werd

I learned a new word today:  Floordrobe.
"Meego's been home from college for a month, and his floordrobe is now fully organized."

I've gotta pick my battles.

day 1

Overheard yesterday at College Town Walfarts:

EMPLOYEE:  Today was going pretty good until about 10 o'clock...

Yup.  Yesterday was move-in day at the university for Meego and a squizillion other dorm rats.  We managed to fit all of Meego's worldly possessions plus our three selves into one vehicle to make the haul.  That was partially aided by the fact that he, unsurprisingly, forgot a few things, but all-in-all, the day went smoothly.

The university is a couple of hours up the road, and as we made the trek, I was noticing other similarly loaded vehicles, complete with young people.  I was mainly taking stock of the bicycles I saw.  Some nicer than Meego's, others not.  That was good.  You don't want to have the best bike in the bike rack, but you don't want a piece o' crap either.

At the bike registration tent

It was a good day.  Classes begin on Monday, so he should be settled in time to hit the books.  His roommate seems like a nice guy, and the two of them have things in common.  They met through a university app that's "kind of like Tinder" to pair up roommates.

A friend of mine posted pics on fb of her daughter's move-in at the same university.  Her daughter's room looks like something out of Good Housekeeping magazine.  Meego's room does... not.

I've heard that, as far as dorm housing typically goes, guys are slobs and girls create much drama.  The guys should have the slob part down anyways.

After we got him settled and made two separate runs to the aforementioned Walfarts, we met up with Wolfgang who, coincidentally, lives and works in College Town.  So we got in a nice visit with him and met his new roommate

That's okay, I didn't want to use the sink anyway...

So, our house seems strangely huge and quiet today.  My first order of business is to tidy up and see what's left in the wake of yesterday's move out / in.  Then I'll figure out what to do with the extra time in my life now.  This showed up in my instagram today:

Okay.  I'm on it.  😬

breathing room

Fall semester began this week for Chaco, Wolfgang, and me.  Meego had week 2 of school.  Magnum continues to bring home the bacon for us all.

I am so tired.

NOT from classes, however.  Those were the fun mellow parts of the week.  All that tidying and decluttering I was going to do during my end-of-summer break? It didn't quite pan out until this week.  It hit me with a vengeance.

I guess since Wolfgang was still temporarily living here, I couldn't really go hog wild.  But he pretty much got all moved and settled last weekend.  Then I felt that most anything left behind was free pickings.

My dad will readily admit that he's probably got some psychological "condition" that makes it difficult for him to throw anything away.  Plus he felt a need to always have a large number of any one item on hand in case one broke down.  I wouldn't put him on the same level as true hoarders, but borderline?  Our home was always clean, but full of stuff.

I remember going home while in college, and I'd mention needing a lamp or something. He'd say, "What color do you want?" and whip out an assortment.  And he's a math nerd.  I can't begin to estimate the number of calculators in the house.

So, I think from that, I went the other extreme.  I like space.  Lots of empty space.  The final frontier.

Having lots of stuff cluttered around puts me on edge.  It's like a constant discordant racket, I can't concentrate.  For instance, remember this?  On my desk?

Gosh, that was loud.  It's all been silenced and resides in here now.  

Was that SO hard?!

And once I got started, I just couldn't stop.  Yesterday, after the desk, I moved to the rest of the basement, the bedroom, the garage, the hallways... It was wonderful!  Everthing put into its appropriate place.

The trash and recycling dumpsters are full, and there is stuff in the front hall ready for those nice guys with the donation truck on Monday.  

So I'm physically tired but feel so much better now.  Still, a part of me worries that I might need some of that crap someday.

Not.

.

boxed in

*DING * DONG *

Me:  Oh {SHOOT!} Don't answer that!

Meego:  What?

Me:  Don't answer that!

Meego:  Why not?

Me:  Don't answer that!

Meego:  Go answer that?

Me:  Don't answer that!

Meego:  Who is it?

Me:  Don't answer that!

Meego:  It's UPS.

Me:  Don't answer that!

Today is Meego's birthday.  Happy Birthday, Meego!  Born Mother's Day of 2000.  So we ordered him a thing, and it was due to be delivered yesterday afternoon.  Meego and I were both at home, but I had to leave to go tute and was hoping that UPS driver would get here so I could intercept the thing.

I had to get ready to go and stepped into the bathroom to do in-the-bathroom things, and of course, that's when Mr. UPS arrives.  Hence the above "conversation", me shouting from the bathroom.

So I made it to the door to intercept the thing, which by then, Meego was on the up and up about.  At least it was in a nondescript brown box, so I took it down to the rec room to help it blend in.

In the meantime, Chaco and Wolfgang are to be out of their dorms by the end of this week, and have brought "a few" of their things to the house already.  So I have plenty of camouflage for Meego's Birthday thing.

Anybody remember where I put it??

.

it's his fault for not even knowing what he owns

Text exchange with Meego earlier today....

My phone - texts read from bottom to top:

SCORE!

.

out of the shadows

First of all, I want to give a shout out to my latest Celebrity-Crush-Whose-Feelings-Will-Never-Be-Mutual.

Christian Bale came out to visit Aurora yesterday.  How cool is that?

He and his (so lucky) wife showed up unannounced at the two hospitals where victims of the Batman shootings are.  Then they visited and added flowers to the growing memorial outside the theater.  He did it in such a classy way.  Never alerted any press.  In fact, the local police arranged for him to arrive at the hospitals in an ambulance so no one would be the wiser.  

One of the victims posted a photo of himself with Christian Bale on his facebook page, then the word spread  like... well, let's not say "wildfire".


Stuff like that really does make a difference.

Wolfgang, huge Batman fan, was muchly impressed.  I've mentioned that he doesn't yet know what he wants to be when he grows up?  I think now he wants to be Christian Bale.


Onto other things.  I had a day off today.  Meego is doing summer band, so I've taken some days off from the mid-day tutees.  In the meantime, I'm sharing summer band duties with one of the neighbor moms, and it was her turn today.

I did summer cleaning.

Remember the piles o' crap I removed from the kids' barracks just so they could clean?  They were still there.  My Tough Love Mom defenses came down because I couldn't look at them anymore.  I went through them.

Here's the take:

• "lost" winter gloves
• enough socks to stuff a 6 foot Nile Monitor Lizard
• Wolfgang's band shoes from 8th grade
• missing cell phone charger
• gym shorts for school P.E. - still in the school gym bag (!!)
• Two pairs of rollerblades
• Back-to-School information from 2010

...and various inconsequential items.

Actually, I'm just happy I didn't find any sandwiches.  Either way, we don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff.   The house is tidier, the garbage dumpster is heavier, I feel cleaner.


You just never know who might come visit.
.

first room on the left

Our kids, God bless 'em, all share one big bedroom.  For the most part, it's all they've ever known and when they were younger, they seemed to prefer it. Technically, our home is a 4 BR but who actually uses all of the bedrooms as bed rooms?? 

So they have the large Master bedroom and the design motif is that of contemporary American barracks, from what I've seen of barracks.  And for the most part it works, they have the Man Cave to overflow into.

The problem for ME is that the room gets teenaged-boy-trashed x 3, and when I ask them to clean "the mess", they can all say, "It's not my mess".

Okay, fine.

I went ahead and took the first step for them.  I got all of this stuff off of the communal floor.  I've assured them that my days of buying their trash are over.

So it's helped.  Now they can better see what needs organizing {sheesh}.  Chaco is in there now going at it, Meego and Wolfgang will have their turns.  This has me in anticipation mode.  

See, a few weeks ago, we were packing up for our road trip.  Chaco appeared with a sandwich.  He'd found it in his closet.  

It was in a container since he'd brought it to school but obviously didn't eat it.  At least it wasn't furry and smelly.  Rather, it looked fine, but was the consistency of a cinder block - thank you, dry Colorado climate.  Note that this was about a month after his school year had ended.  

We got back from the road trip and a few days later the fire started.  A few days after that, the fire got downright nasty.  We each packed a bag and set it by the door just in case we needed to leave in a hurry.  Chaco didn't need to pack, though.  His road trip bag was still intact since he'd just shoved it to some corner of the barracks.  I'll admit that came in handy, but... yeah.  Sigh.

Last week, he was going to a LAN party and was packing up a daypack.

Found yet another cinder block sandwich.

You see what I'm up against here??  Note that, not only has he now found 2 long forgotten sandwiches, but no one else had noticed them in the meantime.  This occured even though they assure me that they "clean" the room every Sunday.  I think they are just making dusting and vacuuming noises, opening and closing a few drawers for effect.

When I was growing up, I had my own bedroom.  Yes, it was occassionally trashed and disheveled.  I recall one poor plant that died a slow death.  Is this slob karma coming back to haunt me?

Anyone else have slob karma?
.

day 2

It's been just over a month since our last big snowstorm. Really, I went into the archives and checked. And I do remember that we've had some snow since then too.

Well, yesterday, we broke the record for high temperature. It got up to 96 new-record degrees. ACK, I'm dealing with this weather moodiness as best I can. It was a pleasantly breezy 60 degrees this morning. A lovely run I had, yes I did.

Okay, enough talk about the weather. I see this is "Day 2" of the seige summer. Yes, the kids were officially released from school last Wednesday. Yes, there wasn't a whole lot of schoolness in the days just prior to that. But I was still with the busy work schedule last week, so for me, summer break didn't really start until yesterday.

So yesterday we made some lists. One, a fun list. Two categories: "Adventures" and "Projects". Oh, I can't wait to begin! The other, a not-so-fun list?

See, I think my kids have been slacking on the helping-out-around-the-housery. I'm cracking down. We listed things that need to be done daily as well as weekly. Then we made a third category, which I labeled "$pecial" - to indicate that they would actually get paid for doing things from that category - and also to indicate that they would NOT be getting paid for the other two categories *cackles evilly*.

So far, it's working wonderfully, and the household is running like a well-oiled machine.

The floors are swept, and in some cases, mopped(!). Lawn's mowed. Weeds were pulled. Car was washed, vacuumed, and is set for a morning waxing today. In all this zeal, China the crazy dog underwent two good rubdowns and rinsings.

Who are these children?
.

Silver Liningness Sunday

Good morning on this snowy Sunday! It's snowy here anyway, but it's pretty, gentle, fluffy snow, not the mean blustery, drifty, crusty snow.

It's been a busy week at work. I started a new class, and I took on another tutor student. So much for my phasing-out-of-tutoring phase. The class is for the GMAT this time, and it has been totally revised, so I've had to learn myself the new stuff. It's extra work, yes, but I like the revisions and the work is fun because I'm a geek like that.

Took China the crazy dog for her checkup at the vet's this week too. She's fat and getting arthritic, but the heartworms are dead and gone.

Remember the kids' bedroom project? Of course you do! Well, they managed to get some cleaning done. Not nearly as much as I would prefer, but I'll take what I can get. On Monday, we ordered new beds for Chaco and Wolfgang. They talked us into Memory Foam mattresses. Now I want one too!

Here's what the room looks like today. It has a rather military barracks/juvenile detention facility feel to it, I think, but they seem to like it. Once again, I Spy a Cat. I also Spy a Lazy Young Male Human.

The next project is new paint for the awful walls. What do you think - big flowers??

But during the cleanup, we found a bunch of Meego's "Magic Treehouse" books which were promptly sold on craigslist, so he's a little bit richer. I also found a figure drawing book that I think we bought for Wolfgang when he took a summer art class. It's mine now.

Oh, and I mentioned earlier that I gave up negativity for lent? It's working! Five days into it anyway. I'm thankful for my positive role models! Everyone should have them!

Despite the work busyness, I've still found time for Art and Bicycles. I'm honing my figure drawing skills thanks to the cleanup, and I have another watercolor in the works. The car sat in the garage a lot this week too... before the snow.

For this week's Sunday Sketch, I give... a chair. That's it. Just a chair... in keeping with the furniture theme.

design of experiments

Okay, so I left out that box of tea last week? Remember? It's gone!

I'm not sure who moved it or precisely when. Heck, I'm not even sure if it went to its proper destination! I suppose I should've checked to see how many boxes were already in the proper destination, huh? I'll just assume that the top-of-the-stairs box of tea is now one of the tea stash boxes.

Anyway, I went to teach my class last Wednesday night. Sometime between my leaving and the time that I walked by the experiment site the next day, it had moved. I have my suspicions that a resident or two of this household may have actually read the blog entry where I laid out my experiment, thus cancelling out the accurateness of the results, but hey, whatever works.

In other slob news, Chaco and Wolfgang need new beds. They've been sharing the same bunkbed for years. I think Chaco's feet actually hang off the end. Anyways, we told them that they need to get the room "bed ready" and then we'll get each of them new bed sets.

Some headway has been made, but they could do OH! so much more. A new experiment?

Purpose:
To attain a state of habitability for the boys' bedroom

Method:
Entice with the promise of new beds and wait patiently for metamorphosis.

Results:
Slight changes detected. Very slight. Too slight.

Not holding my breath.

As seen from the entrance since
I'm kinda afraid to go in there.

Note: There's an actual cat in the photo. I challenge you to find him.
.

tea time

Not far from where I'm sitting is a 12-can pack of Brisk iced tea. It's stationed at the top of the stairs leading into the Mancave.

This box of tea has been there since mid-morning yesterday when I plopped it there after my return from a grocery run. It originally had two companion tea boxes that I have since obediently stashed in their proper waiting stations. My original intent was to return for the third box and obediently stash it also, but then I thought I'd try a little experiment instead.

Purpose:
To determine the number of times and subsequent length of time that my family members will walk past the box of tea, in the direction of the stash location, before someone, ANYONE, stashes it away in its proper waiting station.

Method:
Leave the tea at the top of the stairs.

Results (so far):
I know there have been several encounters with the tea box from various other residents as they headed toward the stash. If I start recording my data from this morning, however, I have at least 5 encounters, so I'll start with that.


Okay, Magnum works full-time and clearly makes the lion's share of our financial bottom line. He also helps clean up after meals and does fine with that as long as I don't watch.

Kids are in school for about 7 hours a day. I consider it my job, and have for quite some time, to take care of the meat of the household well-oiled-machineness. I mainly just ask that people take care of their own "stuff" and clean up after their own selves. These basics sound good in theory, but rarely are handled smoothly.

Maybe I'm making life too easy.

I recall reading about a family that called a meeting because the mom was overwhelmed with doing "everything" around the house. A divying up of various responsibilities ensued. Certain jobs were categorized as "specialties" that could only be handled by specific members, for example: "breast feed the baby".

So today, I will go about my daily housewifery and also grade some essays and prepare some lessons.


But I'm not touching the tea. I don't even drink it.
.

get yours today!

I've reinstated "Pay the Putzfrau".

Old longtime readers of this blog may recall a few years back when I was inspired by a certain globe hopping blog friend to start charging my children for my cleaning services. No, this friend didn't do so, but when he was in Germany, he had a Putzfrau, a cleaning lady.

It was the word "Putzfrau" that so inspired. A program of pay-your-mom-when-she-cleans-up-your-messes-that-you-are-perfectly-capable-of-and-responsible-for was just too exhausting to try to enforce, I felt. But what an endearing term, this "Putzfrau"!

And it was from that that I fashioned my own handy Pay The Putzfrau home service kit. It includes the lovely handcrafted receptical shown above, and the program works as follows:

1. Someone leaves a mess
2. You charge them money

Not too complex, eh?!

What? Someone splashed juice on the floor and now walking in your kitchen feels like walking in a movie theater? Pay The Putzfrau!

Snack remains left behind while the snacker has gleefully gone off to play? Pay The Putzfrau!

Forgot to flush? You know it!!

The photo above shows my lovely handcrafted receptical. It has two slips in it - I.O.U.'s because my current "clients" happen to be currently broke. The Putzfrau fees will be garnished from their next wages.

Want your own kit?? I'll ship it for a small fee. Really, it pays for itself in no time!
.

may be safely removed

Okay, last week I sort of gave Meego some flack here about not being able to part with his Playmobil Deluxe Zoo, unearthed in a Man Cave archeological dig. He has since disassembled it and packed it back up, but I don't see it ending up for sale very soon.

My parents are notorious pack rats. Really. It's like a sickness. Even THEY say so. On a recent visit to their home, I told my mom that I had gone into the basement to look for something and she got this look on her face, all horrified, "you went into the.... basement?!?"

It's probably because of this that I abhor clutter. Things have a pretty short shelf life around here. I remember when I could pack up and move all of my belongings with one trip in a little economy car.

Because of certain "trappings" I've picked up in life (namely a husband and 3 kids), my life is not the carefree clutter-free life it once was, but I manage. So on last week's post, I had posed a question to what others had in THEIR closets. Those items that have either been forgotten, or that we are just too weak to bring ourselves to part with.

Despite my anticlutter stance, I admit to such a weakness. Two, actually.

Exhibit A shows the grubby high school track team hoodie. The GHSTTH if you will. This thing is easily 30 years old. Note the total lack of fashion.

I know what some may be thinking. "We had to turn in our track uniforms at the end of the season". Yeah, well so did we, which is probably the reason this particular piece of cotton contraband is difficult for me to part with. And that's all I will say about that...

Nextly, we have my bedraggled childhood teddy bear. No, I have not been carrying this around with me my whole life. It was actually on a trip to my pack rat parents' house not too long ago that this bear was rediscovered (naturally, it had not been discarded).

The kids saw it as some rare antique thing and declared that we (I) should reclaim it, so I did. I put it on this shelf, and there it still sits today because I'm afraid if I touch it, it will disintegrate.

So there we have it. No more secrets. And tomorrow is trash day.

Rejoice in it.

.

another's treasure

I'm not sure how I did it, but somehow I managed to convince the kids to clean up their Man Cave. If I'm not mistaken, it had something to do with a powerful vacuum cleaner and threats to suck up anything that wasn't either too big or bolted down.

During the ensuing excavation, we discovered a zoo.

Not just any zoo, but a Playmobil DeLUXE zoo! We're talkin' vultures! We're talkin' tiger family! We're talkin' extra fencing! We're even talkin' zoo technician, complete with shovel and wheel barrow!

Have you any idea how ridiculously priced this stuff is?!?! (Note: We did not purchase this. It was a gift to Meego several years ago from my I-can-buy-love father-in-law).

Anyway, so the tote housing the zoo was unearthed from beneath layers of other misfit toys. I can't remember the last time the thing was even out in the fresh air. I told Meego that he could probably get a lot of cash for it. I could see the "CHA-CHING!" gears a-grinding in his brain.

But first, he'd have to set it up all pretty like so I could take a photo of it. That was the downfall

It's still there. Not wanting to sell Just Yet, on second thought...

What's in your closet?

.

the visit

Long ago, I adapted to the FACT that once one has children, one can forget about privacy in the bathroom.

Living in a house full of males, I try to maintain at least a modicum of privacy both for my sake and for theirs, particularly now that the kids are getting older. Still, it's not uncommon for any of them to just go willy nilly (pun intended) about their business without bothering to shut the door... shutting it would just be for my sake anyway. At least they're content to wait until I've left the area and no longer just whip it out while I'm, say, brushing or flossing. So that's a start.

At least the days of them following my every move about the house are in the past, but I too can be a bit negligent.

Today, I was innocently shaving my legs. Something I do a couple of times per week to keep the Bigfoot conspirators at bay. I've done this forever - since about the time I realized that women in this country aren't culturally hairy. So it's safe to say that my kids have witnessed me shaving my legs nearly as often as they've witnessed Magnum shaving his face.

So I'm in the bathroom, one foot in the sink, scraping away on a leg, when in walks Meego.

And a friend.

Granted, I was wearing a pair of shorts (just shaving LEGS here folks!), but it was just the act... the intimacy... of leg shaving that made this feel *ahem* AWKWARD.

This friend is at our house quite often and is a bit of a communist. I don't necessarily mean that he has communist political views per se, but rather that he lives the communist lifestyle of "what's yours is mine", and often just wanders about the house like a 6th resident. I'm pretty okay with that as long as he remembers to remove his shoes (it's a Filipino thing).

He's 11 years old. He's seen me exercising, he's seen me getting ready for work, he's seen me folding laundry - including the unmentionables....

He's never been in the bathroom at the same time as me, however.

I just stopped what I was doing, wiped off the leg and took the foot out of the sink. For some reason, it seemed more appropriate to have both feet on the floor. Meego was totally indifferent to the whole thing, and from what I could tell, the same was true for the communist friend. They had come in to assess the size of the bathtub in regards to a Lego boat they had just built.

At least I wasn't in the tub. That may have caused a stir.
.

perspicaz

So I entered the room of doom today. That would be the kids' bedroom. I don't remember what I went in there for, maybe to open the window. Get in, open the window, get out, before the mess completely entraps me.

Upon my speedy exit, I notice a piece of paper with what looks like some sort of org chart laying about in no particular organized place. Looking closer, I see that it's a small family tree, written in Spanish in Chaco's writing. Must be an assignment for Spanish class.

In the upper corner, with no particular lines emanating, he lists "Mi Gato Cookie" and "Mi Perro China". Then in the middle of the page, we see a box each for Magnum and me with a line coming out and breaking off into three lines. One each for Chaco and his brothers.

The brother boxes say, "Mi hermano menor Wolfgang [es perezoso]" = My younger brother Wolfgang [he is lazy]; "Mi hermano menor Meego [es divertido]" = My younger brother Meego [he is funny].

My box says, "Mi Madre Abby [es trabajadora]" = My mother Abby [she's hard working]. Magnum's box says, "Mi Padre Magnum [es un nerdo]". He got the hard working part right! Nice for him to notice! as for the "un nerdo", I don't even think that's a genuine word in Spanish, but we get the translation.

la HA la HA la HA la HA!!
.

on the hunt

First of all:

Yes, Jerry, that is a toilet seat that my foot is propped on for the picture of my chair war wound. Unsanitary, yes, but in this house there really aren't many better alternatives.

And, yes, I WAS wearing shorts. In the middle of December. In Colorado. But I was inside the house. It was early in the morning - before I put on my "real" clothes. We don't all live in igloos out here.

After that ominous start of my day, things did improve. I'm glad to say that we haven't been plagued by snow days at school this week like Whimsical Ranter. That would've seriously thrown a wrench in my Christmas prep.

For the remainder of this entry, I will substitute the code word "chicken" for words that may reveal too much, lest one of the kids happens to stumble in here.

After taking the dog for her cold-weather training, I headed out to the chicken store because Wolfgang had dropped a big hint about a certain chicken there that he wanted. So I was in the chicken aisle, looking for this very specific chicken and wasn't seeing it. In the meantime, I could hear one of the store employees talking very loudly. Just had one of those loud voices. I found it a bit annoying as I was hunting through all those chickens looking for the one chicken I'd gone to purchase.

To make matters worse, she started eating a sandwich yet continued to talk. I could hear the "see-food" in her mouth, it was as gross as seeing it. At some point, she peeked down the chicken aisle I was in. She put a hand in front of her mouth and loudly inquired, "Can I *garble* help *garble* you find *garble* something?" Like the placement of her hand helped much.

I asked if they had the specific chicken, and she said yes, they did and approached to locate it. She couldn't find it either though, so she calls loudly - in an even louder voice than before - to the front of the store. "HEY! WE GOT ANY OF THEM CHICKENS?"

No answer.

Loud sandwich woman then whispers to me, "his hearing's not what it used to be". So, I'm thinking, why is she whispering? "Or maybe he's just ignoring me", she continues, whispering. Now I start to warm up to her, making fun of her man and all.

Anyway, the man comes over and looks for the chicken too. Can't find it either and determines they must've all been sold. I leave the store empty handed.

Then I hit the mall *shudders*. I had better luck there. Got another chicken I know Wolfgang wanted and also found some chicken for Meegos' teacher. Oh, well, that's just hand lotion. Don't need the code word.

By then, I still had a few hours before the kids got home from school. I welcomed the time to sit and get quite a bit of work done at my desk as my shin was fat and throbbing. Dastardly evil chair.

I'm still hunting for the chicken, though. Eight more shopping days!
.

feng sway

Furnace guy was here today.

I think we're going to get a new furnace. So exciting! We never get new stuff! Unless it's like, well, Legos or Airsoft crap.

Thing is, we have an old old furnace - like original furnace when the house was built long time ago old furnace. Magnum's employer recently merged with a big name furnace manufacturer. Yeah, can you say, "employee discount"? So I had a furnace guy here today to give me his pitch. Poker face, pure poker face, that was my plan.

He's friendly, he's taking measurements and whatnot. And then... and then.... he compliments me on how I've set up the furnishings and such around the house. How the house feels open and friendly and airy. How I've made good use of our space. Me! Naturally, I feel that way, but does anyone around here notice?? Do my own children appreciate it? Does my mother, who thinks I need more (read better and more plentiful) furniture notice?? And who knows what the snooty in-laws are thinking?! NO!

But Furnace Guy noticed. I practically bought the furnace right there and then.

I'm not very good at poker either.
.

aftermath

It is done. Field Day 2008 is now a done deal. As expected, the weather held nicely. Yes, there were some tears, but I've gotten used to that by now. They get over it. Hopefully.

Meego made out with three first place ribbons and three third place ribbons. We seem to be into odd numbers. Takes one to know one.

Now, about those sack-races-without-sacks. I know people have been losing sleep over not knowing the story there. It would be easier to just provide a picture of these sackless sack-race contraptions. As it was, to be a responsible undistracted sack race official, I didn't bring my camera to field day. I figured what I would do is just find a picture from Wolfgang's Yearbook that he got when he "continuated" out of the elementary school after 5th grade.

I couldn't find it. More on that to come.

Anyway, the PE teacher found there were inherent problems with the gunnie sacks. They get beat up, they're hard to replace, kids get all tangled up in them and fall on their faces, blah, blah, blah... So a few years ago, he contrapted a different set of gear. Here's the recipe:

Take a 12" diameter inner tube and cut it along it's length so it essentially makes a big rubber band.
Bind the kids' ankles with the rubber band.
Cinch a small length of rope around the rubber band and run the end of the rope up to provide a "handle".
Kids now have bound ankles and something to grasp with the hands. Line them up. Say, "On your mark, get set, go". It's a sackless sack race.

Okay? Picturing it? What??

Now, here's why I don't have a picture. Firstly, let me provide Exhibit A: My workspace -


- for contrast.

I went into the boys' room to get Wolfgang's 5th grade yearbook. I now give you Exhibit B: Their workspace, or whatever we should refer to it as -



Yes, the room is much bigger, but the rest of the decor pretty much follows this motif of Contemporary American Eviction Notice.

I did search for a while, but no yearbook has yet been uncovered. You'll have to use your imagination.

And don't go in there.
.