White Lightning Axiom: Redux

I had plans to write an elaborate dissertation about what I did with the family this weekend. Really, all it boils down to is me moving the 5 tons of sand that was dumped on the Grand (drive)Way sometime Friday afternoon. You may remember that I ordered 5 tons of it Friday morning and was told that it might be there by Saturday ... they were managing my expectations. So, I had my work cut out for me. Unfortunately, the Mrs returned home late so I had to do a majority of the work in the twilight hours. Managed to get 20% of it (1 ton) hauled off to the sand-pit before the sun finally set and the skeeters came out to drive me away. Oh, yeah. I did not mow the lawn. It's been a bit toasty of late and it did not grow much. Good for me, bad for the lawn.

The next day was ... well, Saturday. The day when I rest (PHAAA!) and recharge. I got up early enough to make bacon, toast and eggs for the Mrs and Kids. After that, it was off to the swim club for the kids lessons and for me to sit in the pool area (sweltering hot) and read a bit from Atlas Shrugged. Yeah, the first book I read for pleasure in years and I pick one with 2 pixel font and 1200 pages. Yesh! The Mrs, since she has sneakers, went off to run a bit and muck about on the exercise machines. Good for her. Perhaps she will get her college years figure back ... good for me! :) The kids did well with their new teen-age girl instructors. The two that are in favor this week were treated to the Twin Tyrants of Turpitude "I'm an independent thinker" show and spent a lot of time chasing after them in the pool. The instructors, Lori and Nicole, I think learned a lot more about kids than the kids learned about swimming.

Since we had breakfast before swimming (hush, I know the rule but it was well before they even entered the water), we were going to skip the regular outing for pancakes after the lessons. I was interested in heading up to Rt 1 to Gassiteria Row to fill the tank in the SuperSaturn at 2.81$/gal. Between the Swim Club of Uncomfortable Heat and the Gas Station of Cheap Fuel, there was a VW dealership. Today, they were having a massive sales event in the parking lot of KMart. Oh, the fickle fates were conspiring against us though. As it turns out, we spoke to a suitably 'hip' young lady by the name of Dara Gaddis who was sad to inform us that in the sea of vehicles, they had only 1 Passat TDI available and finding used ones was nearly impossible.

Ok, I wrote a TON more but Blogger ate it. I'll type it in, but I need to go stomp my feet for a bit.

We put our names on the VW wish-list in the hopes that they would be able to locate a used model with less than 25K miles. That, or put us at the front of the line waiting for the new TDI models that seem to be on perpetual wait status. We put our names down and collected a few balloons for the kids along with a two cups of popcorn which were thoroughly enjoyed.

We had an lunch-date scheduled with Chris and Michele over on the Main Line. They are 3rd cousins of mine that we rarely get to visit. We are expected at 1230 so we leave at about 1115 just in case we hit traffic. There was no traffic, of course. It takes all of 40 minutes to get there leaving me with a dilemma: What to do for 40 minutes. It was fortunate that the SPCA was having an animal adoption fair on the corner of the last road leading up to our destination. Oddly enough, it's right across from the John Harvard's brew pub that I frequent with my coworkers. In any event, the kids got to prance about with puppies, bunnies, kitties and a horse. A larger animal, a Mastiff, was also present much to Jacob's amusement. No small dog but it was rather intrigued by the fact that Jacob just strode up to him and started petting him. Most people avoided it either because of it's size or the oceans of slobber it was depositing wherever it laid. There was also a moon-bounce shaped/patterned like a dalmation so the kids HAD to get into that for a few minutes. It was probably a good idea for us to let them burn off a little energy before we went over to our final destination, the kids can be so destructive when they are cooped up for too long.

After we burned some time at the impromptu animal-fare, we zipped on over to the Bradford/Nieland's house where they had set out a nice spread of sandwiches, cookies, watermelon and chips. All the good stuff that kids love to eat. The house is smaller than the Manor, which was a good fit for the neighborhood and had sufficient space for one more addition to their family. The back-yard was a dream though. Well shaded with an apple tree in one corner with bushels of ripe apples on the ground and clinging to low-hanging branches. We spent a good 3 hours there before it was nap-time for their one-year old toddler. Relation-wise, she is the 5th cousin of the twins. We don't keep in touch with them as much as we would like, but hopefully now that they are out of that difficult first year things will change a bit. Chris is doing the artist thing and seems to be making it work for him. He gets to spend a lot of time with their daughter which is always good. His efforts usually require him to attend evening gallery showings so it meshes nicely. They are near a train station so Michele can take Mass Transit into Philly where she works. A good fit all around. Oddly enough, they live a few houses down from where the JrPM whom I've been working with for a few years lives with her Beau. Small world. She mentioned that when they pass by my cousin's house, they admire his art-work through the upper window. I'll have to mention this to Chris to make up for my quip about his work. While we were eating lunch, Alexis need to blow her nose and I told her to give the Kleenex to Chris afterwards so he could get some ideas for his next great work.

On the way back to the manor, the kids passed out in the SuperSaturn. They needed a nap so I took it low and slow. Since they were out cold, I stopped off at the local Home Depot Temple to pick up a few things. First off, I needed just 6 more blocks for the retaining wall. I really want to get this out of the way. I also grabbed a few mums and some fan parts for the attic fan. I'm going to try to replace the motor next weekend when the Parental Units come down. If I can just replace the motor, it would be a significantly less costly and painful effort than if I had to replace the entire system. Not as expensive as my last trip, thank goodness. When we got back to the Manor, the kids woke up the minute the engine spun down and were completely recharged by their short nap. I, of course, would not be playing with them today. No, I spent most of my time and energy shoveling about 50% of the mountain of sand. That's the easy part. Transporting it to the sand-pit through the dog-poop minefield was the taxing phase of the engagement. Why did I not pick up the poo before starting? Because I could not find it among the carpet of leaves that had begun to fall from the trees. Argh ... I stepped in some. Time to get out the leaf-blower.

After expending nearly every spoon I had left, I threw in the towel and went inside to clean-up. One last activity for the night; BBQ 48 pieces of chicken for the Mrs. I made a delectable sauce for the thighs and drumsticks that the Mrs found to be most intriguing. When I told her that I made it from several bottles of mostly empty sauces in the fridge, she became despondent. I would never be able to replicate the recipe. Such are the peccadillos of my cooking. She should be happy with the result for a few weeks though since the first 5 pieces never made it through the weekend.

On Sunday, we stayed a bit closer to home. A desirable concept in so much that I was able to finish up the sand excavation and transportation effort. I need to develop psionics so I can do this mentally, my body aches. While the kids were busy burying themselves in the heaping mounds of sand, I went ahead and planted the pots of flower I bought to give them some time to set down roots. I also managed to raze the rows of beans in the agricultural sector and dump half of the compost heap on the top layer in preparations for tilling. All that is left in the garden is the tomatoes and carrots. Then, it TILLIN' TIME!

I was going to set out some pots and do some prep-work to get ready to take the plants in for the winter. You know, the plants that don't winter over well here in Pennsyltucky. Not quite tropical here. In any even, the Mrs took the kids out shopping with her so I would not be tripping over the two little conspiratorial daemons. She returned rather abruptly. Turns out that Alexis got travel-sick ... big time. I pretty much spend the rest of the daylight hours helping her clean up a few thousand gallons of curdled milk. This involves a hose and stripping down the booster seat. Not simple tasks when your hands are slick from stomach acid. Yetch. I wrap that up, take yet another shower and call it quits. Sure, I cook a pan of rice for the kids but anything involving conscious effort is no longer on the list for the rest of the night. I'm just plumb exhausted. After the kids go to bed, I open the windows in the Temporary Master Suite and immediately pass out. Thank God it's Monday.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 7:31 AM