Movie time (maybe)

Well, I have a few minutes here before Janneke finishes up what she's doing and we sit down to finally watch a movie together, so I'll jot down some news items for y'all. We've had a stack of Netflix movies on our kitchen counter for well over a month now, and just can't get a moment to watch them. By the time either of us would be available, it's so late that we know we'd fall asleep before it ended. The kids are in bed by 8:00 or 8:30, and we're all hygienated and such by 9:00 or 9:30...and then there's the looming 5:30 alarm clock. But tonight we plan on watching one. Although, if I were a betting man, I'd say it ain't happening. It's almost 9:00 now, and Janneke's still not ready...I'd say another month is about to pass before "The Lives of Others" gets seen.

We had two trees cut down in our back yard last week. They sent some guys in on Monday and started it, and then we saw neither hide nor hair of them until Friday. So we had our yard filled with branches all week. I wasn't too pleased. Friday afternoon, it was all cut down, so I spent some time Saturday morning and this afternoon spllitting, hauling and stacking the wood. When I came in, I went straight to the bathroom and started soaking away the soreness.

Which, strangely, was the moment our tree guy came by to drop off the bill and apologize for the delay. Seems their wood chipper had been out of commission. Would've been nice to get a phone call to that effect, but hey, he did stop by in person to apologize. Can't fault him there. The grass out back gets a lot more sun now, and should thicken up nicely. We like to play back there with the kids,but it's been such weak grass that every time you change direction you tear up a giant divot. Should be better now.

T had two birthday parties in the last week. She is an absolute rock star - one of our friends, whom we don't see much of any more, was at a fundraiser last night where I volunteered (to benefit the charter school where I used to work), and said she'd just had "the privelege of spending some time with T at Hazel's birthday party". She said T was the youngest kid there, and yet absolutely held court, with everyone clamoring to spend time with her, fighting over who got to push her in the swing, etc. We've always seen her that way, but maybe it's just empirically so. She draws people to her.

She's got a cough lately, though, which is doing the opposite of drawing us to her. Emotionally, I mean. It draws us to her physically in the night to dope her up with more cough medicine and spend an hour out on the recliner with her until it kicks in, usually around 3:00 or 4:00 AM. So emotionally, you have to keep your distance. Otherwise you'd have a Homer-on-Bart choking fit.

Whoah! Janneke's out here and wants to see the movie! Holy heck! I'm about to sit and watch a movie with my wife! I'm really nervous all of a sudden - I don't remember just how to do this anymore! Do I look OK? How's my hair? Is there something in my teeth? How do you run a DVD player?!?

Holy Christ, here I go...!!!