White Lightning Axiom: Redux

The terminus of the 'free wheeling' weekend has come to me like a lost hive of bees looking for a suitably spent reservoir in which they can deposit the fruits of their labor. I'm drained, replenish me with loads of sticky, syrupy energy plz. Of course, the terminus came but the syrupy energy did not. Instead, I have the beginnings of a head cold thanks to my two little disease carriers. Alexis has been brewing some nasty upper respiratory nastiness for some time now and Jake just picked it up. I'm starting to feel a little nasal congestion so it is only a matter of time. I think Last week's support bizarroland travels may have opened up my wacky immune system to the invasion. Stephen knows what I mean. It was nice to ditch the support phone on Friday, but I do not think I'll be able to throw off the damage it did for some time.

Let's talk about the nice things of last Friday though, eh? Yes, it was the end of my support duty till Christmas ... gha, one could hope that it goes well over that Holiday! I picked up the Tyrants early on Friday so we could do the work-place trick-or-treat thing. They loved it! Hundreds of stops for candy and all of them no more than 6 feet apart. Three buildings, thee floors each, all connected by tunnels. It's a diabetic nightmare. After the pillaging of candy-land, we went off to TSD where I was allowed to participate (NO PHONE!) and by proxy, the Tyrants had to behave or I would snap them back into line. The following day, were were planning to go to Sesame Place ... for more Trick-or-Treat activities. Mercifully, this did not happen because of the downpour of rain. We need the rain, but I need to rake leaves and mow the lawn and do all kinds of out-door stuff. So, the Mrs and I slumbered away till noon ... except when I had to get up and prepare the kids breakfast ... and let the dogs out ... and feed them. Oh, then there was that pesky lunch thing. Wait ... did the Mrs let the Cybernetic Mammoths out? Both the long term and short term memory sticky-goo was powered down to the bare minimum. I'm probably lucky I did not end up wandering the streets in my underwear, a hat and my boots.

Sunday fared a bit better. Sunday School at 1000 hours, then off to the Produce Junction to pick up inexpensive veggies for my lunch during the week. After that, Home Depot to buy a sheet of dry-wall. And yes, I actually used the stuff to patch the two holes in the wall behind the Master Bath Shower/Decon chamber. Left a bit of a mess behind, but a quick swipe with the vacuum will clear that up. Finishing that, I mowed the lawn (and thusly, cleaned up the leaves) without the power assist on the mower. I need to pick up that belt but forgot to when I was at the local Home Depot Temple. I can get so single minded at times. In the act of mowing the front pastoral expanse, one of the lids on the sprinkler system got sucked up and chopped to bits leaving a giant hole in the ground. I'll need to put something over that soon or some children will get swallowed up on the 31st. The last thing I need is for a bunch of well meaning rescue personnel to start digging up the yard only to find the previously hidden skeletons of Jimmy Hoffa, Elvis's first clone and some left-over bits of Ark. Speaking of arks ... the Mrs was so kind as to pick up the dog-dip and wash the hounds while I busied myself with other nonsense. Little stuff, like fixing the 'O' in Jacob's name on the Twin Towers , a mountain-range of laundry and spreading out the clippings in the garden. Standard fun-stuff. As a capper on Sunday, I carved out two of the 20,000 pumpkins for the Twins after they drew what they wanted them to look like. Next year, I'll insist that they carve out the guts themselves. They were less than enticed by that prospect this year. The Ever Ready Mrs took a pic of the two gored gourds, but had not posted them yet. Trust me when I tell you that the Tyrants were sufficiently pleased. And, on queue, since the jack-o-lanterns were ready, we got frost this chilly Monday morning. Perhaps I did finally mow the lawn for the last time this year. Perhaps.

Technorati Tags:Pumpkins | Weekend | Karate | Children | Home Repairs | Lawn | Rain | Fall

Labels: Children, Dodge Ball, Fall, Halloween, Home Improvements, Rain, Tang So Doo

Lots to jabber about since I waited a few days to blog. Weekends are like that, you know. Anyways, to the meat in the meal. Standard Friday Dodge-Ball smack-a-thon. Kids have fun, I stay off to the side and keep them from smashing full tilt into the walls. Of course, by the end of the evening I'm dripping with sweat anyways. More so since I've taken to protecting the masticated toe from any further damage. So, after I get home and take care of business (laundry, other such sundry tasks), I head off to take a shower. Wash away the grime and visceral remnents of work from my labor wracked body, eh? Well, the shower head was directed straight down from the previous evening when I let Jovial Jake take a shower. He likes it so much ... just sitting in the warm spray and soaking up the relaxing sensation. So I reach up and ... CRACK-SNAP! I rip the head and leader pipe right out of the wall. DAMMIT! There I am, standing in the stall with the shower head in one hand, soap all over me and a bewildered look on my face. Time to call the plumber because this is not something I'm going to fix. We needed the filter in the faucet handle replaced since the flow was restricted from the chunks of water heater I had to replace on Memorial day. But this .. ghaa! We are planning on having the shower stall fitted with a 'shell' like we did in the kids bathroom, but not till next year. The budget is not loose enough to afford that till the following summer. Best laid plans of men and mice. Looks like we'll be showering in the kids bathroom till after our Master Plumber gets some time (Wednesday at 7am) to look at the mess I made.

Saturday was mostly lawn work and prep for a party at the Policeman Butler's home in the afternoon. The kids enjoyed it, I drank too much. Ate tons of junk food, hung out with the Philly Cops ... good times. The weather was nice and there were TONS of kids so our little tyrants had a splendid time. Sunday: The usual. The kids are now registered for Sunday School even though I'll miss the first 2 weeks. the 7th and 14th ... we'll be out of state and all. (Hushed whisper) We are going to Disney. I fully expect the Twin Tyrants of Turpitude to fully explode. They know that the Grandparents will be down next weekend, but our mendacious ways are obscuring the real machinations behind this visit. On top of that, BigLittleBrother learned of a NASA rocket launch scheduled while we are down there. Then, the fireworks will REALLY get going. But, I digress and have said too much. The rest of the day of rest included mowing the lawn, cleaning up leaves, repotting house plants and potting some herbs from the garden beds. Added bonus, mosquito bites. Much itching ensued. So now, I have 4 different rosemary plants in the manor, some lemon grass and a lemon tree set to come in and 2 more pots ready for the French Tarragon and lavender. I have yet to collect the seeds from the hostas (plantation lilies), garlic chives and morning glories. So much to do, so little daylight. I think I need a 3 day weekend instituted. Re-arrange the whole damn calender while we are at it. 360 days in a year, 30 days a month, 4 weeks a month, 20 work days, 10 'other stuff' days. You think it'll fly at the UN? I'll bet Hugo Chavez would go for it. Such a fickle twit would love to abrogate a universal standard. A pronunciamento of this nature would certainly fit in with recent bombastic rants. He is starting to sound more like me every day. Of course, the Mrs has to deal with the fall out of this kind of thing, think Microsoft and VCR times. Yeah, major suckage.

Speaking of suckage, on Monday I found the HP-Hostile woman had parked her car in the slot again. The kids asked me if I were going to write her a note. I said no, that would be like putting lipstick on a pig. A lot of effort and it would still be a pig. I'm kinda hoping they repeat that if we see her next time. But I'm not going there right now ... I think I'm going to have a talk with the staff there and see if they are interested in putting up either a HP sign or a no parking sign ... or even a sign stating that parking here will result in a fine, towing or application of some really gaudy lipstick.

Technorati Tags:Fall | Karate | Gardening | Plumbing

Labels: Banalities, Fall, Gardening, Plumbing, Weekend