Good morning all you crazy kids!
Missions accomplished yesterday.
First stop was St. Vinnies, where we dropped off more than we bought (always a good sign, I think). I scored a bunch of snap tape, and now I can do the t-shirt altering thing from this month's ReadyMade, which I'm kind of excited about.
Then on to step 2 of the day: I picked out new, super-fun glasses at the fancy Target in Appleton. They're sparkly, and UPB says I can use them to hypnotize people into doing my bidding. Unfortunately, they make their glasses off-site, so I won't be getting them for 3-9 days, says the guy who works there who is evidently not happy with his career choice. I told him to call me at work when they came in, and that I was at work between 8 & 5. His response was, "Must be nice..." whine whine. Then I had to make it sound like actually, it's still work, and even though I don't have to work on national holidays or Saturdays (most of the time), I do work quite a bit of unpaid overtime and really it's not so much better than working in the Target optical department as a 40-year-old father of three, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do a good job of it. Mostly because I'm not a good liar.
Then we, too, ate at the Red Robin. I was disappointed with my choice in sammich, and won't get it again, but UPB's was good and the free refills on fries almost made up for the fact that it was 50 below in there.
I was getting sleepy at this point (driving my car, with no A/C will do that), so we made a quick stop at the Menasha GoodWill, headed back to Oshburg, stopped for baby food (and saw Buddha's brother, who also evidently hasn't learned how to give himself a bath, as he was sleeping in the little bath-house) and came home. Then I crashed.
Woke up from the disco nap, had some tasty dinner, watched a movie - Catch Me If You Can - and came home. I also managed to get a few more mosquito bites.
And now I'm up and someone is mowing their lawn. I understand that it isn't technically early, or even early in any sense of the word, but living with my dad for the majority of my formative years has drilled something into my brain that I'm certain no one else (ok, maybe the Amish) subscribes to. That philosophy, if you can call it that, is that nothing - no Nothing - should be done (except for going to church) on a Sunday morning. Noon is the time, on Sundays, when you are allowed to start doing things. Now - we don't take this to extremes. You can shower, and wipe your own ass, things like that. But no social phone calls were ever received in the Keller household on a Sunday morning without a disapproving glance, and Lord help the telemarketers who think it's a good idea to bother Chuck on Sunday at any time, but before noon-- look out. You now have (at least) two out-holes. So - mowing the lawn, making all that noise, it is right-out. Basically, anything you do that could annoy someone, or disturb them, or make them know you are alive and on this planet in any way, those things need to wait until 12:01 pm. It used to drive me nuts, when I was a teenager trying to make vital plans for the rest of my Sunday, to have my dad freak out when the phone rang. Now I understand that for those few hours a week, he expected some peace and quiet and even, though at the time it made me shutter, "family time". I know now that I'll do exactly the same thing when we have kid(s). Right now, though, I have to go kick the guy mowing his lawn.