Friday finally showed up—
              about time.

Pre-dawn again, (Boulder habit or just anxious?)
         coffee fighting the chill,
         me already counting forward.

Tonight I fly home,
        straight into Fort Worth,
        senior dinner with Ava headlining the schedule—
        tomorrow we hunt Halloween and Hoco…

        a little sparkle,
        a little mischief,

        Dad on carry duty.

You’ve got a BFF weekend queued,
       plans stacked like playlists,

       the kind that keeps a town smiling.

Yesterday blurred—Owls swarming my table—
          still we kept our thread alive
          through the glow of too many screens,
          then your late-night voice

          carried us into the soft, small hours.
             (That’s the part the day remembers.)

From “Do you think Earth is a simulation for someone else’s pleasure?”
     to “Did you watch Happy Gilmore 2?”
     and everything in between—

     we stretched the night across the miles,
                    our own kind of overtime.

Sunday I’ll do my Oscar’s lap,
       check in with Kevin and the crew,
       let the football wall-to-wall
       do what it does best…

       turn yardage into minutes.

That’s the hope for both of us—
       a weekend packed just right,
       so Monday appears faster

       than either of us imagined.

Call it the Red Zone Time Machine—
               compress the field,
                  hurry the snaps,
            keep the clock honest.

Every errand a no-huddle,
      every laugh a first down,
      every quiet check-in

      the audible we always make.

Four quarters of doing,
     then the whistle,
     then you closer again—
     and all this busy on purpose
     having done its sweetest trick:

     carry us forward…
     without letting anything good fall off the cart.