I hate staff meetings. Now then, I feel better.

Not really--whatever grotesque sinus packing the children brought home with them Friday they graciously decided to share with their poor befuddled dad, and so now I sit here with blurry vision, a dull, thudding echo between my ears, and great gobs of viscous humours which only drain with gravity. Attempts to forcefully expel them into various bits of paper or the atmosphere are met with sudden painful squeaking ear stoppage and severe pain, with painful hurtness around the eyes and ears. Better to slowly suffocate than have to do the gaping-mouth fish face maneuver to try and unstop the old eustacian tubes. Of course, the kids feel fine.

I never managed to get away Friday, which is probably just as well, as it gave me about two more hours of freedom before having them deliver their biological weapon attack. The kids got their report cards, and for the first time Boy got STRAIGHT As! Catherine got all good marks (which consist of S--Satisfactory, N--Needs Work, and U--Unsatisfactory). She got all Esses except for two Ns in "Knows Birthday" and "Knows Address." Rebecca slipped a bit this time--last year she went all year with straight As, but this time she had three Bs--although they were all 89s--one more point on each and she would have had all As, so it's hard to fault that. Ashley did better than I expected--she has been an unrighteous terror the past couple of weeks, which we have determined from past experience to be an indicator of poor performance in something--she doesn't want to let on that something's wrong, so she compensates by acting like the spawn of hell. In any event, this time she had a couple of As, some Bs, and only one C. Of course, the lowest grades were in classes in which the teachers hate her. Of course. They're mean, they hate everyone, they never explain stuff, they don't let me lie and say I haven't done my homework, they expect me to listen, they give tests--mean ol' biddies. I've said it before, I'll say it again--it's like listening to Yasser Arafat. Anyway, at some level she knows she has to work harder.

Saturday was icky weather, but I got up with my head feeling like it had an interior carpeted in wet fur and got Bec and headed out to Liberty Park. We had to stop at Target on the way to pick her up a new soccer ball, the other having finally succumbed to a puncture somewhere in its fragile little bladder, and had to pick up something to eat. I got her a nice little bowl of fruit with some sort of healthy, wholesome beverage, and I got a Diet Coke and a bag of salty fried starch. MMmmm!

Got there and got settled and they played very well, winning 1-0 against a pretty good team. Our biggest problem was shooting the ball, which has been a problem all season, but at least this time the girls all played together, especially on defense. Rebecca played outside midfielder and sweeper and did really, REALLY well. I was impressed--she's really getting good. Bad part was sitting out in damp drizzly weather with percolating germs in my head. Other bad part was the coach for the other team who seemed to be channeling the ghost of a meth-crazed Ricky Ricardo. Entire game he screamed in rapid fire Spanglish, and the only surprise was the lack of "Lucy, you dissy ret-het!" Hey, I appreciate dedication and all, but this guy was a nut job--they're 10 years old, hombre, calm down a hair--turn it down a notch--ease off the gas--or better yet, shaddup.

Get through, go back up to Trussville park to catch Boy's game--Cat's game was yet one more defeat, 8-2, but I missed that one. Boy's team played Clay to a 1-1 tie, and they all did pretty well. Jonathan kicked the ball a couple of times and didn't let anyone get by him, so all in all, a great effort.

Got 'em all home, stripped their nasty clothes and threw them (the clothes, not the kids) into the washer and I left Mom to tend to them so I could go up to the church building and get ready for the Fall Festival. Set up chairs, tables, fixed the area outside for us to sacrifice marshmallows, and then went to get some more goodies from Wal-Mart. You know, it's not even Halloween yet. Yet, right there at the entrance to the garden shop, two gigantic blowups--one a snowman, one a Santa. AAARRRgggghhhhh! Can't you folks have the decency to wait till November?! Inside--Christmas trees and decoration. ::heavy sigh:: [Alabama Cootifier] WHYYY, back in my day, we didn't have no fancy-schmancy dis-count ree-tailers a'settin' up desecrations until DECEMBER! Next thing you know, we'll be dressin' up like Frankenstein and singin' "Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus" to the tune of "Monster Mash!" It just ain't right, I'm a'tellin' y...hey! HEY! YOU KIDS GET OFF MY PORCH! [/Alabama Cootifier] Got back, and the rest of my volunteers had started showing up, all of them wanting to know what to do. Bravely resisting the urge to begin hurling insults and curses (out loud), I did the next best thing and shrugged my shoulders and said for them to do what they volunteered to do. It's not like they haven't ever done this before. Anyway, stuff like this works better for the kids when there is a bit less structure. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

We did have a good time, though. Had a pretty good turnout, considering we had intermittent rain, and several families couldn't come, probably close to 70 or so. A lot of the kids came wearing their costumes (although I did announce that witches or ghosts or demons or stuff wouldn't be a good idea--don't want to be sending the wrong message, eh)--Catherine dressed up against type as an angel, Jonathan came as a ninja, Rebecca was a bobby-soxer with a poodle skirt, and Ashley was some sort of Renaissance princess. My time was mostly spent driving the tractor for the hayride. Let's see--I have a raging sinus disease, I have already been out in the rain for hours, and now I'm going to spend another three hours astride an ancient Allis Chalmers diesel tractor smelling rich, oily exhaust fumes and hay. Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good plan. I guess it could have been worse--I didn't burn anything or die from a horrible crushing accident. And the kids had a grand time. We've got about five acres of relatively flat yard and a few trees, so we went all over the place, including a nice little interlude where I weaved in and out of cars in the parking lot at the blazing top speed of 20 miles per hour. Unfortunately, the wonderful little campfire I built got no use--between all the stuff going on inside the building and the hayrides, no one got to roast any marshmallows. I blame Santa.

Anyway, got all through about 7, went home, rebathed everyone, then I went BACK to the building at 9:00 p.m. (!) to pick up Oldest, who had gone with the teen group to some sort of "fun" activity with the kids at another congregation. I hate the thing of changing clocks back and forth, but Saturday, I was truly grateful for that extra hour.

You will notice in this whole little exposition that I have not, until now, mentioned the drubbing Auburn administered to the Bayou Bengals. That's because I heard the final score after the game was already over. I didn't get to see it, or hear it. But, such does not preclude me from a small amount of gloatage for Miss Janis' benefit, not did it stop me from phoning My Friend Jeff™ this morning as I had mentioned last week and singing "War Eagle" into his voice mail and making fun of the LSU battle cry of "Geaux Tigers" by saying "Go-ex HOME, Tigers!" followed by an evil hillbilly yelping laugh. In response, he just sent the following:

You're just mean. Mean, mean, mean!

Oh, and EVERYONE in the office enjoyed your rendition of the Auburn fight song. So there!!

As if he thinks I care that everyone heard my lovely singing! Pishposh and rubbish! Play it all day long, buddy-boy! When asked if he enjoyed the addendum of the laugh at the end, he wrote thusly:

I know I did. It took the awfulness of the fight song and added a little levity. It made me laugh. It's not Go-x Tigers either! Quit mocking our rich and vibrant Cajun heritage!

(For what it's worth, I figured LSU would live up to their Top 10 ranking and give us a hard time. That's what I get for figurin'. Of course, I'm not about to tell HIM that!)

Sunday was spent in further trips back and forth to church, with the added fun of me having to prop my large, mucilage-filled head up and try to lead singing. My normal three note range was further inhibited by not being able to hear anything except my own droning due to my stopped up ears, with the added pain of those three notes being so low as to be out of reach of small children, pubescent boys, and most of the women. I made up for it by singing "War Eagle." (Not really. I mostly just hacked and coughed and wildly waved my arm about.)

It sure was nice to get home last night and not have to go anywhere else. Well, except for the horrifying dread of having to return here today with my feverish head and sandy eyeballs. Ick.

Anyway, that was about it--feel free to carry on as you were before.
posted by Terry at 11:16:00 AM