The Blog With No Name

But finishing things? Not so much. True at home (photo albums, homework and chore plans) and ever-so-frighteningly-true at work (database upgrades, calendar systems, one-off publications, the list is endless). I don’t actually trust my boss to be able to tell me in a rational manner when I have fucked something up – she seems, to me, to be like me in that she will not say something and not say something, all the while going silently nuts about whatever-it-is, until the dam bursts (I am not saying that this has actually *happened* just that I sense the possibility). Of course, it is possible for no one to know that I’ve fucked something up, I suppose, unless I happen to mention it.

Blah blah blah. What a bunch of tedious navel-gazing.

The sun is shining. The yard is tidy. I went for a nice long walk this morning with my neighbor. The kiddies have been playing outside and are all rosy-cheeked. I have lots of groceries, four gallons of milk, and a meal plan for the week. I am reading a good book, and am fairly caught up on laundry. I am looking forward to going to a fun party tonight (come on, babysitter!).

Best of all??

Melissa might have a job offer on Tuesday! Hooray!

Look at me, reading a book that does not involve spaceships or computer how-tos! Amazing. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, was somehow selected by my boss and the finder of all my babysitters to be the first book for a new reading group meeting at the church. I doubt I’ll go to the group, but I read the rave reviews on Amazon and thought I’d give it a try. I’m glad I did. I have rarely read a more perfectly-written story. Sentence by sentence, sometimes word by word, I am entranced.
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My kids went back to school on Monday, hooray! I celebrated by turning into a pumpkin. The summery blond highlights have given way to a weird sort of coppery hue. I think I like it – it’s supposed to fade somewhat over time, so we’ll see what it’s like in a week or so.

For some reason, I have gone almost a month without the usual obsessive-compulsive checking of our bank account online – marking cleared items etc etc. I think I am already in denial about the season’s heating bills. Our budget plan has already gone up $30, I can’t bear to think what it’ll be like in January. My boss has purchased the installation of a corn stove for her little bungalow out of fear for the natural gas prices. We shall see. I say, good thing I still have all those sweaters from my Moscow days. The kidlets are going to have to get used to wearing sweatshirts and keeping their socks on, damn it!

What else. I apparently tried to kill my neighbor the other day – how was I to know that you are supposed to start a walk off slowly and build up to the target pace? I just take off, weights swinging etc. Her husband said, more or less, what do you expect, Mary is 20 years younger than you, too bad for him he’s off by only ten years or so – HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The new hire at my office has found, miraculously, an entire battalion of college girls from up the street to do occasional childcare at church (Sundays and weeknights for committee meetings). Some of them want more work, and are willing to work privately too! Woot! FRESH MEAT! (The absolute best part? For insurance reasons, I get to do background checks on all of them.)

So Charles and I went to a beer-tasting dinner (Charles tasted the beer, yuck, I had some pinot noir with my salmon), and tomorrow I can do it all over again!!! With a different babysitter! O the luxury. (We were to play trivia at the Library again, but we must have scared off the competition, as we were the only team signed up for tomorrow night. Sigh)

The day began with a breakfast out at someone else’s house, included a soccer game and a slight fender-bender* (car slightly damaged, no one hurt, although my deranged son now thinks that being in a wreck is “totally awesome!” – I can see why boys have higher insurance costs), and ended with a nice gathering of relatives, friends, and co-workers (most attendees fit in at least two of those categories).

Our neighbor came, more or less fresh off the plane from London, and at one point she asked Charles how the neighborhood had fared in her absence. He gave her a bit of an odd look, and said, “fine, just fine.” While he was saying this to her, he was wondering whether I or my boss had mentioned the fact that there were police at her house one night recently, summoned by her daughter who thought that her ex-boyfriend was breaking in. My boss and I decided that it’s the daughter’s job to mention that little incident, and that we will bring it up only if we sense that such has not occurred. Oh how complicated. Luckily, Charles went with the “no news is good news,” sort of. That could have been, um, interesting, had he mentioned it. Yikes.

But all in all a good party.

(*some idiot, who lacks not only the sense that God gave a paper clip but also a valid driver’s license, turned on a red light right in front of Charles, who managed to just clip the front right of his car while swerving out of the way.)

Over a week since I wrote anything – disgraceful! I am in the throes of party prep; tomorrow is an open house in honor of Charles’ forty-first birthday (since I f***ed up and didn’t do anything outstanding for his 40th). I am also killing approximately six minutes until an online training session starts. The liturgy aids for bulletin preparation are going completely online starting next year, so I’m taking a little class in how to make use of them most efficiently. And on the last day of my week off, too. How’s that for dedication?

I am quite proud of myself for keeping the kids on a bit of a schoolwork schedule (that’s somewhat dishonest – the problem is always keeping myself on the schedule); they’re each getting faster and faster on the flash cards, and his writing is improving – not so many backwards numbers. Yay!

We went to Chicago for two days, whee! I took some lame photographs, which you can look at here:

My Chicago pix.

The effect that a large (tranquil) body of water can have on one (at least on me) is staggering. If I lived in Chicago, I would go to Lake Michigan every day. I could stare at it for hours. I think in my case it is the apparent infinity that is so mesmerizing.

Did I mention also the breathtaking EXPENSIVENESS of everything? As luck would have it, we went to the Shedd Aquarium on “Discount Day,” so it cost us a MERE $50 for all four of us to enter. It is definitely worth it to buy local museum memberships if only for the reciprocal agreements – we got into the Children’s “Museum” for free, and can get into the Field Museum when we go up to see KING TUT next year.

The new IKEA is sweet though – easy enough access from the highway that even *I* could drive there. Yippee!

While Charles and our new little Tiger Cub Scout were out camping in the woods (I should photograph him on his return – every gadget we have [huge flashlight, Moto walkabout radio, etc] clipped to his tiny belt), we chicks went to see “Corpse Bride.” I liked it a lot. My sister-in-law still likes “The Nightmare Before Christmas” better but oh well. I saw the ending coming about halfway through (when a certain character is describing the events leading to her demise, the shadows on the wall tell the whole story), but as usual with movies like this, the animation was fun to look at, there were oodles of little sight gags in the background, and oh the voice cast – Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, Richard Grant, Christopher Lee, Tracey Ullman. Delicious.