Bits and pieces

Since I don’t seem to have any good stories to tell today, I thought I’d just list a few random thoughts for no particular reason.

First off, today was our day for “feeding old people” and it went smoothly except for the racket in the back seat. “I want to get out of the car mama!” I’ve come to the conclusion that this endeavor is not kid-appropriate in the least. While I like that we’re helping a worthy cause, I don’t like that it means strapping Sam down and making him unhappy for a couple of hours. The other problem is that should Ben not be able to do the route, Sam and I would have to do it ourselves which would mean about 15 rounds of strapping in the boy, letting him out, strapping him in, letting him out. Perhaps we should back out of this commitment for now and come back to it when he is about four and can actually feel helpful. What could we do on a volunteer basis where Sam would actually be an asset?

There are all sorts of planes flying over Burlington today and yesterday “practicing” for an airshow tomorrow. Very noisy and very exciting too. But do they really need to practice like this? Aren’t they supposed to be always prepared just like the boyscouts? Am I the only one who thinks about the thousands of gallons of jet fuel going toward this spectacle? Then again, Beth supplied me with a list of Thunderbird crashes over time just to see if she could make me nervous but nah, I choose not to think about it but it does seem to indicate that practice might be a very good thing. And yes, we do plan to go see the show tomorrow.

The builder didn’t show up on Wednesday to alleviate my mold concerns and we rescheduled for next Wednesday. Actually, he offered to send his brother over but I declined and explained that I doubt that someone who smokes 2-3 packs of cigarettes a day would be likely to be able to detect the smell of mold even if it was growing on his mustache. I’m in the process of trying to choose flooring, a sink, and a counter for the old bathroom but it appears that I don’t need to hurry too much if we’re going to be working at our builders pace. Not that he’s going to have anything to do with this bathroom, we just want to make sure that both bathrooms won’t be out of commission at the same time.

Looking at flooring with a two year old in tow is masochistic.

And this week has been an excellent week in the neighborhood. Everyone has been out and about enjoying the beautiful weather and the kids were out playing together. Lots of laughing and chatter as well as a fire in the firepit. We have new neighbors who went on vacation immediately after moving in and when they got back they got the scoop on neighborhood happenings including the disappearance and reappearance of a cat named Amber and Dave’s trauma. He was looking for the missing cat and went to talk to the neighborhood (female) crank and managed to catch her at a bad time as defined by a rear view of her totally naked and bent over on her back porch at two in the afternoon. He says he slowly and quietly backed away and then came back calling for her to give her time to get decent. I suspect this incident will be neighborhood legend for a very long time.