Author: Doris

Today is the last day of summer!  I’m so excited for the kids to go back to school and for the regular schedule to fall back into place.  The past two weeks have seen our work schedules compressed because Edda’s not in camp and our childcare hours diminish.  Jeremy usually ends up going into work an hour late, I end work early and all the errands I usually can fit in in the middle of the day eat into my work day and then I have to shift some hours to the weekend and blah, blah, blah.   So boring!  Who cares?  No one.

Jeremy and I have different perspectives on this summer – Jeremy will tell you it was a fabulous summer and I will tell you it was stressful and it seemed like I could never catch my breath. This is the fundamental difference in our personalities.  Jeremy only remembers the good stuff, I only remember the stressful stuff.  Really, the summer was wonderful, the stressful stuff was just the regular stressful stuff which I feel silly to even complain about.

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Our neighbor rented this bobcat to move a lot of dirt around on his property.  All week, we’ve watched him drive it around his front yard and his back yard.  Today I asked if we could try to drive it around – here’s Vince taking it for a test drive.  We’ve spent some time thinking of all the feline names we could think of: lion, tiger, bobcat, cheetah, puma, leopard, jaguar, cougar.  To me, besides the lion and the tiger, the rest are all the same animal.  Except the cheetah which is the fastest.  Hmm.  I guess I need to add mountain lion to the list too.

Vince is hosting the last sleepover of the summer.  Jeremy made hamburgers.

We’ve been entertained by the neighbor pouring a new concrete driveway.  It’s nice to have construction equipment nearby.

Kids are both home with nothing to do.  Vince has resorted to blowing bubbles into slime.  He should be doing his summer reading and math packets.  Ha!

I’m trying to practice my French braiding skillz.  Inspired by Keyla, I’m trying to do Edda’s hair with more effort and care on the weekends when I’m on hair duty.  I don’t know why it’s taken this many years to feel embarrassed about Edda’s weekend hair.  I think it’s because Keyla’s abilites are so jaw dropping that the difference between Edda’s weekend hair and weekday hair was getting to be just too much.  It’s like if you ate only creme brulee on the weekdays and on the weekends had half a dog biscuit.  Keyla taught me the most important trick which is to wet the hair before plaiting.  The wetness helps one grip all the different strands and also prevents flyaways when it dries.

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When Jeremy and I got married, he was the more talkative one.  I was the quieter one.  But over the course of our marriage, I’ve gotten more talkative and Jeremy less?  Kind of.   Sometimes at parties, I talk more because I think I’ve gotten better at making small talk and Jeremy doesn’t like making small talk, he likes talking about energy policy or transportation policy.  Anyways, this Saturday, we hosted a party and then went to a party where I thought we’d wouldn’t at all talk policy, but it turned out that at both parties, Jeremy spent hours talking about biofuels and driverless cars.  I actually sat there and was baffled that we were going to head into the 2nd hour of (both!) parties with all participants gung ho about energy policy (except me).  The first party, I excused myself to try to talk Edda into a taking a nap (she didn’t nap).  The 2nd party, I excused myself to go for a swim (she napped).

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Our neighbor is replacing his driveway.  On his own.  Total DIY.  He rented that bobcat and asked if he could run over our lawn with it.  We said OK.  Maybe tomorrow I will ask him if I can drive the bobcat.  Sometimes I pat myself on the back for replacing a toilet or fixing some drywall, but I would never think to replace a driveway by myself.  Props to him!

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We had a baby over for dinner tonight.  The dogs were delighted to have a steady stream of chili dog droppings fall to the floow.

Edda, on the loveliest day this week, went to the fair and got to have ice cream,  her face painted and have her hair adorned with a beribboned tiara.  I think she went on a few rides, but she’s not telling me.

Boba, my dearest love, is visiting me this weekend and sharing my pillow.

Jeremy biked to the farm stand and picked up fruits and vegetables and fully loaded all his gear.

Then we went to Wegman’s for dinner.

Jeremy bought me this electric toothbrush as a sign of his love and affection.  I’m the last person in the family to get one.  I’m a little frightened of it, it’s very loud.  I have this thing with oral hygiene – I feel this slight resistance to doing it.  I can tell when I’m in a foul or depressed mood because the first thing that goes is teeth brushing.  Jeremy thinks that electric toothbrushes are amazing and will make me want to brush my teeth more.  I’m afraid it will make me want to brush my teeth less.

At the beginning of the summer, I had all these plans.  Little plans like ramping up my work, reviewing Chinese words with Vince, making orthopedic appointments for Edda, taking vacations with Jeremy (by ourselves!) and decluttering the house.  Of that short, not very ambitious list, the only thing I managed to do was to get 5 trash bags full of old clothes to Goodwill.  Everything else has fallen off of the shelf and been kicked under the furniture where they now live with dusty Legos, old dog toys and a couple of pennies.

This week, we’ve been dealing with not only impressive driving infractions and the MoCo county fair, but also with infrastructure outages and maintenence.  The water was out on Wednesday when the plumber replaced the main indoor sewer line going out of the house because shit was leaking out of it onto the electronic hub of our small household operation (router, server, unused security system and various other pieces of plastic encased items with blinking lights).  On Thursday, a very kind gentleman knocked at the front door an announced that the power would be out for two hours while they installed a new transformer on the street.

Since I do need electricity to do my job, Edda, Keyla and I took this enforced break from work and headed towards Montgomery Mall where I discovered that you can sell saltwater in a spray bottle for $32.

And I also found out that Montomery Mall has this new, delicious food court.  Full of light and nice, modern furniture, the food court did not have that slightly greasy feel most mall food courts have – although it did have a popular McDonald’s outlet. We are eating waffle sandwiches.

The fair continues.  Vince is determined to reach the 120 hours of work necessary to obtain Ironman status.  Last full day tomorrow and then a few hours of clean up on Sunday will bring him to a total of 121.5 hours.

Jeremy went to work at the fair yesterday (Thursday).  Normally a very busy traffic day because of the demolition derby, it was actually very quiet because thunderstorms rolled through.

Jeremy’s all prepped with plastic encased shoes.

Storm rolling into command center Baker…