White Lightning Axiom: Redux: Weekend in the Rear View Mirror

Monday, June 25, 2007

Weekend in the Rear View Mirror

It's been a few days since I've sat down in front of the old teletype and rattled off some nonsense. Of course, it's been busier than an ADD bee hive in coffee plantation around the Manor of late. Let's step WAAAAYYYY back to Thursday night and start from there. You see, my support phone duty was in it's last 24 hours so by the nature of things, 100% of the calls should come in in the last 12 hours or so. And such was the case. Worst thing bout these calls is that they went from being a minor inconvenience that could be worked on in the morning to a total system failure because people could not leave well enough alone. After resolving the first of these man-made disasters, I was so tweaked I went up and finished sanding the floor in Jakes room. This leads to another interesting twist. Now that the room is nearing completion, Jake is OVERJOYED and Alexis is upset. She does not want to be alone. Or, more likely, she does not want to be left with nobody to boss about.

Thursday night, Attila ... err, Alexis was rather grumpy. She has had a really nasty case of allergies of late and the energy expended on clearing her throat and getting a decent deep breath has exhausted her by the time I pick her up in the evening. On top of that, the Tyrants are no longer put down for naps in the afternoon. The synergistic effect is crushing. Once I had powered down the Light Fission Plant in the POS Super Saturn, I told her to go right to bed. She pouted and stomped her feet the whole way into her bed ... then about 2 minutes later she was sawing wood like Paul Bunyan had always dreamed he could. So, I let her nap and we skipped Karate while Jake played his little heart out in the Sand Pit and on the Driveway. No lack of sweat matted hair there! Later that night, Alexis wandered back down with her own version of bed-head and dove into her dinner plate with much gusto. The sleep was much needed and adjusted her attitude greatly.

Speaking of attitude ... mine was fairly piss poor by Friday Morning. I had already passed on the support phone of pain but the case I had handled the previous night went from mundane to China Meltdown Critical. The technical staff ... well, they really screwed the pooch earlier in the day. Every time they tried to fix what they had done, it got worse. In the end, I made a recommendation that they get things back in operation before resuming pursuit of the original issue. It turns out, that my suggestion of making sure that the programs were set for execution (made runnable) was the correct path. Saved us a day of nonsense. This, of course, belayed my departure by hours and I did not get to do all the things I wanted to complete that afternoon. That whole 'land war in Asia' thing ... had to let it go. Pissing into the wind got knocked off the list too. I did, however, get a haircut. I strolled on in, sat down in the chair, the barber walked up and with a single twist of his hand, enshrouded me in that barbers bib and went to work. No question, he knew what to do. Quarter inch on the sides, half inch on top; flat-top. It's the little things in life that can turn a day from utter crap to a glowing field of serenity. I'm fortunate that I'm simple minded enough that this is one of my key-stones. Having someone know what kind of haircut I like and doing it correctly. It's a bizarre scene right out of Atlas Shrugged.

On to other grand events; the Mrs ordered the wall paper for Jovial Jakes room. Sketches of trains ... oh, his head will explode for certain. On Saturday, she vaccumed up all the sanding dust and I proceeded to get down on my hands and knees to ... (no, not worship her, that's not noteworthy or unique) ... scrub and clean the floor with mineral spirits. Ghaaa, talk about a contact high. Then I put the 1st coat of polyurethane on ... now there's a quick way to kill a few million brain cells. Or at least, make sure that my efforts to do the wash is scuttled by 'The colors .. the colors...'. I also wrapped up the molding and chair rail work in the garage along with the last of the door jambs that needed to be coated. Getting this work over the last yard has been a real hurdle for me. Of course, having Attila and Genghis pinging me every 5 minutes to see if I was 'done' does nothing to bring the task along. I was so distracted at one moment that I turned about sharply and knocked over the hand-bucket of polyurethane I was working with and splattered about a quart of it all over the floor. Fortunately, it was the garage and I intend on having the floor coated with a Vulcanized rubber coating some day. After spilling a bit from my 5000 gallon reserve, I found that I was actually almost out of the viscus fluid. So, Off to the Local Home Depot Temple. There, I found, the no longer carry the precious gold coating in 5 gallon barrels any longer. And they only had 4 1 gallon cans left, of which one was rather abused. Scrunched and all, I bought them (friggen 32$ a can!) and shuttled them back to the manor through the rampaging mobs of ethyl crazed DYI shoppers rioting over the lack of glossy finish oil based pro polyurethane. Escaped with my hide, I did. I believe that the remainging 4 gallons should be more than adequate to finish the job.

Sunday came early, and with a massive fumes induced headache. I heaved my languid and torpid body from the warm embrace of the bed and lumbered into full automaton mode. I was taking the Twin Tyrants to the 'early' mass for church this Sunday. It's not truly the earliest mass available ... there is one at 0700. We are attending the 0830 services. We usually attend the 1000 Family Mass. There is a very pronounced difference in the attendees. They were all packed into the front pews with very few worshipers arriving after the last bell tolled. The allure of the early mass may stem from the timing. It lasted a meager 45 minutes. Partly because everyone knew the drill and did not bumble about the communion lines ... partly because the parking situation was much more orderly. When we left, we were able to zip right over to the Dunkin Donuts shop and get our 1000 munchkins before you could say 'Go in Peace'. The children were still trying to shake off the morning sleep so were quite mild ... no frenzied combat in the pews this Sunday.

Since we were home before 1000 hours, I finished up the last of the wood-work in the garage and we all headed off for Sesame Place. It's about 20 minutes away and we have season passes ... the next trip is financially 'free'. Jakes floor was still too wet to sand so this was a much more attractive option. It was a rather enjoyable time. The Mrs and I got sun-burnt, the kids got exhausted. Even trade-off. Alexis even got a little moxie and went down some of the more 'aggressive' rides with me. Getting brave, that little one. While scooting about the crowds, the Mrs and I made some observations: The fellow merry-makers fell into 5 categories:

Individual adults (mostly) with tattoos/language that belong in a bar or adult book-store ( rogue Tourettes Syndrome? )
Adults wearing swimsuits that also fall into category #1 (this one was a primary beef of the mrs, I SAW NOOOTHINK!)
Pouring 5 quarts of mao in a 1 gallon jug - some ppl should not wear spandex suits (see above, my eyes melted)
Selfish Parents

This last one needs a bit of explanation. The first 3 are annoyances and somewhat of a minor moral deprecation. The final one is not that the parents are selfish in trying to provide the best for their own progeny at the cost of others, but rather, they are not interested in immersing themselves in parenting at the cost of their own children. The Mrs watched to adults argue over who should be changing the diaper of a 2 year old. The father, with a dirty diaper in one hand and a wipe in the other was bickering with the Mother. After a few minutes of this, the child got up and ran off. When the father turned to complete the task, the child was gone. He ran off to the mens room thinking the little one had escaped there, only to emerge from the building empty handed. He then had to prod the Mother to abandon her pressing activities to enter the womans rest facilities to search in what was forbidden territory for him. When the Mrs relayed this tale to me, we could only shake our heads. I do not recall an instance where we dithered about changing soiled clothing. It HAD to be done and finger pointing never got it done faster. I fear that a relationship proceeding so roughly at such an early stage is in dire need of a positive interjection. Going to public places like this makes me feel better about myself, but I weep for society.