Crazy

It's been quite the week so far. The kids started school yesterday, and thankfully they seem happy with their teachers. L says he want to do two years of second grade, he likes his teacher so much. I also started classes. I have Microbiology on Mondays and Wednesdays, Micro Lab on Thursdays, and Pathophysiology on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Interesting subjects, but I will have to do a shitload of studying in order to do well.

I'm trying to get into my groove. I'm up at 6 to have time for shower and make coffee before making sure E gets up. He's off at 7. Get L up with plenty of time to argue about whatever we're going to argue about that morning. Today it was shoes, but it will be a different topic tomorrow.

Get them off to school, then come back, clean the kitchen, do laundry, get some reading done for class. Maybe make some food for dinner so it's ready right after my class. Yesterday, I invited Andre and his kids over to help plow through some of my produce from Box Elder Acres. I made an eggplant pasta dish that I thought was pretty good but it was looked on with suspicion by everyone under thirty. Nobody gagged, though, so I count that as success.

I got an estimate to get trees trimmed away from my house. I'm getting a half-bathroom put in my basement, and that should be done over the weekend. It should be cool, too, Chris is going to put in some slate tile and knotty pine walls. I also ordered three double-hung windows, and in a few weeks Chris is going to replace my front picture window with the casement windows on the sides, that crank out and which I discovered funnel all the noises I make into the neighborhood. Screaming at the kids, singing along with my records. I'm sure it's been entertaining over the years.

Chris has been working with these two other men, Barry J Fixall and his son, Barry. The Barrys have been doing the plumbing and gas line work in the basement. Barry J Fixall really does fixall. He's been finding different things that need work, like my screen door, and he asks if I mind if he fixes them. I love it. I guess L told Barry the son that "Usually my mom's friends don't charge her for doing work, but I guess you guys have been doing a lot."

I got cable this week. I've never, as an adult, had cable. I'm not sure I like it. Of course, the kids are giddy over it and it has come to good use as a babysitter when I need to run out for a minute. My kids are obsessed with screens, unfortunately. They will watch ANYTHING. They'd be the kids standing side by side in Bed, Bath, and Beyond, mouths agape, watching an Orange-Glo infomercial video playing in the aisle. Personally, I'm overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices and the preponderance of absolute crap that constitutes television programming. I checked it out a little bit the second day we had it, and it was too much, it made me feel like someone was gripping me by the arms and was shaking me, my head banging around my shoulders. It's depressing that there are enough people to watch some of those shows to justify putting them on the air. I'm just going to find out which shows are good by polling my friends, and ignore everything else. I'm not television savvy, that is for sure.

Today is the 130th anniversary of the death of the Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, born 1840 - died September 6, 1877.

He would have hated cable.