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(In case you don't get the Obscure Reference of the Day, that's the sound of Curly from the Three Stooges snoring.)

Why? Because I am so stinking tired it's all I can do to stay awake.

Got home yesterday, started in to fix supper, because Reba had decided to pick up the kids from school and go to the craft store and pick up some more scrapbooking junk for them to finish their projects. She also said she was going to take Ashley to clarinet practice, so I could help Jonathan finish his sculpture.

I knew, however, how this would turn out. Reba in a craft store, with three kids, is a recipe for an inordinate amount of time spent doing nothing, especially not looking at her watch to make sure she leaves on time. She has a peculiar sort of outlook, in that if she has somewhere to be--let's say, Ashley's clarinet lesson--at a particular time--let's say, 7:00 p.m.--she will not start getting ready to go until 6:55 p.m., even if it takes more than five minutes to reach her destination. ON the other hand, I think you ought to give yourself time to be five minutes early, time to drive to the destination, time to put things away before you leave, and time to get your articles together for the trip. Thus, when I take Ashley to practice, we start getting prepared at about 6:15, and leave the house at 6:30, usually making it with about 7.638 minutes to spare.

Sure enough, as I stood there cooking up some nice ground up cow and some purple hull peas (that tasted a bit like the freezer), I noticed that there was no sign of Miss Reba and the wrecking crew. I decided I had better go ahead and get out the hot glue gun and fix Jonathan's sculpture, because it was becoming painfully obvious I was not going to be there for at least part of the evening.

Eleven little people and eleven little minutes later, the tiny figures were all crowded around Raised-arm Peter in amazement, and I was about halfway done with the second skillet full of meat, and it was time to go, and still no wife. ::sigh:: Knew it.

Turned everything off, put a lid on the skillet, wrote a note To Whom It May Concern saying the meat was still mooing in the pan, told our destination, and hit the door--very late by my standards--at 6:45.

On to the high school, managed to find a parking spot--they were having rehearsals for a play AND cheerleader tryouts, so it was packed--and made it to the classroom only five minutes late. Fortunately, the other student went five minutes over, so we were right on time. Oldest went on in, and I took off for the store. Why? Well, you see, since Reba was going to take her, and Reba had the checkbook, Reba was going to pay the teacher. I, on the other hand, had $3. So, off to the store to buy some milk and a few other items, and get some cash back to pay the teacher. (A little tip--if you don't like paying ATM fees, use your debit card at the grocery store to buy some gum, then get cash back.)

On the way too and fro, I listened to American Idol on the radio. (Our local FOX station is channel 6, which translates to 87.7 FM at the very bottom of the dial.) Elton John songs! As Simon Sez, bloody awful. The red-headed kid was especially pitiful with "Crocodile Rock." Which is what someone needed to hit him with.

Back, find another parking spot, race to the classroom and get there at 7:25--five minutes to spare. Lesson over, settle up the tab, on to home, met by loving wife and kinder who have eaten what I had left, got a plate, had some cow, and saw that in her foray to the story, Miss Reba had picked up a wood base for Boy's artwork. Boy's artwork being roughly oval of approximately 6 inches by 8 inches in size. Wood base being a 14 inch square hunk of 1/8 inch thin plywood.

"Will that be okay for his artwork?"

"Ummmm, maybe. It might need to be trimmed a bit."

Not. I had figured on an oval base with some thickness to it. And the last thing I wanted to do was figure out how to trim a hunk of plywood down in the late evening.

"Well, if you need something different, it's okay." Whew. Dodged a pouty bullet there. Nothing worse than seeming to come across as anything less than grateful, even if it IS the wrong thing.

I sent Cat upstairs to get her bath, called the store to see if they were still open, hopped in the car, zoomed to the bottom of the hill, ran inside and found exactly what I needed, paid, zoomed back home to the top of the hill, got Boy to go take his bath, put some varnish on my wood, fixed the little person who was unmoored by Middle Girl's curious fingertip--"OOOH! LOOK AT THE LITTLE PEOPsnap..."--then started in on trying to figure out what information was supposed to be on the entry form, which took forever, sent Jonathan to bed and told Rebecca to get her bath, did some more computering, then turned around to see Jonathan had gotten out of bed and was coming back into the bedroom with his Sad Look.

"Dad, you remember you said you would help me re-do my math test so I could get some points back on it?"

::sigh::

I did now. He got a terrible grade on a math test last week, and his teacher graciously allowed him (and the other kids) to get partial credit back on the missed ones if they would work out the problems again with their parents' help. I had put him off and promised we'd do it last night, and I had forgotten all about it.

I had some more stuff to get done on the computer, then got downstairs and started in on his stuff around 9:30. Least common denominators, greatest common factors--he had screwed up royally on his fractions. He understands the idea that the bottom number has to be the same when you add and subtract, but getting from there to where the top number is right, then reducing the result back down to the answer seemed to have been a BIG problem. After the first couple of problems, though, it finally seemed to click and the other EIGHT he managed just fine. Sure would have been nice for it to have clicked before he took the test, but at least he's got it now. And at the time, now was 10:30. And I was getting punchy. Reba, on the other hand, was hitting her stride and was busily cutting and clipping and glueing and giving me stuff to go type up. Finally, around 1:30 I collapsed into a coma, and was followed some time later by Reba.

You know, four hours of sleep is not a lot.

But everything's finished--more or less.
posted by Terry at 10:48:00 AM