Pages

Saturday, July 3, 2010

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

21 comments:

  1. Not mixing the liquors. That's some sound advice if I ever heard any. I wish my parents would have given me that advice before I went to college. Things would have been completely different.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like what you've done with the place!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can't speak for today, but at the time the British called us "terrorists", because we did not have proper uniforms and did not fight using conventional tactics. Sound familiar?

    You may be bothering cats, but I remain unphased. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I will be reading books for class next week. Also my daughter was born on the 4th of July so I am going to spending time with her and the grandchildren. We don't go see fireworks anymore since the kids are all grown. I think it's pollution and who wants Debbie Downer around while their trying to blow shit up? :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. From: The Madness of George III

    George III: What of the colonies, Mr. Pitt?
    Pitt: America is now a nation, sir.
    George III: Is it? Well. We must try and get used to it. I have known stranger things. I once saw a sheep with five legs...

    In the meanwhile I'm spending some time not filling out paperwork and exercising my irritation by clearing away some of the more useless things we've accumulated. F*#k! How much per pound?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Me and MacMan (-since he IS officially a Mac man anyway...) are working today, I have a stack of paperwork I need to avoid, but I just may deal with it.
    I think a nooner is in order around 3pm today....
    and we missed tango practice last nite, so we'll be doing that later if it kills us....

    Tomorrow-
    we're not allowed to blow anything up in the state of Arizona, (which sucks, but I do understand) so we'll be bbqing and eating with our awesome neighbors... I'm in charge of coleslaw and cobbler. Then driving out to 'weehaw' Cottonwood at nite for the 'official' fireworks.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm just grieving the death of a dog who was terrified by the sound of a firecracker. Every time I hear a pop, I look over the side of the bed to see if he's shaking and trying to squeeze his huge body under the bed. There is an empty space there now. This is my summer of loss. Soon Roscoe will leave for Georgia with Ms M. I'll miss him most of all. He had a sleepover last night and is spending today here. It helps.

    ReplyDelete
  8. surprisingly I haven't blown anything up yet today. and it's not for lacck of trying either. I couldn't get either push mowers started. I kind of understand about the first because I broke it on a rock first shot out of the box, but the other? It's only been sitting in that shed for the last five years... I do have a couple loose gallons of gasoline just sitting around being useless at the moment. Also. There's no one here to stop me.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Working on a sewing project (clothes that fit; imagine that!), and contemplating getting on a train and going anywhere, probably tomorrow. (Although I probably won't because that would take, y'know, moving.)

    ReplyDelete
  10. I plan to spend the weekend sewing shopping bags. The cat was nice enough to express her displeasure at my 3-day absence last week by pissing on the Publix reusable bags I had, so I've decided to try making my own. The "green" bags proffered by the supermarkets stopped looking green when I realized they were made in China. Spent a happy five minutes or so this morning at Hancock Fabrics mulling over webbing choices -- does that count as celebrating?

    As for fireworks, I'll be able to hear the ones at Lenox Square -- that's good enough for me.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Well, yesterday we took a private jet to Dubai (visiting Burj Khalifa is really something), then on to Amsterdam. So strange, being a mile above the sand and later to be sequestered on a canal boat with a bunch of Dutch artists. The debate is now whether to do the red district or go on to the Louvre. And I'm OK with their newish pyramid. Just the typical weekend I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I find that there is always a happy ending if you eat yogurt. But, it has to be Cultural Revolution Vanilla Yogurt.

    And ah...THE SMITHS!!! Love, love, love that music. I am hell bent on Snow Patrol now, stuck like glue on Eyes Open.

    My first EVER 4th of July alone. I will spend most of the night comforting the quaking dog....life in the fast lane, I swan.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Minor league baseball rocks!
    As for me, well, it will be pretty laid back. I'll be doing a bar-b-q with a lady friend...but we do that most every Sunday, so it's not all that special.
    No fireworks here in Flagstaff. We've already had one major forest fire, along with several minor ones, and the whole mountain is a tinderbox right now.
    It's too bad, as I love blowing up things. I know how to make some very impressive fireworks, but only a total idiot would do that here.
    Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Tomcat, only the swarthy are turrists. ;-)

    Um, I'm doing laundry and watching X-Files DVDs in between unpacking crap, though since we now live closer to the hospital, I'm thinking of devising a drinking game around how many times an ambulance flies on by.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Despite my best efforts over the last two days, it is apparent that I still have an unacceptable level of blood in my alchohol system.
    My hottie girlfriend has aquired a room at an inn across the big river for the next two days and I will be off to have wild monkey sex and drink to excess until I keel over.
    I'm as broke as everyone else so she gets to pay.
    She loves me, what can I say?

    Whoo Hoo!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I have been going to the gym (still new and trying to make it a habit), cooking, doing laundry - and hanging out with friends.

    I'm glad that y'all were able to go to the baseball game. Worrying over bills 24/7 gets old QUICKLY.

    Happy 4th!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I aint never learned about no American Revolution in all my life. Now French or Russian, that I can do you, but American, no. My better half did half an A Level (look it up) in the American West, it was all pioneers and shizz. We're British, babe, we don't believe in revolutionning.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Down under we didn't hear about any American Revolution - I did learn a little about the American Civil War though...

    ReplyDelete
  19. M&M's off the floor shows some desperation :)

    ReplyDelete
  20. You've already heard about my weekend - I obviously wasn't reading blogs...if your kids start to complain just remind them I made my kids get jobs or go to summer school when our going got tough!

    ReplyDelete

And then you say....

(Comments submitted four or more days after a post is published won't appear immediately. They go into comment moderation to cut down on spam.)