Since my last post, it has occurred to me that writers of political quizzes are very likely to be unclear on purpose, in order to encourage a particular response (from those people who don't over-read like I do) and use the answers in their "polling" data. So, does that make me naive for not realizing it at once, or jaded and sage for realizing it eventually?
My brother left this morning. I have to say, this weekend was not exactly the way I envisioned it in my mind.
Brother arrived on Friday. I was, for some reason, stubbornly against housecleaning, but managed to scrub some particularly unsightly pieces of wall (with not much improvement, sadly), sweep the kitchen with more than usual attention to detail, vacuum, dust (obviously, that was BEFORE I did the floors), clean the bathrooms and I also snuck out to the car while I had cleaning supplies in my hands and scrubbed the doggy nose prints off the back window. They were bothering me. Then, I nearly called a divorce lawyer when I saw how Josh had left the basement, so me and Abbie attempted to make that less junkyard-like. The sad part was that it only made the uncleaned carpet more noticeable, but there is no way that I can get the vacuum down the stairs, so I had to let it be. It sounds like a lot, but it was only the tip of the iceberg of what needed to be done. I really don't know what was wrong with me.
We had planned a Bad Movie Night. To save some suspense, I will tell you that it didn't happen. Brother had a short list of movies that he wanted for "next time", but with only a week's notice, I wasn't able to get them from Netflix. I had a huge list of truly awful movies, thanks to my awesome friends, and as soon as I could get Brother to commit to the plan, I dashed off a quick invitation to everyone I could think of who could make it over in time, and we went to my local movie rental store, armed with the list. Now, including Brother's, there were about a dozen titles to hunt down. Of those 12, my local movie dive had zero. Home again, home again, jiggety jig.
I cancelled Bad Movie Night, or at least the part that included invitations. Instead, we watched Wasabi. Almost bad enough to be on the list, in fact. So funny. And we ate Milk Duds. Well, I did, anyway. And guess what!? I have a huge cavity. I have put aside some money for Grant's teeth...I can't decide if it would be wrong of me to use it for myself.
About this time, I discovered that Josh was being made to work overtime on Sunday, as well. SUNDAY? Yes. No taiko for me. I'm getting a little sick of this. Is it really normal for a company to assign SO MUCH forced overtime? I never hear about my friends having this much, or having husbands/wives who are asked to work this much overtime.
On Saturday I got a phone call before Brother was out of bed. It was my dad, who gave me some strange and vague plans concerning his intention to come over. Josh left to go fly, and then Dad showed up.
I might have forgotten to mention that I babysat my in-laws' dog this weekend. He's a little white thing, some fancy cross, and his name is DaVinci, but he answers to Vinny.
So, Dad shows up, and there is dog pandemonium. And kid pandemonium. In short - pandemonium. He arrived at noon. The tentative plan was to go to the botanical gardens or the zoo. I live an hour from either, and it was rapidly approaching the hottest part of an unseasonably hot day. And no one had decided on the destination. Finally, I got them to pick the zoo, and packed a bag of water, snacks, sunglasses for me and the kids, camera, phone/wallet stuff, keys and chapstick. Then I ushered everyone into my car and we set off - it was around 1:10, I think. Then...Brother declared that he was hungry. Pit stop in Wentzville!
We ate lunch at Culvers, and then went on to the zoo. Well, almost. You see, at 2:45 on a nice, sunny Saturday in spring there were a few other people in Forrest Park. In fact, there was not a spot to be had. We drove for around 15 minutes, and I finally parallel parked somewhere I could not point to on a map. I do know that we walked up several hills before we were within view of the zoo's outer gates. Abbie griped and got carried. No one offered to carry me. No one even offered to carry the bag with all the waters. Once outside the zoo, we discovered that we were pretty much at the absolute furthest point from any entrance. We ended up going into the North entrance. The first thing Dad did was buy some waters. So I carried all the ones from my house for pretty much no reason. Then we attempted to see the zoo. It was hot. Most animals weren't having any of it. We did see the tiger, some orangutans, a gorilla, two zebras, and in the antelope house we saw the okapi and the giraffes, kangaroo, some deer things. We were going to see the penguins on the way out, but it was after 5 by then, and the zoo was closing. And I was now in possession of a sunburned nose. The moral of this story is: If you want to see the zoo, go in the morning. The other moral of this story: Don't forget the sunscreen.
We were hot and tired and wanted to go home. But Brother hinted that he wanted to go to Olive Garden. Well, we do always go when he is in town. I was too hot to be hungry, but drove us there, anyway. We did have a very good waiter. The food was great, of course. It was 8:15 when we got back to my house, and of course Dad had to leave right away. It's a 2 hour drive to Rolla, you know.
I sent my leftovers with Josh today.
I tried to get Brother to stay until Wednesday. Then I tried to get him to stay until tomorrow. Didn't work. He left right after Josh this morning. Right about 10, I would say.
I've been headachey. I don't know what is causing it. Maybe my grass allergy is developing a new symptom? I remember headaches last year, too. I wonder if it was the same part of the season...
I've been thinking about my future job a lot. I really have no idea how to get anyone's attention.
Today was hot and languid and unproductive. I read a little, played a little with the kids and made chicken fries for dinner. Have you had those? They are fry-sized breaded chicken. I like the idea, but they are seasoned like seasoned fries, which I never order and no not like. So I had corn and peaches for dinner.
Now, the kids are playing in the back yard. I'll probably bathe them and have an early bedtime. I could use one of those, myself.
I wonder how you all are doing. We should go and do something fun. I want to go and do something fun, and you should come with me. I'm lonely for friends!!!
I hope your weekend was a great success.
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