Mystifying Yarns of Life in the Gateway To Happy Living!

Lurid Tales of Driveway Squatters, Embawassment, Frog Picks, Pure Drivel, Boy Hair, Studebakers, Loafers, Steak on the Grill, Successful Bird Housing, Teachers, and Miss Jennifer Gets Added to the List

Good Morning! To all of you Googleers searching for condi rice pics legs, or julie chen undressed, or traficant hairpiece, or the secrets of the illuminati, sorry to disappoint you but you have fallen across the threshold into the odd little world known as Possumblog, where nothing much ever happens, yet it inexplicably it all gets discussed with little regard for reason or logic.

So, then, Saturday I woke up.

Chapter Two

I kept having odd dreams of people talking right before I woke up. Just disembodied voices. How odd.

Reba got up and fixed the kids some breakfast and I got gussied up to take the older kids for their horseback riding lessons. I walked out of the bedroom and looked out the window at the top of the stair landing. Hmm, there’s a car in front of our house…and another…and anoth…and then some old guy…what the!… awwwww, for the love of monkeys, I had forgotten our stupid neighborhood was having a stupid neighborhood yard stupid sale. ::heavy sigh:: I suppose it was these fearful geriatric bargain-hunting corsairs who had spoilt my last good minutes of sleep by yammering outside on the sidewalk at SIX BLEEDIN’ O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING!

I went downstairs and Reba told me she was going to take Baby Fidget to the store with her and pick up important stuff such as laundry detergent while I took the other kids with me.

“‘kay.”

At this point, I’m still at that sort of caveman/coma patient state of wakefulness, so pretty much everything is reduced to grunts and loss of motor function. Mmmughn. Me need newspaper. Need good laugh. Me go out front door and not only does me find the street crammed with enough Crown Vics and Expeditions to start my own Ford dealership, I also find that someone had been gracious enough to park a long wheelbase Econoline van on our driveway right behind our van.

I go into full Curly Howard circuit overload—I walk out, stand there and huff hMM!, turn around on the front stoop, turn BACK around, look at van and put my hands on my hips, turn around ONCE MORE, go inside, fume, fuss, say a bad word, tell Reba we’ve been invaded, realize I don’t have my newspaper, go back out the door, go get my paper, conspicuously look at giant white contractor’s van, look across street, huff, put hands on hips again, turn around, step on stick, say bad word, go inside, go through garage and open garage door (thinking that my previous performance had been too subtle), walk out, stand there (now with the added dimension of a wife ready to go to the store and a feral five year old), think a bad word (big ears, little pitchers and all), then decide to take action. I walk next door and ask Maria if any of her customers belong to the van. No luck. The only other possibility is three doors down, across the street. I walk over there and start asking various folks if they own the big white van across the street. Finally, I get a yes.

Mr. Van Owner—“Yeah, that’s mine!” Mr. Van Owner is all that one could stereotypically hope for. A face which would have been a wonderful case study for a late-19th Century criminologist—‘You see here the small, close-set eyes which indicate no small amount of mental retardation especially when correlated with the cranial capacity of a rhesus monkey;’ scraggly beard, big 1980s plastic eyeglass frames, lovely blue t-shirt stretch tautly over the perfect sphere of his belly (some people have six-pack abs—he had a Party Ball strapped on), size 32 blue jeans tightly cinched underneath the prodigious globe of his size 52 gut and across his non-existent buttocks. Quite the looker, he was.

“Yeah, I didn’t think I’d be over here so long—you know how it is.”

What I wanted to say—

“Why yes, Mr. Face Which Looks Like My Ass After Sitting Naked on a Chenille Bedspread for an Hour, I know exactly how lost in time one can become as he paws through the effluvia of suburbia’s richness, coming up with treasures such as a two-shelf particle board bookcase which is only missing two shelves, or maybe even a bristle-less brush for only 10 cents! Yes, the marvels of it all are quite enrapturing!

What I said—

“Yeah, I reckon so.”

We got back into my yard and he started getting in. “I’ll go ahead and move her on out now.”

What I wanted to say—

“Oh, please, take you own sweet time, Mr. Inconsiderate Nose-Picking Chimp-Sucking Penile Wart, I enjoyed having to track your large, greasy self down, and even now I am entertaining thoughts of asking you to wildly spin doughnuts across my yard in order for you to have some small additional amusement. Next time you’re in the neighborhood, feel free to park anywhere, take a crap in my mailbox, and roll your sweaty, naked body on my welcome mat!”

What I said—

“Okay—thank you for moving it.”

With the flight deck thus cleared for takeoff, lovely Reba and Baby Girl sojourned forth to the supermarket, as I retired below decks for to read my newspaper. I sat down at the kitchen table and the phone rang. It was Reba on the cell phone, complaining about the slow-moving traffic all the way out of the neighborhood (along with small old people wandering slowly into her path with broken lamps) and laughing about what Cat had to say about all of the goings-on. Looking out at the mess, the Tiny Sage is reported to have indignantly said, “AH!! Dis is jus SO embawassin’! Alls these cars is jus an emBAWASSMENT to our neighbahood!”

Amen, sister.

Act Five

The horseback riding lesson went very well this time, and they finally got to do some real work. They learned how to groom their ponies and had to put on all their tack before the lesson, which was good for them. Poor Jonathan had some trouble, mainly because he was the shortest, and all the tack probably outweighed him by a good ten pounds. He also got stepped on a couple of times while cleaning his pony’s hooves. Rebecca seemed to really enjoy the grooming part, and related in detail the combing and brushing and fly spraying, and went out of her way to tell about all the gross stuff that comes out of their hooves with the pick. Thanks, sweetie.

While all this was going on, I sat and finished reading my paper on the bleachers outside and tried not to eavesdrop on the two women next to me talking about letting their daughters date. Their girls are eleven years old. (!) I just kept reading my paper, and thankfully, they seemed to be able to conclude that eleven was a bit too young to really be dating.

“So, Man With Four Kids, what do you think?” (And yes, she actually did call me that—she had asked before if I would mind if she changed her baby’s diaper and I said, “It’s fine—I’ve got four kids. And I don’t think anything is going to smell worse than all this horse poop.”)

“Hmm? I’m sorry? Think about what?”

“What do you think about what we were talking about, about girls dating? How old is your oldest?”

“Well she’s twelve, and I really don’t have a problem with it, because I figure she has about eighteen more years to go before she’s thirty.” They both chuckled and said their husbands said the same thing.

Right sane fellows, I say. Of course, I know that in just a few years there is probably going to be a skinny, nervous young guy with stupid hair and funny fitting clothes who has been told to be sure and come to the door and ring the bell and NOT sit on the driveway and honk the horn, and I will invite him in for a minute to chat and drink a Coke and absolutely terrorize him as I explain the subtle nuances of the lethal variants of Filipino martial arts, and about those voices I sometimes hear, and about the grenade I still have lodged near my pancreas, and here’s twenty bucks--be nice, drive slow, and have her home by eleven.

So, speaking of kids and horses, they finished up their grooming and heavy lifting after about an hour, then rode for another hour. It still amazes me to see how much confidence Jonathan has on a horse. He rides like he’s been doing it since birth—the girls are good, too, but since they are older and bigger, they seem more like they would be in control—but Boy is so little compared to the animal, it just seems implausible that he could make them do anything. They all did fine and were worn slap out afterwards, which is usually a good thing. We stopped off at Sonic and got them some food, and some for Mama and the Tyke, not knowing that Mom had already cooked a nice lunch for all of us, since she didn’t know we were going to be gone for two hours.

Oops.

Section F, Part 5a.3

I tried as best I could to smooth this over, but even with all of my suavitude, it was very difficult—much as when I try to get her not to be mad at me for something stupid I did in one of her dreams. It takes awhile, and usually involves much mewling and groveling and singing “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” like Elvis. (Never fails to raise a nice crop of goosebumps, especially if accompanied by softly breathing on her neck.) After she was satisfied that the delay was unintentional and not the result of hanging around with Sonny and Colonel Tom and the boys, it was time to review the rest of the day’s agenda, which included: taking Ashley by the library to cash in her summer reading points (didn’t know about that one), returning various bits of Pyrex and Corningware to her mom (didn’t know about that one), soccer registration (forgot all about that one), going to Books-A-Million as some sort of promised reward for the kids for being literate (didn’t know about that one), a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond for bedspreads for the younger girls (vague recollections of this, tried to forget it), church shoes for Boy (still can’t believe this one—we just bought some and they’re already too small), and get him a hair cut (spur of the moment thing—he’s starting to look ragged and wooly.) So, off we all went, AGAIN.

Library—Took over an hour. Nearly three hundred points, representing nearly twenty hours of reading, and she had to redeem them for knickknacks and doodads and gimcracks that cost 2 or 3 or 5 points. She wound up getting a big box of…more books.

Bakingware—Returned successfully.

Soccer registration—Got the three youngest ones registered, despite the fact that we showed up a bit late and were half-jokingly told that since we were holding things up, we would have to volunteer for something at the soccer club. “I volunteer to give you this check, which blows a giant hole in our checking account.”

Bedspreads—Bought two; received rueful look from Reba when I said, “Yes, they look very nice—wonder how one of them will look with a giant yellow pee stain in the middle.” ::sigh::

Wise men say, only fools rush in,
But I can’t help falling in love with you.

Books—They got some, but I spent most of the time in the van with the human equivalent of an injured howler monkey. Except for the short visit back inside Books-A-Million for her to…yep, go to the restroom. On the way out, picked up Steve Martin’s book Pure Drivel. Nice fun, but it’s no Cruel Shoes. Sorry, Steve. (It’s also interesting to note in the credits that “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” is not mentioned. What an inexplicable oversight.)

Hair cut—Boy now looks like a boy.

On the way out of the shopping center, we noticed that the Trussville Cruise-in was going on in the parking lot. I got to drive slowly through the aisles and reminisce about my own good times as a car show dude. (1969 AMX—the two seater, not a Javelin—390 4bbl, 315hp, bright red, went like stink, would swap ends if the weatherman said “rain.”) One of these days, when the kids are older, I might try my hand at it again, but at least for now it was fun to look. Most of these guys were not doing this for concours—these were mostly street cars with a bit of the street still on them—just something fun to play with. The mix was eclectic, to say the least, with lots of the cars that languish on back lots with “Collector’s Dreme” written across the windshield in white shoe polish—a few GM hunchbacked sedans from the ‘40s, a few muscle cars, some in the wrong colors (in particular, a screaming yellow ’67 Goat that was just icky), some early ‘50s Lincolns, a couple of Studes, including one ’53 or ’54 Starliner coupe (not the hardtop) in a frightening two-tone green—the bottom was Gerber Strained Asparagus with Chlorophyll and the top was Bright Vomit. Definitely NOT the thing to take to South Bend for the reunion. Anyway, it was neat to see all the cars.

Shoes—Went to Wal-Mart. Boy now has shoes that fit. Further disappointed female side of family by saying NO to allowing Catherine to get her ears pierced. “You need that like you need another hole in your head!” Which made the counter lady chuckle. But not the girls.

Like a river flows, surely to the sea

Then back home for supper, which consisted of some very nice brontosaurus steaks on the grille, and salad, and asparagus with chlorophyll. While cooking, I noticed that the bluebird house that Jonathan had put together now has a resident. And that I needed to refill the bird feeders. And that we were almost out of bird seed. And that AN ANIMAL in the garage had been tearing at the sack. And that the less said about potential murine infestation, the better. Eek, as they say.

Dinner was fine, and we finally managed to get the kids all scrubbed and into bed and ready for Sunday.

Article XXIV

Sunday was pretty good—all of my teachers showed up, and the problem children were unusually quiet. It must have been my whispering through the door that I was Satan. In any event, services were uplifting and free of Tiny Girl mayhem, at least until the last few minutes. Then it was on to Ashley’s grandparents (Reba’s former in-laws) where we had lunch and dropped off Ashley for a week. Which is just about enough time to schedule the reprogramming sessions. ::sigh:: Less said about that the better, too.

Left early to get Cat to her pony lesson, and as soon as we got home to change, the bottom dropped out and we got another round of big slop buckets of rain. No Pony Pals. Sad little girl. Oh well. Rested a bit and went on back up to the church building, put together a plastic storage cabinet for one of the classrooms, helped open up and turn on the lights, and heard a nice sermon from a guy we are supporting in preaching school. Sat on the back row with a couple whose kids don’t sit still and are never quiet. ::sigh:: Despite my palaver about them, my kids really are very well behaved, especially when compared to just about anybody else’s I know (except for those mind-control people in the dark glasses). Somehow, the parents of all the unruly kids just don’t understand why their kids run screaming around the building and tearing up stuff and running over the little old people. Then they go back to chatting and visiting with everyone while their spawn continue their reign of terror.

Oh well. Time for supper.

We stopped off for our usual visit at Ruby Tuesday’s, and thankfully got the pretty and super nice Miss Jennifer. She was great as always, both with the service and just talking about stuff in general—mostly about everything in the preceding paragraphs—kids, grandparents, life. (She needs to start her own waitress blog.)

And then to home, and to bed for everyone, including Mom and Dad.

Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I can't help falling in love with you

(And despite the fact that Mom and Dad didn’t go right to sleep, I am very refreshed this morning.)
posted by Terry at 1:04:00 PM