White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Friday night was a mess. The rain had managed to force it's will upon the unsuspecting motorists. The roads in King of Prussia were particularly congested. There was a backup on 202 North and 76 West and 276 East that all just ran together. All of the roads that I take to get home. What is normally a 30-45 minute trip took 1.75 hours. Nice. I got home just in time to let the dogs out and then turn right around and go pick up the kids ... in the rain. The Dynamic Duo were none too pleased that they were not allowed to go outside and play on the Twin Towers. So we sang "Rain-Rain Go Away...". That seemed to appease them. For some reason had a really good appetite tonight ... the meatballs we got from the larder seems to appeal to them these days. More protein for their genetically engineered bodies and brains so that they grow up to be the GRWC World Domination Leaders they are meant to be.

While I spent time with the family (instead of chopping wood), we practiced colors with Alexis, the Queen of Shriek. She must have been playing me earlier because the colors we show her get correctly identified about 80% of the time. The Purple and Blue are tough to distinguish unless I show them to her together. I can't blame her, I'm sure it is Barney's fault, that Godless communist shill. Her command of verbal skills and conceptual thought is fairly impressive to me, but hey, I'm biased. After we sent the kids to bed, the Wife stayed up a bit longer than I did. I really can't remember when she came to bed, but her time is pretty much allocated to preparing the wedding nick-nacks for her cousin's Chinese Banquet. They are expecting 550 people, and you know more than that will show up. This is the doing of her Grandparents and I am so grateful that Grandma decided to show her popularity with this granddaughter and not with Mrs MDMHVONPA. I guess grandma knows how to pick her battles and the battle of wills with the Wife would not have gone too well. They both are pretty stubborn and this is coming from a pig-headed arrogant male who cowers at the though of pissing off the Mrs. (To the Wife: I love you for this Snuggle-Buns.:) )

The kids slept in a bit, much to our relief. They were wide awake at 0715 while we were very blurry eyed and not quite cognizant of our surroundings. We fed them and then provided soft targets for them by laying on the floor and letting them jump on our heads while we tried to sleep. The Mrs got tired of the charade quicker than I and took them into the kitchen for breakfast while I dozed off for an hour or so. Forcibly woken from my blissful slumber, I got up to see what needed to be done on this 48 hour weekend of work. First things first, kick Katie out of the garden, because she knows better than to be in there. Next, chop wood. Chop-chop-chop. Help the Mrs feed the kids ... chop some more wood. Chop-chop-chop ... hack-hack POUND with the sledge. Urg. Wife goes out shopping, take a break ... lie down, fall asleep. Well, that was not planned. The Rip Van Winkle act was not planned, but it sure was appreciated. The Wife came back to the Manor and had the decency not to wake me ... mostly. Eventually, I did have to get moving again, but the few hours I did spend napping was pure nirvana. A desperately needed nirvana. Refreshed, I spend time with the kids and wife while we await the eventual arrival of the newly married inlaws.

Since the rain had started up again, I made note of that fact that it was steadily growing in intensity. Typically, it would either become a soppy snow or hail in this type of cold weather. Sure enough, it soon became hail. Not the basket-ball size stuff you hear of in the Mid-west. It was the pea sized variety that immediately shattered and melted when it make contact. Nice to know that we don't have to suffer that environmental catastrophe here in Pennsyltucky. After the hail and rain let up, I started to prep the grill for when our guests would arrive. It's STEAK tonight! I'm cooking up 3 filet mignons, 2 rib-eyes and 1 porterhouse so there should be more than enough to go around. They arrive eventually and Mike is more than happy to assist me in destroying the abundance of red meat along with six of my premium beers.

The children enjoyed having new targets to practice on and endeared themselves by addressing the inlaws by their names ... so cute, so adorable, so manipulative. We eventually put the Machiavellian Munchkins to bed and conduct adult conversations where the nouns and pronouns do not need suffixes like "Horsey" or "Mikey". Scientific fact: Children destroy your grammar and vocabulary. I hit the sack at 0100 and know that I will pay for it the next morning at 0500 ... the Wife however is betting on the wrong horse. She stays up with Karen till 0400 working on party favors and other paraphernalia. As I predicted the kids wake up at 0530 and we ignore them until 0600. We lay about and play with the kids until Karen finally wakes up and I run outside to ... ummm, chop wood. Seeing any pattern here?

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 9:25 PM