OKAY, now—here is another version of what happened this weekend. I tell you, though, the original post was much, MUCH funnier and poignant and thought provoking and warmly familiar and action packed and it had several guest star cameos (golly, you know that Nipsey Russell is a SCREAM!) and a band and lots of other good stuff that went right down the floor drain in Blogspotlandia.

Not that I’m bitter or nuthin’.

And to the folks who wrote in and told me that I should do this in Word then cut and paste—sometimes I do that (like in this post) but I was at first just going to do a short post and it kept getting longer and longer, and I was typing fast and hot and had several links, which is ONE thing I will give to stupid STUPID Blogger— it has three little buttons that you can click that will automatically insert the proper tags for bolding and italics and links. When you’re typing, it slows things down to have to manually type in all the pointy brackets and a href stuff and remember to close the tags and if you have “smart quotes” turned on it doesn’t work right with the tags and it all just becomes a great big bother.

A bother, that is, until two hours worth of work suddenly vanishes like an Iraqi dissident. THEN you sorta wish you had just taken a second or two to copy the stuff in Blogger to the clipboard, JUST IN CASE.

Ah well, such is life lived upon the edge, eh?

To start—Friday night was the premiere of The Jungle Book, and it went surprisingly well. No major flubs and everything went off pretty smoothly with the scenery changes and all. It was also marked by an appreciative audience, who in some cases made even more noise than the actors. Lots of coughing and talking and passing babies back and forth—in some ways it reminded me of the descriptions of Billy Wigglestick’s Globe audiences. I suppose I should be happy someone didn’t leap up out of the front row and try to chop Kaa the Snake’s head off with a hoe when she came onstage.

To make it even worse, the long tall schmuck who was sitting at the end of the row in front of us decided to improve his seating position during intermission. He plopped down right in front of Jonathan, who sort of whimpered at me and looked up with those great big puppy dog eyes. In my best stage whisper, I leaned over to him and said, “I guess you can see REAL good, now!” Oblivious Man didn’t budge. Until a few seconds later when he hopped up again and moved all the way down to the end of the row. Right in front of Catherine. Who isn’t nearly as civilized as her father. “MAMA!! That MAN setted in front of me and I CAN’T SEE NOTHIN!!” He heard THAT! by golly. He scrunched his sticklike frame further down in the seat until he was quite uncomfortable. Heh.

Back home, then to bed, then up again Saturday. Middle Girl’s game got cancelled due to most of the other team being preoccupied with some sort of non-cookie-related Girl Scout deal, so they had to forfeit. So, her and Mom went up to church to work on scrapbook stuff, while Dad stayed and Dealt Harshly with misbehaving nonadults who did not wish to play nicely with the computer. I also did laundry and dishes….I always forget which one it is you’re supposed to bash on rocks at the creek. Oh well.

They got back late, then it was time to go to Boy’s soccer game. They played pretty well, and wound up kissing their sister from Clay to the tune of 1-1. Jonathan didn’t get to play a whole lot—poor little fellow is as slow as Christmas. But he has fun.

Afterwards, it was time to start the slow descent into madness known as car shopping.

We had decided to sell the Oldsmobooger when it gets out of the shop, and I had figured we would get something else—used, but somewhat newer, in the same appliance-type sort of car.

(As a bothersome and distracting side note, it had been awfully odd having an Olds and a Plymouth in the driveway. Both of them have been sent to the pasture by their parent corporations, so it’s a bit like walking out and finding an Oakland and a DeSoto parked there. You car guys know what I mean.)

Anyway, I had found a ’96 Taurus wagon that looked okay (yes, I know—but with six in the family and an artillery division’s amount of crap to carry around, our choices are kinda limited. And I really don’t think Reba would have appreciated me showing up with this). She got out and started looking at the new stuff, particularly a Silhouette with the child-pacification (i.e. DVD) system. Too ‘spensive.

Until. Later that day as we were doing something, she came up with an idea. Sell the Olds, keep the old van for me to drive, and get something newer she could drive which didn’t have a CHECK ENGINE light that comes on after ten minutes worth of driving. All of which would require the use of The Untouchable Fund of Money That Must Never Be Touched, Ever. But, since it was her idea, I think it was much more palatable. So, okay by me, and it will be nice to have something that won’t leave us stranded on the side of I-65 beside the carcass of a dead armadillo during our next long trip. (And if I squint my eyes real tight, I can pretend the Plymouth has a 340 Six-Pack just like an AAR ‘Cuda. Well, kinda.)

So, starts the search for something nicer. I’ll fill you in on that later on, but as I wrote this morning, Homer would be proud.

TELL ME, O MUSE, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Trussville. Many cities did he visit, and many were the car dealers with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by Interstate while trying to save a few bucks and bring his load of screaming children safely home; but do what he might he could not save his children, for they had great gastric distress through their own sheer folly in eating the Twinkies which had been left to the mercy of the Sun-god Hyperion in the rear storage box…

(Not really—just throwed that in for dramatic effect.)

SPEAKING OF WHICH, after we figured that car mess out, sometime in there it was time to use our other currently operating vehicle to transport daughter back to the theater for Saturday night’s performance, which caused daughter, who had to ride in the shotgun seat of said vehicle, no small amount of agony for the indignity of having to be seen in such a…a…pile of rust! We pulled up and she nearly shot out of the cab, and would have except no one was there yet. So we waited as more and more kids and parents showed up with their sparkly SUVs and there we sat in the creaky old pickup until she was nearly beside herself with pent-up embarrassment. HEY! Get used to it, chick! Your old man is going to be a source of constant consternation for years to come. (And for what it’s worth, I would stack up stinky ol’ Franklin against Baloo’s mom’s new H2 any day of the week!)

They finally opened the door and she ran in like I was a kidnapper, and I came on in and stayed backstage during the play, which, of course, caused her great gobs of additional embarrassment. As I said, get used to it, sugar! I did get to prove my manliness, however, when the director needed a pocketknife to fix something. And I was the ONLY MAN IN THE ROOM with a pocketknife. Sheesh, what’s wrong with you guys! The play went well again as it did the night before, and then it was back home, some supper, a shower, and in the bed.

Sunday, up early, off to church, where I remembered that I had forgotten that I was supposed to substitute for the 3rd and 4th grade teacher. Oops. Luckily, it’s a good class, and I’m not saying that because two of the kids are mine. It really is a good bunch of kids and they listen very well—the lesson was a survey of Esther, which is near ‘bout impossible to adequately cover in 40 minutes, but I managed it and even got in a reference to Joe Millionaire. I asked Rebecca and Jonathan later at lunch some questions about it, and they got them all right, so I guess some of it took.

After class, worship, after worship, home for a quick lunch, after quick lunch it was time for Mom to go sit with Wolf for her afternoon matinee, while I read the paper and refereed the inevitable he-said—she-said; he-pooted—she’s-a-snothead exchanges that always happen when children are freed from working 16 hours shifts in textile mills.

Reba and Ashley home, then time to head right back up to the church building for the girls to do their song-leading lessons while the rest of us went to Wal-Mart. (Because no weekend post of mine is complete without an obligatory Wal-Mart reference, and we really did need stuff.) Then back for evening services, then home for supper, then to bed, then I got to work Monday and Dogger ate my homework, so I did some actual work and fumed and fussed.

So there, now. That’s the bones of what I put down Monday, without any of the hilarity or the guest stars (except for John Tesh, and he won’t leave) or all the other stuff.
posted by Terry at 4:05:00 PM