Uhh

There goes that stupid, insipid alarm clock again.

Move slightly, accompaniment provided in the form of an orchestral arrangement of creaks, pops, grunts, squeaks, wheezes--I sound like a recording of a blue whale. Lie awake for thirty minutes, slowly moving my arms and ankles and fingers, trying to figure out if there’s room on the floor to roll myself like a log to the bathroom. Nope. Gonna have to stand up, which I did with further odd noises.

Did my morning preparations to make myself the model of male beauty that I am, got my clothes on and started getting everyone out of the bed. Watched the news and limbered up some more by attempting to tie my tie. Ouch.

Left a bit earlier than usual so we could go get some breakfast other than in the kitchen to prevent any last minute messes that I would have to clean up, then on to church.

Ran off copies of the directions to the house for the parents, then spent the rest of class time assembling the curriculum packages for the upcoming quarter that starts next Sunday, and at the very end loaded up our rolling ice chest (still haven’t built my hi-wheel prototype yet, but one day…). Worship, then the rush to get back to the house before everyone else. I had told our youth minister to tell everyone noon, to allow them some time to change and me some time to cook, but by the time church was over and we left, we were about thirty minutes over. No big deal, though. If we were later, so was everyone else.

One of our friends and her daughters decided to follow us, but luckily she is of the helpful variety of folks and not the least bit unwelcome. Got home and got her to pop some cookies in the oven for me while I went and changed. Back downstairs to see Cat had dragged out MORE OF HER JUNK to pester everyone with, so those went back upstairs with a nice lecture and a stinging backside, and I went out and began cooking the meat.

FIRE! FIRE GOOD!

One of the dads came out and chatted for a while as I cooked, and then our youth minister. Good conversation, and the rain held off, too. By now, I was too tired to be tense. Except for the time that I saw Catherine come around the side of the house from the front, barefoot, walking toward our neighbor’s house. HOW’D SHE ESCAPE!? Back inside with her, but not before making her wipe all the grass off her feet. The minister went back in to start the devotional, and me and the dad stood around some more and breathed in the nice acrid burning smoke that can only come with low-cost ground beef.

Got all forty cooked up and we went back inside, quietly, and waited some more while the kids finished up singing and getting all Bibled up. Drank myself some Diet Coke and quietly gossiped with the women a bit in the kitchen, and then, FINALLY, time to eat. Everything went smooth as could be. The kids were all on their very best behavior, and there wasn’t a single bit of ANYTHING dropped or spilt on the floor in the kitchen, the fancy eating room, or the den! I actually got to relax a bit and chat, which is nice. We have had very few chances to do that in the past four or five years or so, just because we’ve been so busy with kids and work and life; and then there’s the whole keeping the house clean deal that only about 1/3 of the household knows how to do. We had twenty folks in all--about seven of them the kids in the 3rd-6th grade target group--and everyone, kids and adults, seemed to have a good time. The general consensus was that we had a nice house, and a WHOLE lot of books. As always, I dread the preparation for stuff like this, but during and afterwards, it’s actually pretty fun, even for grouchy, anti-social old me.

Everyone had gone by about 2:30, and the final cleanup and putting away only took about thirty minutes. And then, time to collapse in a heap on the couch. Finally, some REST! Broken only by Oldest, who just HAD to come downstairs and play her Harry Potter game on the Playstation. ::sigh:: So, what had started out as an relaxed afternoon reverie was punctuated every five seconds by Harry Potter running through endless corridors, opening doors and jumping onto things with a terribly off-putting “uhhh-UHHGH!” sound effect. Patter patter patter patter uhhhh-UHHGH UHHGH patter patter patter patter click creak patter patter uhhhh-UHHGH. I would have gotten up and gone upstairs, but I had been zapped with an immobility spell.

Along about 4:30 or so, I figured I needed to get up and go get dressed again so we could get back for evening worship. I got off my jeans and tee shirt and put back on my dress shirt, walked into the bathroom, confronted Miss Reba and said with a certain mock defiant poutiness, “I’m DRESSED, and I’m READY to go to church.” And she, in mock indignation, said those words that we all know and love…



“BUT, WHERE ARE YOUR PANTS!?”

I told her that I had decided not to wear pants to church ANYMORE. Hmph! So there!

Actually, I just hated to have to bend over and put my legs into them--for once, it would have been nice to have some suspenders to be able to dangle them down around foot level and then have something to pull them up with. Oh well.

Got finished getting dressed, got the kids loaded back up, and off to church again. I had songleading for the night, and despite a scratchiness in my throat brought on by attempting to sleep on my back on the couch with my mouth open, everything went well and I didn’t cough even a single time, and I managed to hit the right notes in the right sequence. Hard to beat that.

Back toward home, after a stop at Wal-Mart for some brake fluid and a newspaper, after which the bottom dropped out. Torrents of rain that had managed to skirt around us all weekend long finally zeroed in and gave us a good dousing. Home, dash in, in between the raindrops, and a quiet meal of lunchtime leftovers. Kids to bed, and finally some time to read the paper.

I got all the way to the end, and nearly had a stroke when I thought I had bought a paper without a comics section. Ahhhh--there is it! Of course, it’s getting to the point that the comics aren’t any better than the rest of the junk in the paper. I really had high hopes for Opus. After the last two weeks, though, it now goes into the category with Mary Worth and Rex Morgan, M.D.--strips that make you wonder why anyone would bother reading them, and why anyone would bother drawing them. It’s become the safe, lame, home of the utterly predictable--the Family Circus of the Angry Left.

Whatever. At least there’s still Prince Valiant.
posted by Terry at 3:19:00 PM