SHOES!!
We hopped in the van to head across the parking lot to visit one of the smaller shoe stores in the strip to see if they had anything to fit Boy. No luck. Then it was time to swing by our home away from home (i.e., Wal-Mart). I had turned the radio on and found that in the brief time we had been in the restaurant, the Trojans had already begun the awful butt-whupping of the Tigers. Which went on the rest of the afternoon. We didn’t get back home to be able to see it on a television until the middle of the third quarter, and aside from the occasional third and long conversion or second and short, Auburn looked absolutely horrid. No offense, no offensive line, some defense but not nearly enough. Ick. Better get better quick—next game will be to travel to Grant Field in Atlanta to take on the Ramblin’ Wreck who, although not ranked, are sorta mean. The Jackets do have the disadvantage of not having an easily navigated cheerleading site, which is the sort of thing I predicted last week would haunt Auburn as they took on the USCeans and their song leaders. Oh well.

At least we found shoes. Boy has been begging for some new penny loafers for months now—he’s been hobbling around like he’s got razors in his shoes (except when we aren’t looking, at which times he seems perfectly fine). It’s hard to find little boy shoes that look dressy, all of them being afflicted with the oversized Doc Marten look. Sorry, but dress shoes shouldn’t look like combat boots. Anyway, the only thing we’ve found that we both really like are these nice little “Faded Glory” brand loafers from Wal-Mart. We have looked and looked lately and haven’t found a single pair, but we hit the jackpot this time. He quickly found a pair and was excited as a little boy with a new pair of loafers. (Far be it from me to criticize, but isn’t “Faded Glory” a bit of a let-down of a name? What’s next, Paradise Lost? Sunset of Life? Squandered Opportunities? Washed Up Has-Been? Good For Nothing Loser?) He also needed yet another pair of soccer cleats, so we got some of those, and then it was time for the real burden—a pair of church shoes for Catherine.

She doesn’t like anything.

Well, I take that back—she likes EVERYTHING except Shoes Young Children Should Wear to Church. Bright red tap shoes with sequins? Gotta have. (NO.) Platform hippie shoes? Gotta have. (NO.) Doc Marten hiking boots from the boy’s aisle? Gotta have. (NO.) Hello Kitty pink patent leather with clear heels? Gotta have. (NO.) We went through several more restrained styles, but aside from her not particularly liking the way they looked, none of them fit her. Rebecca found one pair of suede ones with a little Velcro strap that she absolutely refused to try on. ::sigh::

It being the end of the season, they had stacks of white shoes, though. “Can I have white shoes with the white bows like dis!?” “Sweetheart,” I said with much weary exasperation, “it’s almost Labor Day…” “Oh.” No explanation—I just glanced sidelong at her to watch the wheels spin trying to figure out what the day of the week has to do with shoe choice. On to K-Mart.

Wandered around looking at everything but shoes for a while—found a couple of bathmats and toilet seat cozies in the Insider Trader section, which reminded me that I needed to go get some toilet seats.

This time was going to be different. Nothing with metal, nothing with a wood core. Just thin, hard, solid-color plastic. (By the way, it was A Good Thing.) I am tired of rusty stains from the hardware and tired of hearing the kids slam the wood ones down like gavels, and tired of the nasty looking hard water stains on the bottoms that won’t come off with anything short of a wire brush mounted on a grinder motor. So I got two of the plain ‘uns. “DAD!! LOOK!!” No padding, you little tenderbutt! WHYYYY, back in my day, we had to walk to the outhouse a mile back in the woods, and sit on a cold hard hunk of tree trunk with splinters as big as sixteen penny nails, and all covered in weevils and termites and brown recluse spiders and copperheads. “No, sugar—we don’t need one like that. No, not the one with ducks, either. Put it down.”

Over to the shoes for Tiny Loud Girls, where we once again tried on every possible shoe. Including a nice black suede one with a little Velcro strap, that was just a tiny bit too small. She really like it and was quite disappointed that it didn’t come in her size. “That’s the same kind I found at Wal-Mart that she said she didn’t like,” said Middle Girl. ::sigh:: Back to Wal-Mart.

This time I stayed in the van to listen to some more of the game, which was better than traipsing back through Wallyworld for the second time. They came back later with the suede shoes she wouldn’t try on to begin with and some other stuff that was Essential for the Well Being of the Entire Universe. (You people can thank me later.) Then it was back home to finish watching Auburn get mauled.

Got the kids bathed and their heads scrubbed and got them into bed and settled down with Miss Reba for a nice romantic evening of watching The Great Escape. Which she liked just fine, believe it or not, although it lasted a bit too long to watch as a late movie for folks who had to get up early the next morning.

Which we did. Difficult though it was. Got the squids ready for church, gave them some breakfast and watched a little Sunday Today—Soledad O’Brien, please come back from wherever you are.

Off to church, taught Rebecca’s class, then had worship, then we had our fifth Sunday meal—and a nice spread it was. Took forever since we only had one line, but some really good food. I had garbage duty, so I didn’t get to relax much and jabber with everyone as I was too busy trying to get people not to throw full cups of drinks into the cans—whenever you lift out the garbage bag, if there’s a hole, you get a nice little trail of ick all the way to the dumpster. Some folks are just real clueless. You have a big bowl of obviously thrown-out beverages sitting right there beside the trash can, and people will look at it, make a face, then just chunk their still-full cups into the trash can.

I laid hands on several and gnashed on them with my teeth and smote them and didst mightily rebuke them and gave them many wounds. After that, they were better about it. Somewhat. Got all hot and sweaty from making runs to the dumpster, then we went right back into the auditorium for our evening service. We did an earlier service than normal so the kids could go to a youth meeting that afternoon. It was very nice—the young guys got to do the whole thing. We have a couple of young fellows who are surprisingly good. Thus finished up, we had the entire rest of the day for to relax.

Went home and changed into slob clothes and read the paper and watched part of Rocky and Bullwinkle and then watched part of the second episode of Lord of the Rings. Like the first, a stunningly beautiful movie with lots of scary stuff. For some reason, the obvious little kid stand-ins for the Hobbits were much less noticeable than in the first movie. The gollum Smeagol is done very seamlessly—there is still something CGIey about some of his movements and some of his anatomy, but overall it’s incredibly well done. On the other hand, that Miranda Otto girl had nothing wrong with the way she looked. She's one real fine looking Eowyn, and she can do all that sword-flinging bit with admirable skill. And she has nice hair.

Sometime in there we finally all went to bed, then it was up again early yesterday so we could go over to Reba’s mom and dad’s for the traditional Labor Day meal of concentrated carbs and grilled animals. Pork spare ribs, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, deviled eggs, corn on the cob, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, cole slaw. MmMM! I kept the high starch stuff to a minimum, but had to eat several of those ribs. Good stuff. Finally full, it was time to head back to the house, where I laid on the couch the rest of the afternoon and snored while the kids watch MORE Rocky and Bullwinkle and Sabrina, the Teenaged Witch and the parts of the LOTR that they had missed the other night, and All Sorts of Other Stuff. Then I came here and wrote it all down. Why? Who knows. But I did it anyway.

And I was just informed by our computer guy that I might be getting my new Windows 2000(!) this afternoon. Or tomorrow morning. Maybe. Or not. Stay tuned!
posted by Terry at 4:45:00 PM