On with Saturday!

The party went off pretty well, although a grand total of about ten kids of the target age showed up—the other twenty or so folks were parental units or older kids. Well, whatever—it was fun anyway, and there was a special visit by everyone’s jolly fat guy, Santa. Played by our youth minister. Dressed in my Santa suit. He wanted to play Santa, and I suppose it never quite occurred to him that there are at least a few guys in our congregation who weigh more than 120 pounds. Like, oh, maybeeeee…the guy who owns the suit. But that’s okay—he wanted to do it, and by gum, anyone who wants to be Santa oughta be able to do it.

Pack up, clean up, take out the trash and back to the house for more clothes washing and kid cleaning, and then to nice warm bed.

And what seemed like only five minutes later, time to get up again. Ungh. I clicked off the alarm and turned around on the bed to doze and listen to Today’s Homeowner with Danny Lipford and B. Smith with Style. I do this early every Sunday morning before dragging my lazy carcass out of bed and taking my shower. It’s almost like I’m up and awake and getting ready, but not quite. And yes, I know it’s an odd combination of programming—but I like catching up on all the latest food and fashion and home improvements info. And both are on the local NBC station, so I can just leave it there and eventually the Today show comes on.

I fumbled for the remote and laid back down and for some reason, Danny Lipford had Tom Brokaw on. Huh? Wait a minute—Tom’s sonorous voice said something about a rumor and a press conference and a hole and WHOA Nellie—we got that illegitimate son of a catamitic donkey!

Well, good.

I was wide awake for sure now, and sat up in amazement at what had transpired. What a fitting way to find the old butcher—cowering in a hole looking like a cross between Ted Kaczynski and a dung beetle. Lion of Baghdad, indeed. As I said this morning, I hope he is bestowed with all the things he so richly deserves.

The first interview, aside from the usual assortment of talking heads, was good old Joe Lieberman. Bless his heart, he managed to prove that being a Democrat doesn’t mean you can’t be glad this sad sack of crap has been humbled and deserves whatever fate befalls him. Which I suppose is not the way to get elected nowadays if you’re a Democrat, but by golly, I bet he can look himself in the eye every morning.

I finally had to get up and get ready—sometime later in the morning, the “what if” and “yes, but” crowd had finally been reached for comment. Predictably, they exhibited the sort of timorous hand-wringing that would greatly please the glorious former head of the Ba’ath party. And to think, some of the folks reached for comment actually want me to vote for them! I laugh at them, and hit them with my shoe, and curse their mustaches. Tony Blair came on to chat for a bit from #10—bless him, too, for being a stand-up guy in the face of withering criticism throughout this long ordeal. He’s a good guy.

On to church, then back home for lunch and to pick up the cookies I had forgotten to bring with us, and then back for Bible Bowl where the previous day’s preparation must have done something good, as one of our senior teams and our junior team both won the event. The only thing that spoiled it was three boys sitting in front of me, who decided it was a good idea to start grabbing all the visitor cards from the pew, wad them up, and start throwing them at people. You know, at one time it was perfectly acceptable for adults to chastise someone else’s kid for misbehaving.

Rightly or wrongly, there is still at least one person alive who doesn’t have a problem with that, so the second time one of the little brats threw something, I stood up and placed my hand on his shoulder and my mouth right by his ear—he started to whisper, “I didn’t throw anythin---“

“Do you make a habit of doing that whenever you go anyplace?”

“No, sir.”

“Then you really shouldn’t be doing it NOW, should you?”

“No, sir.”

“And I’m not going to see you do it anymore, am I?”

“No, sir.”

“Good.” I patted him on the shoulder and sat back down. Later on, I noticed that he and his little compatriots had gotten at the front of the food line and loaded their plates down with as much food as the styrofoam plates would hold. Later still, they came by with about half of their piles of food eaten and blithely dropped the plates the garbage can. ::sigh:: Can’t really blame them, they’re just kids, after all. Their parents, on the other hand…

Clean up, take out the trash, and after all our visitors were gone, it was time for MORE tests. I had no idea what this was all about, but it didn’t matter. I sat there at the table and read my newspaper and read Cat the comics and drew several rilly kewl Bionicles for Jonathan and a squirrel for Catherine. They seemed pleased. Finally time for evening worship, which prompted yet another excursion by Oldest to go sit with her putative beau, and then it was time to hit the road toward home, with a brief stopover to get some supper from our usual place, Ruby Tuesday in Leeds.

MORE TO COME!!
posted by Terry at 4:15:00 PM