/tags/piedmont-park/Recent content in Piedmont Park on Bougyman's RamblingsHugo -- gohugo.ioen-us© tjv 2024Sun, 19 Jul 2026 12:30:50 -0500/posts/formation-lap/Sun, 19 Jul 2026 12:30:50 -0500/posts/formation-lap/The grid changed, but Sunday kept lining itself up…<div class="listingblock"> <div class="content"> <pre class="highlight"><code class="language-poem" data-lang="poem">World Cup anticipation isn’t a quiet condition. It sits in the chest like a countdown pretending to be a reasonable way to spend a Sunday. So Orca and I did what we could with the morning: Yeppa, F1 Belgium, something loud enough to borrow the edge off the wait. Amazing start. Then, eventually, the kind of ending that makes a person check the lap counter for evidence that time is still legal. Kimi again, as usual. Some good midfield drama, at least, which is what we say when the front has stopped negotiating with entertainment. Not much thread this morning, but that was no scandal. You aren’t much of an early riser, and the sun doesn’t get extra credit for being first. King Ron, Kitty Mike, and Apex kept the group chat alive, doing their part to make the wait less dignified, which is usually the correct amount. After the race, Orca and I made our way to Irby’s… for much-needed patio time. Gabe’s kiddos were there. Orca did _not_ approve. Not in a cruel way, exactly. More in the way a small queen might notice several new claimants to the attention throne and begin quietly reviewing the succession laws. I think children may currently be her rivals. So, as Irby’s started filling in, I took her home for a nap… because even suspicion requires rest. Then I came back, grabbed our corner, pulled a few extra seats into the orbit, and even held a parking spot, just in case y’all decided to drive. The plan was clean: if you came here, I could do the Irby’s parking shuffle, move Nero across the street to the spot with his name already on it, and leave you the easy landing. That was the formation. Or at least, that was the formation I had in my head. Then the day changed circuits. Piedmont Park became your watch party. Irby’s became mine. Not wrong, just different. The kind of adjustment Sunday makes without asking whether the pit wall has finished its math. So the formation changed. You at Piedmont. Me at Irby’s. Friends on the way, my corner still useful, seats still becoming a joyful afternoon. Orca home, sleeping off her diplomatic failure with children. The spot held, then not needed the way I pictured. The wait, still very much the wait. That’s the thing about a formation lap: it isn’t the race. It’s just the slow roll before everything gets loud, all the little corrections, all the tires warming, all the cars finding their places before the lights finally go out. Today’s doing that. Not the grid I pictured, but still a grid. Not the corner I thought I was saving for you, but still a corner pointed toward the same whistle. You there. Me here. Sunday, rearranging us without quite separating us, lining up the whole bright mess… one adjustment at a time.</code></pre> </div> </div>