The title of today’s post refers to what I am hearing from our basement these days. Yes, Fidel and his crew have not graced us with their presence for over a week now. Which isn’t so bad since when they’re working it’s messy, smelly and/or noisy around the house. But the problem is they still haven’t installed the staircase, so the only way we can get to our new basement is to go outside, cross a ramp, climb down a ladder, and then crawl in a window. This may be a bit inconvenient for our guests if we never hear from Fidel again. But most of our visitors don’t expect normal comforts (like heat, beds and bathroom privacy) at our house. In fact, they expect just the opposite. I think of these people as WEEKEND WARRIORS...and I just appreciate the fact that they are willing to suffer many hardships and extreme discomfort in order to spend time with us.
So what was I thinking? I should have run the gauntlet. I should have gone through that intimidating crowd in order to take some pictures of my girls on their last night to be together in their skimpy cheerleading uniforms under the “Friday night lights” (even though this was a Saturday). And I probably could have cried for a long time over that spilt milk, but then I heard David in the back seat mumbling something that sounded like “mood swing” and fortunately that snapped me out of it.
Speaking of David, he had a role in our weekend entertainment as well. He sang in a district honor choir on Saturday afternoon, along with 200 other “honorees”. Unfortunately, one of those other honorees stood directly in front of David during the entire concert, so we could only see one of David’s shoulders while he sang. But yes, I did get a picture of that shoulder during the concert and will soon be posting it on Facebook.
In other David news, I feel I’ve been remiss in not telling you about the recent happenings in his health class. Because apparently they’re in the middle of a sex education unit right now, and I’m hearing some pretty interesting reports. One day he told me he had to “play” the part of a boy who had sex with a girl named Betty. And then Betty went and slept with one of this buddies. And as if that weren’t bad enough, he contracted an STD. Or something like that. I tuned him out after I realized none of this had actually happened. But anyway, he now seems to know a lot about STDs because I was talking to Dave the other day about someone with that virus thing and David pops up and asks me if the person was “asymptomatic”. And I’m thinking, should my 14-year-old son be this knowledgeable about this stuff? I just don’t know.
Rachel reports that the Nutcracker practices are going as well as can be expected. She thinks her dance teacher might have been more ready than anyone else for football season to end, because the girls’ partners are on the team and during the season they didn’t appear to be making dance practices a priority. But now they should be really focused. HAHAHAHAHA. I crack myself up sometimes. Rachel also reports being somewhat disappointed because the really good lifts are being done this year by one of the other dancers (because she’s a senior), leaving the less impressive lifts for Rachel and her dance partner. Still, she is making the best of things and is consoled somewhat by the fact that as the Snow Queen, she gets to wear a tiara during the performance.
In her spare time, Rachel sometimes hangs out at this guy’s house (we’ll call him Shark Boy) where there is usually a pack of other kids hanging out, and they watch movies and sometimes play cards. I hold Shark Boy’s parents in high esteem for their hospitality to teenagers. They are either the very best parents in the world, or just plain crazy people. Either way, Shark Boy’s family has been very considerate of Rachel’s “standards” and they always refrain from putting on R rated movies when she’s there. But more importantly, they let her hold the remote control...because they know we don’t have TV and apparently they feel sorry for the poor deprived little thing. And I have to say that’s just about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.
Last night, she and Emily both went over to Shark Boy’s house to watch a movie with a bunch of kids, but Rachel reported that it was more like Couples’ Central, with the boy-girl ratio being an even 1:1. And all the boys were football boys to boot. I’m not sure if there’s much of a difference between a pack of youth rally boys and a pack of football boys, except that football boys seem to like to shave their heads and other people’s too. What I do know is that my girls have been highly successful at scaring off both species. But they had a good time and got home early enough, so I guess I’ll try not to worry about it overly much.
And just a snippet for you on Emily. Yesterday afternoon, she put on the old musical Showboat and while we were watching Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, and Howard Keel sing and dance their little hearts out, Emily says to us, “This would be a really great movie if it was about World War II”. Folks, I could not make this stuff up.
Dave just finished assisting David with crafting an electric generator for his science fair project. After much trial and error, and much wringing of the hands, they managed to get a 0.5 volt light bulb to burn for a few seconds. But in order to get the magnets to spin fast enough to light up the bulb, they had to use an electric drill. I found this interesting…and disappointing because obviously we won’t be able to use the contraption next time we have a power outage. Because we won’t have electricity to run it.
In other Dave news, he came in from a road trip the other day and told us he thinks he had an encounter with an angel at Walmart. She came to him in the form of a lady in one of those motorized scooters and she was in the reduced item aisle. She about ran into him as she entered the aisle and he was exiting the aisle. But before he got to the next aisle he heard her calling, “Sir, sir!” He turned around and there were other people in the aisle but she was looking at him. And then she said to him, “Do you like chips?” And he said, “Yes.” So she shows him a bag of Chex Mix that she’s holding and she says, “These are $1.15 and they’re really good!” And Dave looks confused, because he’s wondering how in the world this lady knows how much he loves reduced stuff. And then she says pointing to some writing on the bag, “And look! They’re 70% less fat. This is a great deal!” So Dave is then rather stunned because the only thing he loves better than getting a great deal, is getting a great deal on low fat stuff. So he thanks the lady for the tip, and takes two bags (because the angel took most of the rest), and he gets back on the road. And it’s late at night and he munches on the Chex Mix to stay awake, and the Chex Mix turns out to be quite delicious (heavenly, in fact), and he’s pretty sure it saved his life because he didn’t fall asleep on the road. So that’s the story…exactly as he told it to me.
And with that, I must go.
I had a bowl of Lucky Charms for lunch today…but it was really just a late breakfast.
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