Incense and Waffles

     We all like routine and traveling salesmen like it too.  I do have to travel for a living, but most weeks I get to go out mid-week, which means I get to fully enjoy my weekends with my family. This, week, however, my trip started at O' Dark Hundred on Sunday morning, and none of us likes that as a routine.

     The cat was confused this am.  She is used to me getting up at 4:30 most mornings, and enjoying my coffee as I peruse the Internet for the latest happenings.  We have our game where she leaps up, and blocks the screen with her body until I pet her, and then I move the keyboard back as she sprawls across the desk to get her early morning attention.  Sometimes her purring gets so loud she sounds like an boat motor, and I worry she will wake the house.  So, she's used to this game, but not on Sunday mornings.  Sundays I normally sleep in until 7ish, and the family and I get ready and depart fairly quickly afterwards for Mass.  We occasionally stop for breakfast on the way home, so this postpones Nibbler's and my game until I get back and changed, so as I said, the cat was confused this am when the day seemed right but the routine was not. You see, this Sunday am, I had to get up to work at 4:30. 

The Thurible (Really read the other blog, it is worth it)

     She took a while to even come around this am, but when she did, she leaped up, rubbed her face against mine, as if she were searching for something, and then jumped back down and disappeared into the dark house.  She repeated her actions several times, and I imagined her going back under the couch or behind her chair where she must keep her cat calendar and double checking it.  The face rubs were searching for something, and that was the smell that is usually on me on Sunday mornings when I return, which is incense and waffles. It's not like the church uses incense each week, in fact it's quite rare when they do, but I think it's one of those smells that you associate with a place, so when I go into church each week, I think it smells like incense (There may be another reason that this particular church smells like incense, you can read about it here  Time served - adventures-on the altar)  Since we like to sleep in on the weekends, we frequently don't have time for breakfast prior to mass, so we end up stopping a lot in Canandaigua and we normally head to the brunch at the Steamboat Landing where we can enjoy a nice view of a lake, that we can't afford to live on, while eating a breakfast that neither our budgets nor our waistlines need.  And they have waffles.  I like this kind of a lazy start to each Sunday, and it speaks to the freedom that we have to go off and do many things, or go back to our homes and do nothing.  Again, however, that wasn't the case, this particular Sunday.

     This Sunday, I had a work trip that started in Toronto on Sunday mid-day which necessitated an early morning departure.  I would rather have attended the Bills/Patriots game that day, than plan ahead of time to drive around the tailgating traffic, but that wasn't my job that morning.  It was to bypass my family and friends there and to head off to schmooze with some customers.  Do I regret it?  Sure, but only to a certain extent, like getting a Lime Life Saver when you really wanted a Cherry one.  Both are good, but when you are expecting one, the other is a poor substitute.  Given my druthers, I'll always spend my time around my family, which God and my parents chose for me, and my friends, that I chose, but I don't have to go to church to realize how blessed I am to have my job, my ability to create an income to support my family and yes, have a little fun along the way.  I'm not sure if I'm leaving you, expecting more detail on the days I did spend away, but let that void be a reminder of what I do miss sometimes when I am traveling and would rather be home playing with my cat, smelling like incense and waffles.