My neighbor got me drunk on Friday night. C calls me up at about 2pm while I'm busting ass fixing all the horrible mistakes I made in a page for Prof. CM, cursing myself and hating my life.
"I just opened a big bottle of wine, come on over." She says.
Well, how right neighborly like.
I tell her to give me a few minutes to finish up what I'm working on. At about 3 I go over and she's happily drinking wine and playing with her 1 year old, who simply worships me. We chat, we laugh. We play with dolls. We drink the whole damn bottle of wine. The kids come home from school. Her daughter E goes over my house to play with Jessica. We continue to drink wine.
I'm shitfaced by 5pm.
I spend about an hour here at the computer, drinking water and trying to get the buzz down to a low roar, surfing blogs and laughing. Tina at "The Other Cheek" dared me to blog while intoxicated. I considered it and passed on the suggestion. I could probably say things that would get me in lots of trouble.
I get the distinct impression my neighbor is bored as hell being a stay at home mom up here in the woods when she was accustomed to living in Salem, working in Marblehead, and having lots of other people home around her. Play groups for the kids, people to dump the baby on at short notice so she can run to Wal-Mart (or the wine store).
She said every Friday afternoon all the girls in the neighborhood down there would get together when the kids got home from school, drink, watch TV, talk, and let the kids go nuts in the yard. She misses that. I can't say I'll do that EVERY Friday afternoon, but I had a lot of fun. And, I am almost done fixing the mess I made on CM's site, so I felt it was an okay diversion for the afternoon.
Saturday I wanted to stay in bed. Not because of a hang over mind you (I was entirely sober by about 8pm, so getting the drink on early in the day made a big difference... I thought it was kind of bizarre to wake up on Saturday morning and be ... fine.
I wanted to stay in bed because it was a very warm and lovely place. Fall was falling outside my window. The wind was blowing, and it was raining yellow leaves everywhere in the sunshine. It was sheer bliss. I had Kinger dog on my bed curled up next to me, I wasn't moving anywhere.
Doug then reminded me we were supposed to go to Boston to see Bonnie and Duncan and Chloe.
I also remembered I'd been invited by Carrie to a babyshower for the wonderful and talented Elizabeth, but hadn't committed to whether or not I'd go. I then realized why I'd been noncommittal... knowing in the recesses of my mind that I already had some sort of plans but not knowing what they were... I need to start keeping a regular calendar so I know what is going on from week to week, day to day, and I won't have to have this constantly confused feeling between my ears.
So we did go to Boston. After watching Bottle Rocket on Comedy Central where they "edited" James Caan's line about Bob's brother into him being a "cockroach." That made me laugh, knowing that he wasn't saying "cockroach" in the real version.
Again -- I love that movie. Owen Wilson is genius. And Luke Wilson is just nice to look at for some reason.
Anyway.
There was a bit of miscommunication between me and Bonnie -- I thought she was interested in GOING on a geocache with us in her neighborhood (there are like 3 right near her house). She thought we would come visit and go DO a geocache when we were done visiting. So it was kinda funny. Classic.
We spent a couple good hours with the three of them, Chloe was enthralled with the kids, and the feeling was mutual.
Geoff wants a little brother and has asked me repeatedly if one can come live with us. I reminded him that Chloe is 15 months old, and that a little brother or sister wouldn't be any fun until he was about 8 and by then, well, I bet he'd feel totally different about having a sibling in the house younger than him.
He still wants one. Perhaps we just need to spend more time with Chloe. Just look at her and you'll want to spend time with her as well.
Miss Chloe says, yo.
Geoff was yelling "Take a picture of me with Chloe! Take a picture of me with Chloe!" So... I took a picture of him with Chloe. I love how the late afternoon light comes into their living room. It's so pretty. The kids look... glowy. Glowy Chloe.
And this one is special. She's all like "what are you lookin' at?" Diva in training.
Jessica stars as guest reader (and above as guest puppeteer)
at the Chloe Entertainment Facility, Boston, MA.
It is evidenced here that she would make a good big sister, again.
But won't get the chance, so she may as well just do a good job being a
good friend to all my buddy's kids.
It was a great visit indeed, and we did go do a geocache, but it was pimpy easy. It was in the Arnold Arboretum, and it was so close to the Bussey St. Gate that it hardly seemed worth the bother. Well. Yes it was, just to put another notch in the side of the GPS. We were in and out of there in less than a half hour.
Geoff had to climb under the tree and pull this one out.
Once in a while it pays off to have a very small person with you on your Geocache Team.
Today was Sunday. Church was extra long and sort of dull... and everyone seemed to be not quite in gear, all the cylinders weren't firing for us. Father M from South Africa did the service, and he read everyone's name that had been submitted to the church secretary for the prayers for the saints. It seemed to go on forever, and it was soothing to listen to his voice, his accent, reading all these names. Then, he read names of his family and friends... and there were a few younger kids in the congregation kind of laughing at him, because the African last names combined with his accent were... sort of amusing. I couldn't tell if he was irritated or not. I would have been. I wonder if he goes home and shakes his head, muttering that we're all a bunch of white idiots.
He really should.
I was very excited to see he is ministering our Christmas services. He is really cool, and fun to listen to. He is very very English, sings a beautiful tenor, and I think that Christmas will be very interesting this year.
Everyone's in bed now. I should go myself. Bonnie and Duncan loaned me Helen Fielding books and the new one by Nick Hornby (bwa! I accidentally typed Horny instead of Hornby. How hysterically funny is that?) and I'm feeling rather lethargic... time to turn in. It's a busy week next week, complete with an early release day for Jessie's school and a doctor's appointment and field trip for Geoff (which I volunteered to chaperone. Again -- what am I thinking?!)
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