"So what are you up to this weekend?" a friend asked me, before the long weekend.
"Nothing much," I replied.
He was aghast. "You mean you have nothing planned!"
"Not yet," I replied.
"But it's a long weekend, yaar. You should do something."
I smiled and promised him that I would try not to disappoint him. So here's how I tried to do 'something' for the entire weekend!
Thursday evening: "Honey," I said to my wife. "We got to do something special, it's a long weekend."
"We definitely will, but later. Let's go to the movies now," she said. And off we went and caught a wonderful, new movie. After the movie ended, we went to a nice place for dinner.
Friday: My wife got a reminder call from a dear friend in the morning, bright and early, for a class at the Gym. So we went to the gym and after that I tweaked in a little time for the Golf driving range.
"We got to do something," I said to my wife when I got back. "It's a long weekend, you know."
"We sure will. But the kids want to go to the Reston Town center now. Let's hang out with them," she said. So with our children and some friends, we went to the Town center and spent the afternoon there --- eating, joking, laughing and 'chilling' in general. After we came back, we caught another movie.
"Can we go to Busch Gardens tomorrow?" our kids asked me, after the movie.
"Sure...we have nothing planned for tomorrow," I said.
Saturday: At the theme park, we had a great time and ran into more friends. There were some spectacular fireworks there, almost forming a canopy over the entire park.
Sunday: Got back from Williamsburg and just relaxed the rest of the day. The same friend called Sunday evening.
"So did you do something?" he asked.
"Well..." and I went over my weekend. "Does all that qualify for 'something'?"
"So you saw 2 new movies, ate out a couple of times, went to a theme park, saw some spectacular fireworks, hung out with people that mean the most to you.....I think you really did something!" he laughed.
I guess he was right. Sometimes, doing unplanned things works out. So if you are stuck on a weekend with nothing planned, be spontaneous and go with the flow. It will generally end up being special, if you are around family and friends. "Spontaneity is the essence of all pleasure."
"Call it family-time, call it quality time, call it bonding time. Whatever you might call it, whoever you are: you need it." ~ Mark Twain
