White Lightning Axiom: Redux

The Friday night commute back to the Manor was impressively mundane. No flaming dumpsters, no amusingly slow drivers, no twisted hulks of overturned semi trucks. How odd. A few things of note did happen on the way though. One of the mildly less annoying radio stations that I listen to is going to swap broadcast frequencies with a completely different one that I also listen to. The station know as WPST out of Trenton NJ is going from 97.5 to 94.5 which was WTHK, the Hawk out of the same region. Amazingly enough, both stations are owned by Nassau Broadcasting Partners from New Hampshire. THK is classic rock and PST is more ... popish. The odd thing is that THK has horrible transmission quality so I can barely pick it up once I'm about 5 miles west of the Manor. THK doesn't even have a web site and their morning crew is ... thick. Well, once the quarterly beg-a-thon is over, I'll be back at NPR anyways.

I was nearly home when I saw something that I can only deem as an urban automotive mental deficiency. People have a bad tendency of creeping and inching forward at a stop light that they are waiting for. Now this causes problems if there is a truck or a bus that needs to round the corner. People still do it though. Some of the lights in my area are also set up so that if there is a car parked on the pressure plate, the turn light will trigger. No car, no turn light. Sooo, there was this van that pulled up beside me in the turn lane and stopped behind the white line. Perfect. Then, throughout the wait, he slowly and incrementally crept beyond the line so much that the entire van was out beyond the pressure plate. No one else pulled into the lane so he did not get a turn light at all. Green light for opposing turns and non-turns though. Moron. I don't think that there is any state that says that you are supposed to stop BEYOND the white line at an intersection. I doubt that this lesson will be learned though.

Not much else of note on Friday Night. Kids watched Monsters Inc and 101 Dalmatians on the idiot box. They picked at dinner and ended up going to be about an hour late. Not that it would cause them to sleep in or anything mind you. The little ankle biters were up and gunning to go at 0700 the next day. Just as well, we had an agenda today and we needed to be up at a reasonable hour anyways. First to the bank to deposit the refund checks and the briefcase of small denomination bills we get for tribute from minor kingdoms in central Asia. Then over to Hess to fill up with cheap(er) gas. The family tank burns it pretty quickly and has a monster capacity. Nearly had to go back to the bank to take out a home-loan to cover the tab. After that heart/wallet-breaking experience we head off to the Grocery store and then finally to IHOP. Yes, I am trying to make a family tradition of Saturday afternoons at IHOP. Hey, it beats me burning the hell outta the pancakes at home and what other excuse can I come up with for having southern fried steak for breakfast. If my doctor only knew, she would clobber me with my HDL/LDL results wrapped around a 10 lb sledge.

Homeward bound after a filling meal of sub-standard fare. The kids ate and the Mrs thought ahead so we did not have to pay for the 1$ a glass milk. That mommy, always thinking. It was certainly nap time when we got home, but they were not very interested in the concept. The Mrs and I were extremely interested, however. In the attempt to inspire the kids to stay in their beds, I had set up the new aquarium night light with music box for Jake and given his old one to Alexis. They were both thrilled and we left them to their own devices thinking that they would soon settle down and go to sleep. The Mrs went to lay down in the Mile Wide Water Bed while I went to the Laundry Room to take care of a few loads before I joined her. With the drier and washer making a cacophonous racket, I could not hear much. I was right below where the kids Detention and Rest center is located so I could faintly hear something that perked my interest. A semi-loud thud, followed by a series of smaller staccato thuds. I thought that the Mrs had gotten out of bed to check on the kids. I was under the impression that something might be wrong so I started out of the laundry room to check on the family. As I exited, I spotted my little son entering the Kennel! He had a grin on his face that would split any mortals noggin off. The little Houdini managed to scale the crib, open the door, make his way down the stairs and into the kennel room in a matter of seconds. In the background, I could hear his sister wailing away. He could have gotten away with his escape if he had thought to bring along his stool-pigeon twin. The Mrs had woken up because of the wailing from Alexis and the riotous giggling from Jake. We had to spend another 30 minutes or so getting the kids settled down again. By the time they laid their heads down, it was already past 1400! Not much time left in the day for the Adult naps. Needless to say, they were up and about in two hours. I snuck out of bed and drug them downstairs to play for a bit while I striped the sheets from their bed to do in the laundry. I had missed the Wednesday laundry cycle so I have double the loads to do today. Better late then never. I had to get it done since the kids were out of bath towels. While I was trying to stoke up the fire again, the Mrs wandered down to the play area and flopped down on one of the leather couches. Apparently, she was in the middle of a killer headache and would not be much good other than acting as potential target for the kids. SOoooo, I spent a bit of the night trying to dissuade the kids from bashing mommy on the head and letting them watch Monsters Inc for the 387th time ... this week. I can repeat the lines now ... backwards ... in Latin. Iambic pentameter too. Time to switch to another cd please.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 9:16 PM