Yesterday morning

I was awakened by God's own artillery drill--the same storm that woke Miss Susanna up at 4 managed to get me up about 45 minutes later. I usually don't wake up during storms, or didn't used to. When I was in college, even living in a tiny tin death trap couldn't convince me to rouse up during those nighttime storms, but I guess now my autonomic nervous system has adjusted itself to newfound responsibility as mother hen, waking me up when it used to let me sleep.

Not that it still doesn't have some work to do--it took me a minute or two to finally decide I was supposed to wake up, despite the fire-for-effect going on outside. I looked over at the clock and saw that it was very early, but figured I would turn on the television and see what was going on. Despite the early hour, the local dude was already up and fidgeting with the new Doppler [Dr. Evil]ONE MIIIIIlllllliiiiooon [/Dr. Evil] super-de-dooper weather radar and two-slice toaster. Lots of the angry colors, sitting right over the top of our house, but clearing back to the west, and probably over with in about an hour or so. I lay there like a lump for a minute or two processing all of this and then pretty much went back to sleep--no use staying awake since Wendy Garner is on vacation.

Thankfully, the kids slept soundly until much later, and didn't decide to start tearing the house apart. Amazing. I managed to wallow around and snore and drool all the way to nearly 8:30, which hardly ever happens at our house.

Started in on some more book rearranging and general clean-up. The landing at the top of the stairs is now ready for its own set of bookcases for the leftovers that have yet to be put away. Even vacuumed the floor. The kids acted like they had never seen carpet before. "It's NOT new carpet! It's the same stuff that was there before--it's the same stuff in your room!"

Put some more stuff up in the attic, took a shower, and then it was time to head BACK to the inlaws' house for lunch. Barbecued ribs, hamburgers, hot dogs, tater salad, fresh tomatoes, Vidalia onions, baked beans--it looked like they were trying to feed an army, and although our children are very much like hyenas on a wildebeest carcass, it was STILL a lot of food.

Afterwards, the kids went in the den, flopped down and turned on cartoons, and I felt awfully sleepy, so I lay down and put my head on Jonathan's butt, which he thought was the funniest thing in the world. It was comfortable, though. Then Catherine got in on the act and cuddled up with her head on my arm. Quite the picture of domestic tranquility, although I feared an outbreak of onion-induced windiness that would have triggered a terrible calamity given our close proximity to each other and the possible release routes. But, like sleeping through the storm, it didn't have much effect on me and I napped for what seemed like forever. Sometime in there Jonathan made me get a pillow, and Catherine fidgeted herself somewhere else.

I finally woke up, and then swapped sides.

Such a nice nap.

After we had thoroughly worn out our welcome, we went back to our side of the tracks.

Grocery-store time! We were running out of essentials like soap and milk, and there was a book to be returned to Books-A-Million, and gas to get in the Focus, so I was tasked with hunting and gathering for the afternoon. I took Rebecca with me since it was her book we were returning, and we took off again down the hill. First stop, the gas station. I have started stopping more at the BP station at the foot of the hill--it's convenient, but more importantly, the folks who run it seem to have quit smoking. It's run by a Vietnamese family, and the young guys smoked like chimneys, and from the smell of it they had never lost their fondness for the burning hair-and-rubber stench of Gauloises. You couldn't go in there for more than five seconds without smelling like that all day long. But they seem to have put a stop to that--the last time I was in there it just smelled like, well, nothing. So, I stopped and filled up (28.4 mpg) and got Rebecca and myself a cold drink and then it was off to the bookstore.

She finally found a replacement book, and I got a couple of magazines, and then it was on to Food World.

Never has such a short list of goods managed to expand so rapidly. It was fun, though. We have given up trying to grocery shop with all the kids with us--we used to all go once a month and make a big grocery bill, but the demands of time and the need to ride herd on them has made most grocery trips a dash-in, dash-out exercise, usually done on the way to somewhere else. So it was nice to be a bit more leisurely, and have some time spent doing something other than homework or soccer.

We're going to parch us some peanuts sometime this week. I haven't done that since I can't remember when.

Back home, unload, put away, eat some supper, into bed.

Such a weekend.
posted by Terry at 1:07:00 PM