Boy.Imp is going to be soooo disappointed this year

Before we get to that, I arrived home around 11:45pm from work last night and found boy.imp asleep on the couch cushions on the floor of the family room while wife.imp cruised the internet. What has been the usual sleeping arrangement (both imps sharing girl.imp's bed) appears to have come to a crashing halt last night when girl.imp kicked b.imp out of her room and slammed the door shut.

But it worked out in the end as both imps were asleep, I went and tucked b.imp into g.imp's bed!

hahahaha--and woke up this a.m. with him squeezed inbetween myself and wife.imp. This arrangement is b.imp's preferred as he gets the middle and I end up 1/2 on and 3/4 off the edge of the mattress.

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So I am driving b.imp to the sitter's this a.m. and he starts the following conversation:
b.imp: Daddy, guess what? While mommy was talking with Ate Ayi, she took my shirt off and she took my pants off and my underwear...

me: mmmhmmmm

b.imp: and then she almost put me in the shower with my socks on!!

me: wha? hahahaha

b.imp: ok, be we should not laugh at her anymore. She'll get grumpy again...

Back to Christmas Gifts that are not to be:

Grandma took one look at this idea for a Christmas gift for boy.imp and harshed on my ongoing high:

NO WAY!!

So instead of boy.imp getting this fabulous Engine from www.DiscoveryStore.com, I'll have to settle for getting him a Red Rider BB gun!

The Rivalry is Not Dead!

For several years now, I have been a proponent of supporting the 'team up North' until the week of 'The Game'. At which time, recently, I have taken a great deal of satisfaction in Buckeye wins.

But watching the 'boys in blue' lose in November is no longer good enough. Not when they are responsible for girl.imp's having to seek therapy while still in pre-school!

Yep, the 'Team with the Ugly Hats' is going to pay for my baby's bi-weekly, hour-long sessions!

How did this happen? Much like anything else, it all started so innocently:

g.imp: I'm going to have to root for Michigan!
me: WTF??
g.imp: yeah, I have to root for Michigan because their team's colors are the same colors for my school.
me: No, no, nononononono! You don't HAVE to root for them...
g.imp: Yes, I do. We have the same colors.
me: Well, you better not let your grandfather or uncles here you say that. Otherwise they'll tell me that I have to take you out to the backwoods somewhere and leave you...

Approx 30 seconds later the wailing started and g.imp collapsed into a sobbing heap and refused to move.

And, yes, I blame Michigan!

We think that we finally have a stable internet connection here at the Playground

But it took a really bad day to get something this good.

Yesterday was a definite Thonday (a Thursday that masquerades as a Monday) for us. It started when we awoke to discover that we had overslept. Has anyone tried to scare their imp into getting ready for school faster?

"Honey, wake up! We're late for school! We HAVE to leave in 5 minutes"

and find yourself 15 minutes later saying:

"Don't worry about brushing your teeth and tie your shoes when you get down the stairs! Geesh! I'll have to miss every red light (something that Karma does not even consider allowing to happen) if we even have a chance to beat the bell. Come on! Just wear the one shoe and hop through the grass to the car!"

But I have found the light, it only costs $$:

"Honey, wake up! We're late for school. If you hurry we can stop for chocolate milk and doughnuts."

Later wife.imp calls and tells me New Babysitter is not home so she is bringing boy.imp home so that I can take him back. She arrives home at the same time my uncle arrives to discuss work issues. So I pack everyone up, minus wife.imp, and go back to NB's house. Nobody home.

I find out later she had a previous apptmnt (that she had told us about).

Then the cable/internet folks run past the scheduled morning appt. In fact, they were so late that I had to push the repair woman out the door (and it was hard because she was making great progress on rewiring the cables in the house) to go get girl.imp from school.

That effectively kept me from doing practically everything I had planned. Except for getting new books on tape for the car.

Today was a day for phone calls, phone calls and more phone calls.

Which reminds me, I might have won (even though I have not entered any contests for years) a new Caddilac Escalade! I am waiting for them to call me again so that I can tell them the Caddy is not for me and that I would like an 8-year-old Toyota Corolla.

Remind me to talk, at some time, about wife.imps Pythagorean Theorem for 'Optimal Parking at Work'

Around 'The Playground'

Are your imps tired? Do they barely manage to drag themselves from the bus to the door after a long day of school? Are they finding it hard to bring the spark of life back to the afternoon's glazed-eyed, 1,000-yard stare?

Well Grandma.imp has the solution for you! Yes, this will cure the early fall blues, put the spring back in the imps' steps and is guaranteed to raise thier GPA's by 20 points!

What is this miracle cure? This magical suppliment that will put the Ying back in their Yang?

In other news:

We have been trying to get boy.imp to stop wiping his face (tonight he was eating spaghetti) on his shirt front.

me: Use your napkin! I mean, have you been raised in a barn?

b.imp: what's a raisen?

I arrived home tonight after a long day of, necessary but, drudgery work and wife.imp asks me to finish cutting the French Loaf that she was going to use to make Garlic Bread.

and why was I being asked to slice bread?

because she pulled a muscle in her left arm while slicing the self-same loaf!

My cousin turns 21 soon. She is in (what will be soon called a 'serious' relationship). However she is taking things slow because she has no intrest in producing offspring:

Cousin: I aint going to have no baby coming out of my vagina...

me: well, that narrows the options a bit...I mean that is how they get in, in the first place...

Home Improvements...

So this has been my summer and going into the projected fall we have more ambitious projects:


This is the 5th time painting the master bath in the past 4 years...


I would turn around and show you the view of the door, but I have to buy and install the door trim still...

Boy.Imp's room done in blue. (hint: tilt your head to the left)

An 'Across the Room' view of boy.imp's new digs...

Girl.Imp's room done in purple (my favorite room in the house right now. I really did a good job on the paint mix and application!)

There used to be a 1" wide crack in the paint running from floor to ceiling behind girl.imp's head. This room and the kitchen area used to be one room but when it was sectioned off, the contractor (ahem, father of my neighbor) did not tape off, nor mud the new wall prior to applying the paint.

So, how is your day going? - redux

It seems yesterday was not one of those days where I was to be 'on schedule'.

After picking girl.imp up late from school, and there is nothing more heartwrenching than watching your child walking across the deserted parking lot (I was 18 minutes late, and I would like to mention that every other day that I have picked g.imp up from school that parents wandered the parking lot for almost 20-30 minutes. Large groups, small groups but still groups and they seemed in no hurry to leave. The one day I'm late and tumbleweeds and an eerie whistle greet me when I arrive).

So anyway g.imp is walking from the school, the teacher, Mr. Sharpe, is behind her telling me that I am only a couple minutes late and that they just decided to go indoors--so no harm no foul. Apparantly he had not cleared this strategy with g.imp who began wailing, buckets of tears and snot washing from her face...

But honey, Mr. Sharpe said everything was ok!

Later I decided that wife.imp was not going to make it home before parent-teacher open house so I packed up the imps and went to Max and Erma's. Its one great attraction was that it is very near g.imp's school. And they have terrific chocolate chip cookies.

The downside? Max and Erma's do not recognize any schedule. Slow food preparation would be a kind description...but they were strategically located!

And were as slow as I remembered. We ordered kids meals: corn dog and mac'n'cheese and a sandwich, Roast Beef with Brie. It took over 20 minutes to prepare these dishes. 20 minutes for cheesy noodles to be scooped from a pot and for a breaded hot dog on a stick to be microwaved. I dare not guess where the found my roast beef. I think they ordered out.

Result was we left the restaurant with about 3 minutes to make the start of the school event (for which student attendence is discouraged). And after suffering through the staff introductions and short speeches, I was beginning to wish parent attendence was optional. One of the reasons I no longer work for the Fourth Estate is that covering organizational meetings, even those in which we were fed, was B-O-R-I-N-G!

One just cannot make them jazzy or interesting. This was no exception.

So we are shuffled to the individual classrooms. G.imp's room had the distinction of being voted the warmest room in the school and it showed. Cool air could only be acheived in that room if someone were to make an impertinent pass at one of the mothers. After about 10 minutes, I was considering the possibilities and this was around 8 p.m. I cannot begin to imagine how warm it is during the day when the temps average 95+F.

So, how is your day going?

Ours started off around 1 a.m. when I realized that we had ignored dishes for 11/2 days and that we probably ought to run the dishwasher. That being done, I went to bed and woke up around 5:30a.m. with the pressing need to spend time on the porceline throne, aaaaand after 10 minutes of staring at the empty towel rack (deciding it was time to do laundry today) I went back to bed.

Only to have my body bloat up again around 6:15. Same result.

Around 8a.m., wife.imp woke me up and informed me that today was a school day. I rushed to wake up girl.imp and get her started dressing, etc...I specifically told her how late we were to get her in panic mode (never happens and did not happen again today), then heeded my screaming bowels and spent a productive 10 minutes or so in the restroom.

On exiting I slipped on my flip-flops (God's gift for footwear) and found girl.imp sitting down to the table with a bowl of cereal and todays comics.

UMMMM, LATE?? We do NOT have time to eat.

I should have told her that we would be stopping for donuts and chocolate milk enroute because we suddenly had time for a full-fledged meltdown.

and tonight is open house when the parents get to meet the teachers. We should probably make the effort to arrive a little early...

Then we get home and I rush boy.imp through his breakfast (which meant squashing the slice of bananna bread flat and eating bananna pie--his treat for me) and running to the hardware store to return some items for other items. I only realized I left the returns in the car and that I would have to go back for them when our turn to move to the front of the Returns line came up.

After getting the new items boy.imp and I returned home to install (a 5-minute job at best) and I spent the next 30 minutes trying to fit a floor register into the whole in the bathroom floor (yes it was the correct size). I realized there is an aluminum sheathe in the floor's hole and it was bent, causing my problem. So I shifted my position, hunkering down to beat this problem into submission, when I lacerated one of my toes on a phantom object on the floor. Did not find the source and still don't know how I managed this trick but now I had a broken floor register (it now fits in the floor and looks pretty, as long as it does not need to be moved) and blood all over the floor.

Boy.imp just looked at my face and my foot and left the room closing the door after him. Smart boy.

Soooo, it is just past lunch time and I am looking for the rum and coke. Wanna come over for a glass or three?

Ok We're Back

and I have to admit that it helps keep peace in the family that when you visit the abode of a vacationing relative and pull a Fudgecicle from the freezer that one does not leave it sitting, forgotten and uneaten and slowly melting, on the dining room table.

It also helps to have other sibs visit said abode before the parents get back so that the mess can be discovered and cleaned before the homeowners can raise holy hell!

Thanks sis!


Well, it is finally here! The much 'anticipated' 20 year high school reunion for the Class of 1987 from good 'ole JGHS!

So we sent in our reunion fee and reserved an hotel room and then we get the following in the mail:

: "I wish to inform you that the 20 Year Reunion scheduled for ... at Salt Fork State Park has been cancelled (because all you bleeping hicks claimed you could not afford the fee, but if y'all just didn't purchase those 4 extra thick crust pies with douple pepperoni you'd've had plenty of cash available for the reunion - sorry, I added this part in parenthesis) due to lack of participation.

I'm sure there are a variety of reasons (the whole damn lot of ya' would rather be eating bologna and drinking Pabst while taking turns with the Magic Microphone (and its 1,000 songs) and sharing time on the broken foosball table than try anything that might further remove you from the keggers you enjoyed on the farm 20 years ago! - sorry, my thoughts again) that people cannot attend, but because there are so few that have responded, I have no choice but to cancel at this time...":

So, anyway we'll have to see how far we get on the 25th reunion...