White Lightning Axiom: Redux

The Tuesday Evening Routine at the Haupertonian Manor did not adhere to the ISO9003 standards. Given that, it grossly failed to come close to my 'Saturday Evening Press' vision of the happy hearth and home. When I got home, I did the domesticated caveman thing and made dinner for the family. Standard fare for the kids: Fishsticks, meatballs, hotdog, chicken nuggets, declare cup->milk.whole(1), vitamin, turkey-alphabet soup. I mixed up something special for the Mrs; Low-Mein Noodles in chicken broth with mini-corn and Asian straw mushrooms. As for myself, 2 week old dried out white turkey meat. Urg. Needless to say, two bites and the rest of the desiccated turkey went to the dogs. I’m learning ... slowly. No salmonella for me tonight. It quickly becomes time to shove off and pick up the Terror Twins and the Mrs has not shown up yet. I’m not entirely surprised since we got a late start this morning. It has started to rain (again with this winter rain stuff!) and it would have been nice to have a second set of arms to help out, but I can manage alone. I have super powers of distraction and subterfuge! It’s always important to fabricate competition when it comes to the S&R missions. Who can get to the front door first is the best way of making sure that they are not distracted by pretty colors or flashing lights on the way.

Back at the Manor, consumption of the fore-mentioned meal commences with little fan-fare. The Mrs is not present as of yet and Alexis makes several comments on the situation. She identifies that the meal is there, but Mommy is not. She shows up soon enough and is greeted with cheers and much fanfare. I fall in ranking just below chopped liver. While the Mrs revels in the gushing accolades from the fickle ones, I start on the mac->Cheese.water.boil(6, cups) for their lunch tomorrow. The container usually comes home open so I’m assuming that they are eating it. The Mrs, however, is not enjoying the meal I have made for her and opts for a bowl of kix cereal instead. “Here I am, slaving over a hot fusion reactor all night and it’s never good enough for you, is it!” The Mrs gives me her classic snarky look and returns to her improvised meal.

Later in the evening, the Mrs and I head down to the document vault and start filing all the paperwork that has accumulated in the In bin over the last year. Most of the visible stuff is mine, but she has hidden away a couple of metric tons of financial papers. They seem to materialize out of no-where when I look away. It is my greatest hope that some day I can hire a legion of accountants and MIS staff to file, scan and store these documents in sub-basement 27-N so we can get on with our lives. The documents at the bottom are starting to re-form into wood. While spending this time together, the Wonderful Well of Life, the Mrs, mentions that she has paid for the gymnastics class at day-care. This should have some pretty positive effects on the kids. It will 1) tire them out, 2) bolster their appetite, and 3) teach them how to avoid smacking their heads on the ground. All good things in my book.

Later in the evening, I spend time in bed trying to read my book. Every 15 to 30 seconds, I hear Alexis hacking horribly over the monitor and start to become concerned. She will never get better if she cannot clear her lungs. My mind starts to do the ‘over reactive parent’ thing and thoughts of whooping cough or pneumonia start jabbing at my protective nature. Once the Mrs comes to bed, she concurs with me and she retrieves our little germ factory so we can keep an eye on her. Her hacking continues and we hear the wheezing with every breath. Panicked, the Mrs calls the pediatric hotline and gets a callback within minutes. Recommendation: Expectorant for the phlegm in the pipes, nebulizer with albuterol to open up said pipes. Why do they think we have a nebulizer and a prescription only pharmaceutical!? Is this a common household item these days? Of course, we do have these things. You want to talk about privacy protection? Forget it, it’s long gone. Not that it is a bad thing in this case. If you show up at the hospital and they know everything about your medical history, there is probably a really good chance you won’t end up getting the wrong prescription or having a limb/organ accidentally removed. Administering the albuterol is another task entirely. Alexis is not entirely fond of the noise emitted by the nebulizer of doom, and she finds the atomized mist even less endearing. Through much wailing and gnashing of daddy’s private parts, we manage to endure the 15 minutes of administering the illicit prescription. She starts to cough less and the wheezing ameliorates. It is 0030 now and I can pretty much guess that the morning will suck, big time.

The alarm goes off. It is the clock-radio alarm that is tuned into a classical music channel. Some light and pleasant orchestral pieces are playing. I let it go for an hour before I bring my will to bear on my recalcitrant body. I hear over the monitor that Jake is playing with his night-light aquarium so I know he is awake. The Mrs is still out cold. I crank up the microwave as a warning shot over her bow that there will be incoming bogies soon. With the milk warmed, I retrieve Jake and the Mrs makes space in the mile wide water bed for him. Alexis is next, but is still mostly asleep. I would love to let her go, but it is not in the cards today. Out of the house and on the road. I’m at work by 0815 which means departure at 1615, right on schedule. Schedules and follies are predetermined to go awry. At 0945, the Mrs calls to let me know that the Child Detainment and ReEducation Center has rejected our children and asked that they be retrieved at the earliest possible time. Argh, looks like it’s going to be a half day for me. She has a ‘No-Decline’ meeting later in the day so I’ll be taking the second shift, which coincidentally, is the same time when they will be going to the clinic to get their tires kicked. More on this later, it should be an adventure.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 2:18 AM