spent the night sleeping in Ted's nice warm beautiful house.

But first we had a cocktail, went out for Mexican Food, and went to the Tip Top. It was slow getting going, but I put my wing man skills to use and before long we were hanging out with the regulars. That's Nathan. He bought me a shot of Jack after I bought him a Bud Light.

This is Rachel's new boyfriend, Joey.


...and a girl named Lisa...

We had a really good time. And I was reminded of what my cousin once told me at 2 in the morning. He said, "Cuz, I love you. But for someone who owns his own pool table, you should be WAY better at pool."

I had a run of three brilliant shots that would have made Paul proud, then a run of rubbish. But it was fun. I think Ted finally knocked Big Nate off the table.

Rachel drove us home.

It was weird being a couple of hundred miles from home and knowing our son was sleeping five miles from us, but not knowing where he was, exactly, or what he was doing.

The next morning, I helped Ted with a little project...


I pretty much handed him things and made tired jokes about his caulk.

Rachel chilled out in the window seat...

Now, I titled this post "Progress not perfection." And that was the theme that jumped to mind. Starting with Ted's house. He still has lots of little things to do, but they all seem so minor now. It's like the house is essentially finished, and now he's doing home improvement projects.

This carried over to Jake's wrestling. He lost both of his matches, but he has made a lot of progress. He came out aggressive, and he scored points. Check this out...

Jake shot first, the guy countered, and Jake took him down. And then he didn't quite know what to do next. If he had just slipped in the half with his left arm, he probably would have pinned the guy right there. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. But it's progress. And Middletown took 2nd place in the tournament.

After wrestling, we went home and made some dinner. Ted is great at whipping something up. I look in the pantry and think of all of the things I could make if only I had [fill in the missing key ingredient]. Ted just pulls this and that from here and there and before you know it you are sitting down to rice, sausage, and vegetables.

Then we went to see I Am Legend. I'm still processing some of it, but it was pretty good. A lot of startle scares. And, you know, there's a dog. And I love dogs. And you just know something's gonna happen to the dog. And it's never good. And that sort of thing makes me tense.

On Sunday, we had "Eat Your Oatmeal" muffins for breakfast. And we made some music. It was tough finding something that would bridge the generation gap, but we did OK and even did a little Blues jam...


Again, progress, not perfection.

And I took a little snooze, though, and that was perfect.

Oh, and I noticed where Ted hung our housewarming gift we brought him last time.


It may not stay there, but it is pretty cool.

Then we went to the beach and checked out the tide pools and goofed around.


Ted's law of the ocean: "It's generally better to have wet feet than a head injury." Here he is not taking his own advice, but pulling it off in style...

This could be the cover shot for Jake's first solo album...

And, you know, this is a picture of me and Ted.

And if you just said, "Don't you mean 'Ted and I?'" you would be wrong.

It was a wet, wild, white knuckled drive home, including some bad craziness in Willitts involving a malfunctioning railroad crossing gate, but we made it by late afternoon.

Then we went to Rachel's office Christmas party. Which was weird, you know, because she probably doesn't work there any more. Although she hasn't really been fired, either. At least not yet that night. And, in fact, as of Midnight that night, there were no more Bottle Rock employees at all. Some weird tax thing to make the company more attractive to purchase or something. So we don't know what her status is, really.

But you know, what, that's bummer stuff. So I'm leaving it off there.

And I'll wrap up with Rachel's progress - she has met all of her initial goals in physical therapy - and now she has some new ones to make her stronger. So far, they just seem to make her hurt. But it's progress.