The recent weekend was pretty standard, save for the fact my brother graduated from college and Mother’s Day was Sunday.

On Saturday I drove to Kutztown University with my family to attend Gavin’s commencement ceremony. Although there were two colleges graduating, the whole thing wrapped up in less than 2.5 hours, so I consider that a win.

Following the ceremony, we drove him to his apartment, where I helped him finish cleaning and packing the rest of his things. It was sort of strange to see him graduate in that an era is coming to a close.

After we finished locking up the apartment, we took off on the 1.5-hour ride home. We used the opportunity to talk about his job search, how he is going to miss school, and life in general. Along the way we introduced each other to some new music and talked about the recent Netflix film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. If you’re a true-crime fan, consider watching Zac Efron run around as pretending-to-be-innocent Ted Bundy. It’s fine, but there was something off about the entire film, but I’ve had trouble placing what that is.

Regardless, after a quick ride, we were home. We opened a bottle of Champagne and toasted the end of one era and the beginning of another. We loaded into the car and headed out to eat at one of our favorite places to grab a beer and some bar food but were thwarted by a 45-minute wait thanks to the live music getting ready to take the stage.

We went to another local standby and celebrated with burgers and quesadillas before heading home to celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday.

Instead of going out and trying a new restaurant, my mom likes to do her best to not leave the house, especially when the weather is gloomy like it was this Mother’s Day. Instead, we watched the Phillies and then watched Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile at my parents’ insistence. I think it was better on the second watch, actually.

We wrapped up the weekend watching the Sixers fall to the Raptors in Game Seven of the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals thanks to a ridiculous buzzer-beater from Kawhi Leonard.

— Erich Martin, assistant editor