Whoever thought up the idea of the three-day weekend certainly did workers a favor stretching out a bit of vacation by linking a holiday to a weekend. But I'm not certain the practice does much to help celebrate the holiday in question.

I was surprised to field business calls on Memorial Day. Each time the phone rang on Monday I figured it to be friends or family as I answered. I was wrong each time as I tallied a half dozen business-related calls on a day I would have not expected them.

Shame on me, though, when I was annoyed that the local convenience store was closed when I felt the pang for a soda.

I wonder if overworked equals under celebrated when it comes to important holidays.

I spent some quality time over the weekend in the crawl space of a rental property we own. I guess I'd like to have a bit of a discussion with whoever it was that invented crawl spaces. Could any spot be less inviting, less appealing?

The project at hand was to replace the dryer vent that runs from the laundry room through the crawl space and out the exterior wall. The span was about 8 feet long and the hole in the laundry floor and the hole in the exterior wall were on different sides of a 2x8 floor joist.

The old dryer vent was plastic and full of lint and really posed a fire hazard. I should have been grateful the extent of my project was so limited in scope. But I wasn't grateful; I was crabby. Working in a couple feet of space with a flash light and metal hose that doesn't want to bend, well it proved to be one of those frustrating, exasperating, "why did I ever get into this" kind of projects.

The fruit of my labor, the whole new installation hangs on the premise that no one sneezes above ground or it all will collapse. And speaking of inventors, memo to whoever invented the little metal clamp that comes with dryer vents intended to link vent hose to vent.

Your clamps don't work!

Part of our weekend was spent babysitting granddaughter Julia. On that score, time doesn't get much sweeter than that.

We walked and walked with baby in stroller down a nature path that runs in back of our daughter and son-inlaw's home. Strollers these

days are amazing items and

this one has a little moon roof in the top you pull over the child. That clear space allows adult to monitor infant at all times. On this particular ride this visual link allowed our little one-year-old to wave and wave at doting grandparents.

We never tired of that little peek.

Babies have a way of demanding your attention to the exclusion of all else and it is a wonderful spell that they cast.

Our granddaughter spends her sleeping time in a room full of pinks and pastels and soft textures chosen with care. Stuffed animals look down on her from shelves lined with books and toys.

When it is time to sleep a rocker is there to sit and wait as slumber arrives. And when the sun is set and the overhead light turned off, a magical light box throws images of stars swirling about in a tiny universe summoned for the child's very own wonder.

That evening, though, the sleep that eluded me was thinking of the children of the world struggling with the lack and want that news headlines speak to so much these days.