I should say something.  Or answer some of the 151 email in my box.  (Is “email” the plural of “email”?  Or would it be “emails”?  Stuff to ponder.) 

Or I could work on one of the Bible-time costumes I’m in charge of creating for the Saturday night extravaganza.  I came up with something unbelievably creative to wear–you’ll just have to wait so it doesn’t spoil the surprise–and also, my husband will be wearing something spiffy, but I have to create both of them.  (Get to, have to, what’s the difference?)

But not today.

My husband’s making dinner tonight and furthermore, he bought a blender so he could make the boys milkshakes for dessert.  When he slid the box onto the kitchen counter, I flung open (fling?  flang?  flung?) the cupboard door and said, “But we have an awesome blender, right there!”  An Oster, for the record, a shiny silver one.  He said, “The boys said ours doesn’t work and I said, “It does work!  It works perfectly!”  And he said, “Dear, don’t spoil our fun,” and “The kids are only home for a few short years,” and I shut up.

Now, we own two blenders.  Too bad we don’t drink Margaritas. 

Um, so, earlier today, just after I finished posting on my other blog, my daughter began banging on the patio door, hysterical and screaming.  I jumped to the door in one giant leap and opened it . . . she was yelling about her friend who had a bee in his shoe and he ambled and sobbed, apparently incoherent with terror. 

“Is it still in there?” I asked.

He shook his head, clutched a rock and drooled as he cried louder.  I sat him on the stair, intending to take off his shoes to check for a sting and found two wasps clinging to the crotch of his pants.  I swept them off and yanked him away from the stairs because another wasp dive-bombed us.  My daughter, meanwhile, is unharmed, yet is shrieking with sympathy terror.  The boy continued to scream.

I shoved my daughter inside, then pulled the boy in and closed the door.  I said again, “Is the bee in your shoe?”  And he said, “No!” but pointed to his waist.  I said, “Did it sting you there?” and he nodded and a bit of drool dripped down.  I pulled the waistband down for a good look and there was a live wasp, crawling out of his pants.

I screamed, my daughter screamed louder, the boy cried out in greater fear.  I opened the door and dragged him out, closing my daughter inside.  I pulled his clothes off, leaving only his Spiderman underpants.  Then back inside the house.

I was examining the place where he was stung and asked him if his mouth itched.  (He’s a very allergic kid and I was afraid he’d have a bad reaction.)  The phone rang, so I answered and with racing heart, began telling my husband what had happened.  We were still all breathless from the excitement.

And then I felt a sting on the top of my foot.  I said, “I just got stung!”  I knew immediately, even though I had never before been stung in my 41 years on this earth.  I was wearing black, wool, plush scuff-type slippers, so I began to smash my right foot on top of my left foot to kill the wasp which had to be inside my slipper.  Then I opened the door, kicked my slippers outside and peeled off my sock.

Ouch!  That hurt!  A wasp must have burrowed into my slipper while I was outside flicking other wasps off the boy.

When I took him to the kitchen to get a band-aid (a cure-all for every sort of injury if you are four years old), I found Solarcaine, so sprayed a little on my foot to see whether it would numb the pain.  It helped a bit, so I prepared to spray the boy’s stung spot and my daughter burst into fresh, loud sobs–“DON’T SPRAY HIM!  DON’T SPRAY HIM!”  She thought it would hurt.

The boy began to cry afresh, too.

But I sprayed him.  He assured her it didn’t hurt.

(I just heard a neighbor say to my boys, “Are you going to come to my birthday party?”  My boy says, “When?” and the neighbor says, “Today!” and something about Chuck-E-Cheese’s.  Uh, hello?  No advanced warning?  No.  I don’t think so.)

My foot still hurts.  Perhaps I ought to start drinking Margaritas.

Yesterday, on an afternoon filled with autumn blue sky, I decided I’d take the kids to the pumpkin patch today.  The boys have finished up their school work early because a friend is coming over to play this afternoon.  Because my husband is out of town, I have the Disco Van at my disposal.  And going anywhere on a weekday is better than a weekend.

I slept with the window open last night and woke to the sound of rain this morning.  However, the weather guys on television say that the “showers” will stop and so, we’re going anyway.  Plus, we aren’t made of brown sugar–we won’t melt. 

I’m trying to work up the energy to pick up the scattered detritus that this week produced.  And I need to think about dinner and laundry and paying bills and going out into the driveway to pick up the newspaper in its saoked plastic bag.

My husband returns this afternoon at 3:30 p.m., but by the time he gets his luggage and deals with traffic, it could be hours before he arrives home.  Tonight, I have to take my son to the weigh-in for Judo so he and my husband can spend tomorrow at the YMCA for the Judo tournament.  What joy.

I really loathe when the weekend is already full and I can’t see a single opening in which I can escape.  Maybe tomorrow night.  Maybe Sunday?  Maybe never.

Meanwhile, I have to clean off this desk so I can think straight.  I bet I can get a lot done before we trudge through the pumpkin patch mud.  If I get up.  Now.  Yes, I’m going.  Okay.

Now.

Really.

All right.

I’m gone.

Bye.

See you.

Later. 

OKAY!

I am getting up. 

Now.

I mean it.

Bye.

Last night, at 9:00 p.m., I headed out to the grocery store for milk (and whatever else I realized we needed while strolling the aisles).  In the driveway, I looked at the set of keys in my  hand and realized that I’d grabbed my husband’s set of keys, which include an ignition key to our van, but not a door key.  I was too lazy to go back inside to get our set of van keys, so I said to myself, “Self, just don’t lock the door.” 

You see where this is going, right?

I shopped until my cart was sort of full.  I stood in line for quite some time because some lady needed a price check.  Finally, yawning, I paid for my groceries, reached into my purse to get my keys and said to myself, “Self, uh, you didn’t lock the door, did you?”

Surely not, right?  Is my attention span so short that I forget during the ten minute drive from my house to Albertson’s? 

I strode to the van, hoping against hope that my brain had overruled habit.  Alas, it did not.  I was locked out of my van.  I called my husband, not that he could help me because we only have one vehicle.  But while on the telephone with him, I came up with a plan:  I called my mother.

It was 9:42 p.m.

My mother was home, and around 10:00 p.m., I was loading groceries into the back of my van. 

So much for a quick trip to the store.  By the time I was home and the groceries were unloaded, it was past 10:30 p.m.

*  *  *

After my depiction of household school-at-home harmony, we had an unpleasant day today.  My Reluctant Student chose to skim his pre-algebra chapter review and then grew indignant, pouty and angry with me when I informed him he would have to actually complete the lesson.  I am so unreasonable.

Later, after the shouting, he began picking up toys and straightening up the family room.  I said, “What are you doing?” 

He said, “Cleaning up.” 

I said, “Are you doing penance?” 

Both boys said, “What’s that?”  I explained penance and thus, we turn even a difficult situation into a learning experience.  Ha.

Tonight, the same Reluctant Student helped me make quiche for dinner.  He can be so helpful . . . if only we could do something about the fits.