Ten days ago I started writing an entry. Time flies when you're completely distracted and there is nothing interesting happening in your life. A few key things went down this week, and you poor bastards deserve some sort of sasquatch sighting of me. So here it is.
Last week there was a chimney sweep in my house. I was disappointed that he did not speak in a Cockney accent and sing "Chim chim cheroooooo." He also was lacking a small boy with which to send down into the top of the woodstove pipe to scrub it "clean as a whistle, sharp as a thistle" with a huge pipe cleaner bristley thingie.
And he did not have a top-hat. What is this world coming to?
Today is Leap Year. Doug states that four years ago today on the last leap we went Geocaching in New Hampshire. Sadly I have no recollection of that so I have to go back here in the journal and see if I have an entry about it... I'm amazed at how he remembers stuff like that but totally forgets other things; as equally as I am amazed at the things I remember and forget.
Actually, come to ponder it, I think that the 2004 leap year was when I was writing on Journalspace, so I don't know if I even have a record of it right now. I don't think I've finished that section of the archives here, which reminds me that I need to get back to completing the archives.
Today is Jess' friend Frazier's birthday. I think he is ... four. Heh.
Over the past few weeks the kids have been working on simple machines science concepts in school and this night was the culmination of their work.
He had been teamed up with two boys who live near us. They did the bulk of their work at school but did have one day when they had to work together outside of school during vacation week. The idea was to take the concepts of simple machines, and make a kind of Survivor themed island with a course of challenges where people had to then take these concepts of simple machines and build items to get through the Survivor challenges.
The two boys he was paired with are very handy and creative. Geoff did the typing and wrote the Taco Island Theme Song (yes, they were Survivor: Taco Island).
So if he gets an A on it, it is all thanks to the other two boys because in the end he was kind of Bobby Hill about it, but everyone around him seems to think he was really funny and creative. They had to present their course to people who walked up to them, so the other two boys described the six challenges and Geoff sang the theme song. He didn't walk anyone through any of the challenges, so I honestly have no idea if he learned anything...
He did, however, tell me that he will always remember W=FxD. Work equals Force times Distance.
Which means that yeah, maybe he took something away from it other than the theme song. Which he plays on his guitar every day.
Speaking of guitar, his lessons are going rather well. When he practices, he now is moving from chord to chord to chord, and it sounds like a song.
He makes up words, and plays all kinds of randomness. The other day it sounded like he was playing the beginning of "Satellite" by Guster. Which would be cool.
The one thing I don't like is that it is the FIRST thing he does every day... and that kid wakes up at 6am.
The kids had school vacation last week and I ate a vacation day spread over two days. Jess had a project for her German class where they were making a movie, so she had to go to other kids' houses and film a movie. It took four days for them to do (all day days) and they were under pressure of a deadline because two of the kids were going away for part of the vacation week. She got to write the script and kind of direct it, as well as play one of the characters. She was enthusiastic about it and full of stories every day that I picked her up. I guess it was a lot of fun. I have yet to see the finished product though...
Geoff had a birthday party at the end of the week, in a snowstorm. I left work to take him to it and had to call the mom in charge and ask her to go grab him so he wouldn't miss the party. It was at a laser tag place that just opened nearby, and when I got there I got to play too. It was a ton of fun. I think I should play laser tag every day.
Especially when I get to shoot these particular kids.
On the way to work yesterday I ran out of gas. Not in the metaphorical/spiritual way, like "I don't have the energy to do this today" kind of thing.
No.
I literally ran out of gas. Or, I should say my car literally ran out of gas. How does this happen when you are 41 years old and Should Know Better™? I wonder the same thing.
I got in the car yesterday morning and my "your running out of gas" light was on, which comes on when the car has about 60 miles left of gas in it. The little display hickey told me I had 30 miles until I was truly out of gas.
But.
That is usually just a suggestion. You can usually get another 10 after it goes to the zero mark. I figured, eh... I'll get gas on the way home. I have plenty to get me to the office, get me back to Swampscott to the gas station.
I just wanted to get to work. This week has been chaotic, that morning had been chaos. The bus was 10 minutes late because we got 3 inches of unexpected snow overnight, and I just didn't want to have to get out and deal with getting the gas... feh.
So there I was. It told me I have 0 miles when I crossed into Marblehead. I should have had ... at least 10 on the display, but it went from 30 to 0 rather fast. I was kind of nervous, because Marblehead has no gas stations in the entire town (it is true. Not a single one. No gas stations. They all went out of business).
I was at the point of no return. I was in front of my coworker's house about a mile from the office when the car stalled. I had just enough forward momentum going to coast into her driveway and float to the bottom.
Car dead. Car has no gas. "Green car needs food badly!" it moaned at me when I tried to start back up.
Oh well. At least I had made it into MB's driveway! I called the office, she came and got me.
I win at life, don't I?
On top of the running out of gas mess, I had kind of a "how many things can you possibly screw up today?" kind of day.
Yesterday was the kind of day when you think to yourself that it would probably just be best for you and the entire human race if you turn around, go home, get back in bed.
The problem with that is that if you actually DID do that, your house would inexplicably fall down around you and you'll be killed. So it is best to stay out in the world and fight the battles needed to get through the stupidest day ever.
It was an enormous relief to get home, eat dinner, get into jammies and watch Andrew Zimmern and Anthony Bourdain and Michael Palin programs on my Tivo.
Today it is about negative a million outside ( that translates to 10 degrees in meteorological terms. Not hyperbolic terms).
Our French toast alert is at Elevated right now... We are expecting about 6 inches of snow tonight. Winter is not yet over in Northeastern MA, whereas some of you are progressing to spring already. I'm done with winter usually in about two weeks. I'm ready for spring. We've already taken the dogs to Salisbury Beach twice, on two rather unseasonably nicer days... and I'm ready to be able to do that a lot more, soon.
Well. On that note, Geoff is off to the bus, I'm off to work. Hopefully today won't be too full of the stupid.
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