White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Busy, busy and even more busy. We are dedicated, no, INSPIRED to spend the day getting everything ready for the big event on Sunday. Yeah, sure, we still have 24 hours but there is no such thing as being over-prepared. My Mensa Mom, Amish Dad and Big Little Brother arrived yesterday and got settled in. Paul arrived early enough to spend some time with the kids in spite of the ez pass issues he encountered on the way down. Along with him came Roscoe, the precocious pup. Alexis LOVES 'Rocco'. Its that little white tip of his tail that she loves to chase about the house. Poor dog, gets too much love from her. To start the day off with a bang, Jacob wakes up at 5am and I am in no shape to compete with his energy. He has more Vim and Vigor at 5am
than the entire Marine Corp does all day. He woke up because he was hungry. He was hungry because he was so excited by the arrival of Uncle Paul and Grams and Gramps and Roscoe that he did not want to eat. Thus, we are sitting in the living room at an absurd hour. I couldn't maintain the altitude and crashed, hard, in flames. The oh so soft sofa made me fall asleep, I'm certain of it. I think I was in and out of lucidity of an indeterminable amount of time. It would have been a pretty sound sleep except for this little nagging pain. The pain of Jacob the Joker poking me in the eye with a magna-doodle pencil, repetitively. I barely noticed the blankets being pulled off me. His feeble attempts to revive me by pounding on my head with various hard plastic toys were to no avail. Pulling at my hand didn't have the desired effect. Poking me in the eye did. Needless to say, he got his way and Daddy rose to the occasion. Play-time was on for a bit. Soon enough, the troops became restless and we all went out to take on various expeditions. Mrs MDMHVONPA, the Twin Twisters and Paul went off to do some shopping while the Parental Units and I went to survey the layout of the play-set at our Day Care Center. Needless to say, the Day Care play set was built to survive a direct hit from a 10 megaton nuclear warhead. There was more hard-ware and steel put into that structure than the blast shelter for the VP in southern pa! After taking many pictures of the critical junctions from various vantage points, we packed it in and went to Home Depot (of course!) to ensure that the store contained enough wood, composite and slide parts to allow for our construction of what will probably be the largest and most sturdy man-made structure in the neighborhood. This version of the Tashma Hall will be spectacular. The most difficult part will most likely be the leveling of the area and the 7 or so metric tons of sand we will need. In lieu of digging up the back yard, I turned my shovel on a small piece of dirt in front of the house once we got home. There were a couple of ferns that I had purchased a week ago that needed planting. I made quick work of the ferns and took the opportunity to give the sprinkler system its first run of the year. This way I could kill 2 birds with one jet of water. See if the pipes broke over the winter AND water the newly planted greenery. Everything went as planned. Odd. No geysers of water, no muddy gurgling pits, just the grace-full arc of water, gently descending upon the withered lawn. Karma.

To cap the day, the Mrs and I went down to the Philly Naval Ship Yard where a Celebrity Cruise Lines had a dock. We had managed to get some of our close friends from NYC to give Mrs's father a lift on their way to a cruise they had signed up for. Having worked down there for a few months, I knew exactly how to get there and what parts of the base to avoid. There is some 'touchy' stuff still going on down there in spite of the base officially having been closed. Kaverner Ship Lines uses the dry-docks to build container ships now and there is a moth-ball fleet still tied up. That, and various other 'research' projects till going on. Ever hear of the 'Philadelphia Experiment'? Yeah, we got time-traveling battle ships, what you going to do about it? Eh? Within 10 minutes of our arrival, we got a call from our friends indicating that they were on 611 South and would be at the entrance of the ship-yard in a few minutes. Little did I know that they were heading NORTH on 611 south. It took a few more minutes than expected, but we managed to exchange the 'package' without too much of a hassle. The "Wrong Way Incident" did shake up the Father-In-Law a bit leaving him a bit more car-sick than he could tolerate. I did my best to make the remaining trip to the Haupertoninan Empire HQ as mundane and smooth as possible. It wasn't as smooth as he would like it, but the interior of the car escaped untainted.

As a foot note to the days activities, we did a lot of 'stuff' relocation and while I was retrieving the 'package' from the ship-yard, my Hero Dad went to work on the garden. He managed to pick about 3 bags of string beans which will probably take me a few days to sort, clean and cut. Alexis will be pleased as she enjoys shredding the exterior and only eating the little beans inside them. I'll have to prepare the more mature specimens for her soon. Later in the evening, city cousins Pretty Peggy, Kindly Karen and Hunan Herbie arrived, escorted by the Secret Ninja Paw-Paw the even More Minisule Mother-In-Law. We had a full house and we needed to get all the air-beds, sheets and other sleep-over paraphernalia laid out. It was to be a very active evening.