FB: the start of a REALLY lousy few weeks

June 16th:

Yesterday: easily, EASILY one of the 5 worst days of my life, literally start to finish.

Among other things, Lisa's aunt passed away unexpectedly; her body was found ~ two days after her passing, and Lisa and her Mom had to wait two hours w/ the corpse while they waited for the medical examiner. Her death bumped what was already a top 10 worst day to top 5. As for the rest, it'll pass, but I don't feel like talking about it.

June 21st

Jeez-us I want a cigarette right now - the craving is just as bad as when I quit four years ago. I miss it.

To celebrate the end of one of the worst weeks ever, we took the kids (- Lu) to El Fuego for dinner, sitting on the patio and enjoying the atmosphere. Later, of course, came the tornado sirens and a quick and needless trip to the basement.

June 25th

I hate when someone from work calls & asks me to pick up a shift at the last minute. If I can manage it I'll do it, since I need the $ & don't want to be a jerk, but with 4 kids my days off are committed to one activity or another. Today we're packing for the zoo and may go swimming if the kids don't wig out, so I just turned someone down. Schedule me 100 hours and I'll show, but picking up a last minute gig . . .

June 27th

Smiley & I went shopping, then planted a (doomed) garden, which at least was a nice father/son moment. Later he made a sandwich for Lisa and gave it to her with a long face. "Why are you sad?" she asked. His response: "Me not make it well." He is a bit of a perfectionist.

{note: the garden was planted late in the season and in very poor soil. We had a very small yield from it, and if it was anything more than a child's whim it would have been a waste of time}

June 29th

We're packing for an overnight trip at my buddy Ervin's house in Rockford. Ginger's (self-packed) bag? PJ's, two My Little Pony's, a sippy cup, and three packs of ramen noodles. Priorities and all.

{we went down for two reasons. First, to continue plowing through Erv's business paperwork. Second, it was as close to a vacation as I could afford for the kids. They had a blast during the visit, especially with his dog and the theater set-up in his basement. We've returned two more times as of this writing}

July 1st

Tim Gunn just announced that next season each episode of Project Runway will be 90 MINUTES, not the 60 minutes that's been the norm. Hot dog - IMO, the more PR, the better

July 2nd

GREAT album, & fun to listen to; buy a copy! {V.V. Brown's 'Shark in the Water'}

July 3rd

Around noon today on 27th ST our car stereo picked up a slew of unusual FM channels - including about four minutes of DJ chatter from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I didn't think that was even possible outside of a Twilight Zone episode.

{10 pm}

The cops just left my house. LuLu rode her bike across a patch of grass in front of my neighbor's house (a patch that is legally city property). He yelled at her, Lisa told him to knock it off, he called Lisa a c-nt & threatened to go get his gun, and it was on. No tickets issued, but only because they would have cxl'd each other out. What a f'ing evening.

{this was the same neighbor we've had problems with before; among other things, he reported us several times to the city as an 'unlicensed daycare' because of the number of kids we have}