This morning the three dogs I’m taking care of woke me up at six-thirty to piddle and eat breakfast. (Like, they wanted to, not they wanted me to.) Anyway, one of them–I swear–is the slowest eater on God’s green earth. If you don’t guard her bowl, the other two sneak in and “offer” to help her finish her meal. Normally I stand nearby, but today I slumped on the floor and read a book until she FINALLY at the last bite. Then I moved to a chair and kept reading for thirty minutes so everything could digest and they could go outside again. Wouldn’t you know it? They wouldn’t “go.” Oh well, I thought, and went back to bed.

Three hours later I woke up and found shit on the carpet.

Dogs can be so rude.

After eating breakfast, I brushed my teeth and got ready to do more painting, since the room I’m working on now is ever so close to being done. Alas, five minutes before I’d planned to walk out the door, my friends Kate and Aaron invited me to go to Parrot Island, our local waterpark. And whereas the go-go-goer in me thought about saying, No thanks, I’ve got work to do, the rest of me thought, It’s a holiday weekend. I can paint any day. And I’ve never been to Parrot Island. When Kate said they’d been gifted four day passes, meaning we could all go for free, I said, “I’ll be right there.”

Y’all, I have no regrets. The waterpark was lovely. We did some lazy river-ing, some wave pooling. Aaron and I even went down a couple of the big kid slides, the kind of you have to be taller than 48 inches and more than 100 pounds (check and check) to go down.

The kind that give you a wedgie.

After the waterpark we changed clothes and went to eat at a place called YW Poke, but that Kate and Aaron’s four year old calls Poke Bowl. (He even has a song about it.) I guess a Poke Bowl is the place’s main menu item. It’s basically sushi in a bowl. The one I got–The Duke–was absolutely delicious.

When all this was over, we did some shopping (I did some window shopping), then went to Cherry Berry for frozen yogurt. This was also delicious.

And fattening. It was fattening.

“This is what we do on the weekends,” Aaron said, “just eat.”

Since today was my first time going to Parrot Island, YW Poke, AND Cherry Berry (I live a very sheltered life), Kate said it was “a day of firsts for Marcus.” I love this, that there are, and always will be, new experiences to have, new things to try. So often it’s easy to get stuck in a rut–get up, feed the dogs, (clean up their shit), go to work, go to bed. And yet it takes so little to break up our routines and qualify as an adventure. Let’s go to the waterpark! Let’s go to that new restaurant! Let’s–I don’t know–live a little!