Wednesday is trash pickup day in our neighborhood. Tuesday night, before going to bed, I opened the garage door and took some additional trash out to the road. Coming back in, I noticed that the door to the house, inside the garage, was ajar. I need to be careful about that, I reminded myself, because one of our cats could get out. I closed the garage door and headed to the bedroom.

Molly was on the bed. “Is Jordi in here?” I asked Pam. No, she hadn’t seen Jordi.

And I realized he probably got into the garage during those few seconds when the door was open. He was probably still there, under the vehicles.

But he wasn’t. Nor was he anywhere in the house–we searched up and down. Jordi had obviously escaped into the great outdoors. With just a few seconds of opportunity, he acted with swiftness and stealth.

This was 10:30. We searched the neighborhood until 1 a.m. I trekked miles, covering the same territory two or three times. I shined my flashlight into people’s yards, searched through their bushes, looking for that errant yellow cat (expecting, anytime, a homeowner to emerge with a shotgun, or police cars to corner me in a culdesac).

Jordi gets into a wandering mode and just heads in a direction, oblivious. In 2.5 hours, he could be anywhere. Pam and I sat on the truck tailgate, not knowing what else to do.

Out of ideas, I decided to drive around. I backed the car down the driveway and headed north out of the addition. Then my cellphone rang. “I found him,” Pam said.

Turns out that I passed Jordi on the road. He was just a few houses down, walking along the road toward our house. Pam spotted him in my headlights. The prodigal was returning.

But he was grounded. Couldn’t go outside for a whole day. And he seemed to know that he did something very very wrong.

Here’s an email Bill Gates wrote, expressing his frustration with the lack of usability in their website as he attempted to download a program. It’s an actual email he wrote. If Gates, a genius, is frustrated with MS products…I’m sure glad for my 20 years using a Mac. And this year, it is, indeed, 20 years since I got that original Mac II, with 2 gigs of RAM and a 40 megabyte hard drive.

Some miscellaneous blogworthy thoughts:

• Mom and Dad came over for lunch, for Father’s Day. I grilled ribeyes, did a crockpot with potatoes, onion, and carrots, made a fruit bowl, and sauteed some vegetables. Had a great time with them. They liked our new couches.
• Watched the special Meet the Press tribute to Tim Russert, plus lots of other tribute segments since his unexpected passing on Friday. Russert was definitely a giant. We’ll miss him, especially in this election year–probably the most exciting one he was ever part of. Nobody can fill his shoes. I always felt he was the very best at moderating debates (with Brian Williams a close second; and they sometimes did debates together). Wolf is the worst.
• Interesting 60 Minutes report about how Denmark always tops surveys of the world’s happiest people. The consensus is that it’s more about contentment than happiness. They have a decent standard of living, without big fluctuations between rich and poor, and don’t aspire to be rich. Can also call it a lack of ambition. The Apostle Paul would have made a good Dane when it comes to contentment, though he was certainly driven, too.
• The other 60 Minutes segment was on the importance of sleep, and how not getting enough affects memory, motor skills, and just about everything else. Thanks to the NBA game tonight, I’ll not get much sleep, leading no doubt to critical mistakes at work tomorrow.

Pam’s Dad died exactly six months ago. This is the six-month anniversary. He lay in a coma for a week, and on the 14th of December, they removed life support and he very soon was pronounced dead. So this is a day with meaning for my wife.

Pam and her sister, Jodie, spent the day together. They went to the grave, took pictures, went to Wal-Mart and Meiers and who knows where else, went to Chuck’s condo (which still hasn’t sold, and they are highly motivated sellers), sent in some ads to the local free classified paper, and just hung out at the house.

I gave the grill a thorough cleaning, inside and out. Then, for supper, I grilled T-bones for Pam and Jodie. Stir-fried some veggies in olive oil, too. The steaks had been marinating in Dr. Pete’s Burgandy Marinade, the best marinade I’ve tried so far. Since I grew up in a total-abstention denomination, using a “burgandy” marinade makes me feel a little bit naughty. Please don’t comfort me (as Jodie tried to do) by saying that cooking makes the alcohol evaporate. I want to feel a tad rebellious, like I’m getting away with something. (Though, obviously, God is watching.)

I only grilled T-bones for Pam and Jodie. We get them in two-packs from W&W Locker in Huntington, and I didn’t want to split a second pack. I just made a hamburger for myself. Of course, that made Pam and Jodie feel guilty. And of course, I knew that would be the case.

Seeing Barack Obama gazing at Mount Rushmore takes me back to Mrs. Friedrich, my fifth-grade teacher at Paxtonia Elementary School in Harrisburg, Pa. One day, she showed us a picture of Mount Rushmore and explained that it was a natural rock formation. Isn’t that incredible? she told us. Just wind and rain and a few ice ages, and there are the faces of four US presidents carved into the mountain.

We, mere fifth-graders, laughed down her idea of it being a natural rock formation. “No it’s not!” we said. Just fifth-graders in open revolt against our teacher’s omniscience. She insisted weakly, but then backed down and went on to something else. That night I’m sure she looked it up, or asked the principle, and learned the truth. The students had become the teacher. But hey–she was a rookie teacher that year. Give her a break.

I’m just glad the wind, rain, and ice ages stuck to US presidents. What if, instead of, say, Teddy Roosevelt, we had the image of Joseph Stalin? Or Chairman Mao?