Summer Time Blues

It has been a quite Saturday morning so far. We have guests from up north this weekend. Aunt P drove down with her son, M, yesterday to take J to see Garrison Keiller’s Prairie Home Companion show at the state fair. M came back to our house fairly early last night, but then did not go to bed until his mother and cousin came home about 1:30 AM.

And of course, no one else went to sleep until then either, so this morning was very quiet for some time. The dog and did our usual thing, make the coffee, read the paper, listen to the birds.

I eventually heard P stirring around on the lower level and then remembered that she had made a date to meet someone at the local Farmer’s Market. So she left me with three sleeping children. One has now awakened with a headache (perhaps from staying up so late) and has been treated. The other two (mine) are still dead to the world.

My main task today is to put my car door back together so that it can be driven. I have been dealing with a faulty electric window motor for the past few weeks and yesterday received a used unit from one of my east coast suppliers, but when I disassembled the door to make the swap, I discovered that the parts did not match. Ah, the joys of doing your own mechanical work. So, now, I have to button up the door again with the window stuck in the “up” position (which is much better than the “lets let the rain and burglars in” position).

This is the last weekend of freedom for my children. They enter the gulag next week for an eternity of homework, projects, tests, reading assignments, and other torture as assigned. K has decided to prove that there are indeed more than 24 hours in a day by taking on advanced placement coursework, sports, music, Youth-in-Government, and a job all while serving as the massive black hole around which orbits her personal universe.

J lobbied for, and was granted, a change in his schedule to advanced math which will provide many moments of family entertainment and force me to dust off my remedial math skills. In doing this, J skipped over a good portion of the math curriculum that will have to be learnt on the fly. I think he is certainly capable, but until this year, he has not shown the desire to do that much work. We shall see.

We have no plans for the Labor Day weekend. I wasn’t sure what shape I would be in and am trying to stay away from crowds due to lowered white counts. So we will be the “slug” family and just hang out looking at each other – thinking of the looming shadow of the school year.

Have a happy holiday everyone.

P.