I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours

I'll go first. Here's what it looks like around here at noon as we kind of slouch our way into the long weekend.  Oh, hell, who am I kidding?  With me out of work, a teacher for a spouse, and three scholars (heh), it's always a long weekend around here.

But before we start blowing shit up, it's kind of quiet.  We're resting up to eat that watermelon we got chillin' in the fridge, I guess.  I've lost track of what's going on around here.  On purpose.

I'm at my computer, unshowered, unexercised, but stoked up on coffee as I tap out a few words into the manuscript, listen to songs from The Smiths, set up new Pandora stations and research what the weather was in Lincolnshire, England on June 1, 1944.

MathMan sits at his computer wearing headphones. I can't tell you what's on his screen, but by the rapt look on his face, he's either listening to a Lisa Scottoline audio book or some Deutsche Grammophon recording.  I suppose he could be thinking about math, but one never knows with that man.

I only know how he looks because I had to make a trip to the kitchen for more beverage.  When I'm "writing" I only leave my little office to get something to drink or to go to the bathroom*.  I still don't know why I followed a trail of M&Ms through the house though.  Clearly someone does not grasp the value of the M&M.  I'm not talking the blue, red and dark brown ones either.  No.  The highly-prized yellow, green and orange ones had been lost to the effluvium of the carpet.  I shrieked and bent to gather up those defiled treats, but was roundly ignored.  And yes, I could rinse them, but they just aren't the same after that.  I've tried.

Beatings have been scheduled.

The Cupcake is sleeping off an overnight let's-not-sleepover on the sofa.  Well, at least I think that's her under the Hello Kitty pink throw.  It could be Artie Johnson, but didn't he die?

Nate is spooning yogurt into his mouth and holding forth on the American Revolution. In between bites of Yoplait's Thick and Creamy strawberry, he's noting that the revolution was rather like a civil war.  He's got a point.  Then he asked how that subject is taught in England.  My British friends?  A little help?

Chloe is in the bowels of the house with her head buried under her pillow, having returned home at 6a.m. from a birthday party.  Two good things about this.  1 - she didn't call me to come get her because she was too hungover and 2 - she's finally behaving like a 19 year old I can recognize.  There goes my Switched At Birth theory. I didn't even realize she was home.  I opened her door to see if there was any dirty laundry to add to the wash and she raised up her head and squinted up at me.

"Oh, sorry."

"It's okay."

"What time did you get home?  I thought you were spending the night there."

"Six.  And before you ask, I remembered what you said about not mixing my liquors."

So she's still smarter than me.  The tart.

The cats have fleas.  I don' have much else to say about that.  They do, but who's listening?

We actually have plans to go see the Rome Braves play minor league ball this evening.  I love, love, love minor league baseball. Yeah, it's money we could have spent on essentials like food and electricity, but at some point, you have say what the fuck and live a little.  If we have to spend the last half of July fighting over three packages of Ramen and that tube of Chapstick I stashed in my bedside stand, so be it.  We get to oooh and ahhhhh over fireworks, right?

I really do try to make every day some sort of little celebration, but it's not always easy to get the kids ginned up about a good slice of homemade wheat bread or a dust free computer monitor.  Oh, they're learning, but still.  In a summer where they've had to watch the parade of their friends posting Facebook statuses about trips to the beach, Six Flags and vacations galore, an eight dollar ticket for a ballgame and fireworks seems like a small price to pay for some fun and potential memories.  Heck, it's less expensive than a movie these days.

So that's it from here.  A laugh a minute.  Be thankful you don't get the soundtrack.  You'd have to turn your speakers way, way down.

Your turn.  How are you celebrating/spending the long weekend?  Lighting things on fire?  Flat on your back?  Dishing out the misery to go with the red, white and blue?

*lie, I also roam around bothering people and cats, as I look for inspiration and motivation in all the wrong places