Hey, guess what? I made it! (Barely) But, survived nonetheless. I think I was allowed to survive in order to go and warn the others.

Before I get cranked up, thanks to my new visitors who dropped by this weekend from Midwest Conservative Journal and Inappropriate Response and Mark Byron's blog and Ye Olde Blogge and Natalie Solent's blog and for Greg Hlatky's answer to my earlier inquiry about homophonic canines. I hope you all found something you liked, and that you visit again soon.

I'm sorry I'm not a weekend blogger, but there always seems to be something happening every weekend; vis.:

It was a dark and stormy night…wait, that’s not it—It turned out that the Saturday soccer action was a bit less like Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon and a bit more like Napoleon crossing the Niemen. All that planning and driving, yet both kids' teams lost by the identical scores of 3-2. The ignominy of it all! Oh, well, at least they had a good time. Rebecca is positioned as a sweeper, and she is pretty aggressive and likes playing defense. Jonathan likes getting out and running around flailing his arms like a windmill and watching the kids on the adjoining fields. Which is not necessarily bad, except when he does this while on the field playing the game. Thankfully, his powers of concentration are a step ahead of most of the other boys on the team, so it wasn't so bad.

As to the logistical challenge, there is always one thing left out of even the best plans, so the fog of war caused a slight hitch. I got finished with my meeting at church late so I got on the interstate and tried to beat it down to Shelby County, hoping to maybe catch everyone before they left the park, only to face a collision-induced mile-long traffic jam at the exit to Highway 119. I took the Highway 17 exit, figuring I would get around it one way or another. No dice, so I decided I would wait for everyone at my mom's house. Got there, walked in door, met my sister coming in the back door who said "You're supposed to be over at the park to meet your family." Explained about traffic jam and attempts to circumvent it, tried to raise my wife on the phone (not turned on), and confirmed once more with sister that they were indeed going to WAIT at the park.

Got back out and, of course, the jam had completely cleared. Raced over to Our Lady of the Valley and met scowling wife about to pull out of the driveway. "I thought you were going to meet us here." Explained for final time about traffic jam, reroute attempt, mom's house, cell phone not on, me being a complete idiot--and then we went back to Mom's, got out for about ten minutes, decided that there were insufficient vittles to feed everyone, so then we all packed up again and went to eat at a restaurant. An army travels on its stomach, you know.

Saturday was a beautiful, perfect spring day; although a young man's fancy may turn to thoughts of love, wives' thoughts turn to yardwork. During the ride over to the restaurant, I was informed that Lowe's has azaleas on sale, and how nice the back of the yard would look with a line of redbuds and crape myrtles across the back, and that after we get back to the house, a particular wife of mine might go over and see what Cedar Street Garden Shop has in the way of interesting, hernia-inducing stone things.

Convinced of my superior reasoning ability, I suggested that shopping was okay, but not to get anything to plant or tote today, seeing as how we still had an Alpine mound of clothes to clean and two somewhat soiled kids and two really soiled kids to bathe and feed. Continuing with the theme of ancient battles, let me just say that the part of Pyrrhus fits me well. She relented, but one other such victory would undo me!

Luckily, I have an extremely forgiving wife, so I was able to extricate myself from my straits with a tour of the grounds of lovely Maison d'Possum, in which we discussed the location of future plantings, future stacked rock planter beds, future water feature, future cricket pitch, future multiplex cinema, and the small hole into which I will be dumped when the old ticker squirts out of my chest. The rest of the day was uneventful—children bathed, fed, and bedded down for the night, with time to spare for me to vegetate and read a bit. I read one page of Rick Bragg's book Ava's Man and fell asleep. (When I say a bit, I MEAN a bit.)

Sunday—NO NAP FOR YOU! I didn't really try too hard this time—we still had to finish laundry, so it's not like I had settled in and gotten woken up, or had really expected to get one. But the dream still lives.

Church services were great, except for my odd habit of nodding off. I don't know what causes that. Fortunately, my five year old learned how to whistle this weekend, and decided to see what this sounded like in church. That'll wake you up. There are several reasons we sit toward the back, and our little one is the majority of them. At least she didn't start singing "Oops, I Did it Again." It was very embarrassing the last time it happened.

We are about to turn in now. All of the kids (except wild baby) are already in bed; Mama and I and the Caboose are watching the Oscars. I figure that for this thing, everybody's a critic, so I just don't even try to make a comment—someone else already beat me to it, and said it better than I ever could. I will note that we were finishing up supper when Cameron Diaz came out to present whatever award she was doling out. Every single kid said, "Eww, what's wrong with her hair?! Why didn't she brush it?! Why is she on TV like that?!" As I said, someone beat me to it, and said it better than I could.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. I'll see all of you bright and early tomorrow with an exciting new announcement regarding the Axis of Weevil!

Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering? Well, I think so, Brain, but I can’t memorize a whole opera in Yiddish.
posted by Terry at 10:22:00 PM