White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Sunday was chock full of family goodness. Yep, at roughly 0300 we had Jacob wake up and crying out for mommy and daddy. We are guessing that he had a bad dream or something of that nature. I ricochet of a few walls and end up in the nursery where he is standing in his child detainment unit. He sees me and immediately stretches out his arms knowing that I will liberate him. If not for his predicament, but to silence him so he does not wake his sister. Ohhh, but the hour is late (early?) and my awkward attempts at expediency are for naught. The minute I leave the room with the tiny giant in my arms, Alexis starts to wail and insist that I return ... post haste! I lay Jake next to the Mrs where he curls up against her and immediately falls back to sleep. Little bugger, trying to usurp my authoritay'! I look on in envy as I pull the quilt up to his chin and quickly head back and acquiesce to the demands of the clamorous pint-sized jeremiad queen. All I need to do is be in the room. I sooth her for a few minutes by stroking her hair and back. Then, I slowly walk across the room to the futon. The floor boards moan and creak beneath my lumbering hulk but it serves only as a sign to her that I am still in the room. I reach into Jakes crib and pull out a pillow and quilt. Only then do I allow my body to collapse into the cushions. She is still somewhat awake, but my rustling is soon silenced as I listen to her quickly slip underneath the gossamer veil of halcyon slumber. It is a bit chilly since Jakes quilt is about the size of a postage stamp. The kids never did really take to a favorite blankie or teddybear. They could even do without a pacifier if we put them to task. In any event, the futon is about half a meter to small for me so my rest is quickly ended as my neck cramps wake me. It is 0400 and I slip away to leave Alexis to sleep away the rest of the morning. When I crawl under the quilt in the mile wide water bed, Jacob senses that I have returned. He rustles the sheets a bit and then comes over where he nudges up to me and falls back to sleep. Equal opportunity schmoozer, he is. We fall back to sleep together.

It seemed like only seconds, but 2 hours had fluttered away in my dreams. The dogs were up and making a racket. They were very interested in going out to the wasteland that was the back-50. I'm not very fond of being awake at the time so I give them the evil eye. They understand that I am not pleased right now so they lumber over to their patented mastodon-chew proof beds and lay down. They are quiet and subsuming even though I did forget to feed them. Later on in the day, the Mrs asks if I did feed them and remember that I had not. I immediately go down and dump 5 cups of kibble on the floor. They seem to like it more this way, I don't know why. When I fill their bowls, a few kibbles will fall on the floor and they eat those first. It also gives Katie an advantage since Thor is unable to scoop up a mouthful with every chomp. He has to graze the floor one kibble at a time. We run off to church for the 1000 family mass and manage to get a fairly decent parking spot near the front of the Parking Lot of Purgatory queuing system. There is only one car in front of us and it is a big old Lincoln Continental. Probably one of the Ushers which will mean that it will not be removed till long after 1100. With a little luck, one of the cars to either side will be gone before we get back and I'll be able to slide out. We (SuperMom, Little Bro, Myself and the Wonder Twins) disembark and make our way to the basement chapel. It is sparse right up until 5 minutes into mass where a whole flood of families tromp into the basement. My kids were a bit noisy as they were spilling the goldfish and veggie crisps all about the pew. Then, they had to shout out the names of items they spotted in the 'I See' picture books. They were loud, but not nearly as loud as the boy with autism a few pews in front of us. He is here with his parents and 2 siblings every Sunday and today he is having a bad day. His parents drag him up to receive communion and do the best that they can do to manage. It must be rough for them, but some people think the same about me, the wife and the kids. My response is that you just have to do it, there is no choice. I'll wager that they would have the same response. With that in mind, things went great. The kids love 3 parts of mass. The sign of peace, the collections and communion. The latter is because they get to walk around a bit. As for the collections, well, they love to throw the money into the basket. So much that if Jake finds the envelope with the check in it, he will sit there at the end of the pew searching and calling for the usher to come by. He just could not wait for the usher on the second collection and ran up to the front of the church and insisted that it was in the best interest of everyone involved that he escort the man to our pew so that the transaction could be completed post haste. Well, everyone thought it was quite amusing and I actually managed to suppress my Type A Personality Reflex. I just let it play out. Low and behold, every thing was fine. Who 'da thunk it? The only other things of note is that we got a new pastor who came right out and said that he had Bell's Palsy. If he should fall on the stairs, we should leave him to his own devices since he was a fairly portly fellow. Closer to 300lb than I ever will be. He is warning us that two 50 lb boys will be no help and may not come away from the experience if he should tumble forward. He was quick with the mass and got down to the point in the sermon. No dancing around with nuance or trying to lead you gracefully to a conclusion. Wham-bang, pow. He said that there were a few types of people in the world. Stoics and epicureans. He said that if you are going to be anything during lent, be and epicurean because no-one likes a stoic. Old time religion with a twist. We shook hands on the way out and he complemented me on my flat top haircut. I hope he stays around for a bit, he seems like he could be a pretty fun guy. The kids grabbed their tootsie rolls on the way out and we managed to leave quickly from the parking lot because my hopes had been fulfilled. A car on the right had left before we did and I had enough space to slip out. Nice.

After going to church, we stopped off at the local grocery store called Giant. Super Mom needed a few items and I thought that I would head off to the meat department and blissfully cast my eyes upon the rows and rows of forbidden fruit. It was too much for me though. I just had to buy a big old slab of brisket and 4 racks of baby-back ribs. Pork is not a red meat ... right? And the brisket is going to be beef jerky tout de suite and thus will be waiting for me at the end of lent. The ribs are for the Mrs and I'll have to get them sliced and wrapped sometime later this week. Mmmm, cant resist meat. I'd make a really angry vegetarian. We zip back to the Manor with our booty and settle in for some of Grams' specialty French toast. The kids ate one slice each and I, having not the chance to eat yet today, wolfed down two slices. The kids did pretty good on their own and seemed to enjoy the toast ... or the puddles of semi-liquid maple flavored sugar. Oil, Sugar, fat, cholesterol. All of the food groups were present. Good for the kids, not so good for me. Once the kids were sated, I left them to play with Grams and the Mrs while the Little Brother and I went out to remove the car battery from the Super Saturn. After 8 years and 4 complete drainings, the battery was pretty much shot. The retaining bar and bolts were rusted beyond belief. I put a generous helping of liquid wrench on them but ended up with some mangled sheet metal screws and a couple of bloody knuckles. This task, seemingly simple, ended up being on of those things that I could have let a well paid and equipped mechanic do ... for a price. Inside the manor, the kids were upstairs using their potties and getting ready for their afternoon naps. Lucky little buggers. From what I was told the fell asleep within seconds of their heads hitting the pillows. In the mean time, I was still ripping flesh from bone with a vice grips and a wrench. Ahh, the memories this will make.

I dropped the quickly expiring battery into the Family Tank and bade my Mrs and Brother goodbye as they went off to get a new battery and do some shopping in the process. I still had work to do. Once again, it was time to stock up on firewood since I had emptied one of the brackets. There was no snow and the air was moderately chilly. Kept me from sweating out twice the volume of my precious fluids within the first few minutes of labor. We ended up with a 300$ utility bill last month and winter isn't nearly over yet. Nope, gotta keep up with the wood till the temps get above 60 on a regular basis. While I was fetching wood, Alexis started to wake up. I got her first and let her wander about the kitchen while Grams cooked some vittles for dinner. Shortly thereafter, Jacob woke and make his own way down to the kitchen. I've gotta remove the front panel from his crib soon. It's just too dangerous for the little mountaineer.

The Mrs and my Brother arrive back a the Manor and it is time to get dirty again. The new battery is the right size and we attempt to put it into place. Things to not go well. Saturn has some good design ideas but their battery mount was not one of them. We manage to snap off a plastic tab at the bottom of the battery support and had to wedge the metal screw retainer into a cross beam for it to hold up properly. Then, when trying to attach the screw to the engine compartment, the head snaps off. In the end, we manage to get 2 out of the 3 securing devices applied and decide that this should be enough. What a mess. I do not expect to have to change this battery for another 5-8 years. By that time, I expect the Super Saturn to be well beyond 250K miles and probably a lot closer to the junk yard. I'm still waiting for my Reardon Metal Flying Hybrid Assault Tank. In any event, once the battery was secure, we set to the task of loading onto the truck the two leather sofa's that were rotting in the basement. The Mrs and I were not using these so we figured that they could be put to better use in my Brother's new apartment. Getting them out of the basement (level 3b) and into truck was not very difficult. Wrapping them in the plastic that would eventually disintegrate was the interesting part. There was lots of tape involved and it is unfortunate that the end result did not prevent some water/snow getting on the seats. In the end, they could be easily wiped off and we have transferred assets from the Haupertonian Empire HQ to our of our Northern outposts that needed it.

We had a quick dinner of Swedish meatballs with pasta that SuperMom had spent the day putting together. I skipped the meatballs. The kids enjoyed the egg noodles with the cream sauce as much as I did. We should have enough for a few more meals. Our most welcome and beloved visitors left just before 1800 to make their way home before the predicted snowfall arrived. We distracted the kids so they would not be excessively distressed over the departure. They will be searching the guest rooms for our absent family the next morning, that is a given. The snow started at 2000, right about the time we go through the nightly routine with the Noble Resistance. They were not too difficult but made sure we paid dearly for trying to dress them. The snow falling in the mean time was a light, fluffy snow at first that tailed off by the time we were done with the kids. It appeared that we were only going to get a dusting not even worthy of note. A few hours later, we got a call from our Northward bound company that they had been delayed by a full force blizzard in the Pocono Mountains. It stuck with them all they way to NY and had sucked up at least 90 minutes of their time. I guess they could have stayed the night after all since they didn't beat the storm. I think the kids would have agreed!

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 2:47 PM