"Then we duel for you as our ancient ancestors did, with chainsaws!"

Hedge Trimmer Man

"Not on my clean rugs you don't!"

(Okay, obscure comic book references might cut it with you guys).

Yesterday was one of those days. You know, go to Kouryou-chan's school and garden the Hell out of it. I only did some of the gutters today, because we had another strong, burly volunteer. Most of the time I spent handling dangerous testosterone-controlled equipment, knocking back the laurels and trimming the rosemary.

That's some of the finest-smelling yardwaste I've ever encountered.

As usual, we had only two parents show up. This is one of those things that perpetually annoys me: we can get people to show up for improvements, because everyone notices those and you get your name all over them. "I helped install that swingset" goes over great with the kids, too. But we can't get folks to show up for maintenance. "I keep your classroom from flooding" doesn't go over because, well, because an un-flooded classroom is expected. It's only if we didn't do our jobs that anyone would notice.

Anyway, Omaha and I spent about four hours there which means, if I'm not mistaken, that we've done the 20 hours necessary to get the annual discount. But we'll still be going out once a month for site maintenance, because dammit, that's who we are.

The rest of Saturday...

The other thing we did Saturday was go to Ted Gill's retirement party. He's an old acquaintance that we've known through the Pagan community for many years, and unlike most of us has kept the same job for 36 years, so he gets the gold watch and, y'know, a real retirement.

It was a lot of fun, actually, and gave me at least two more email addresses to which to send my resume.

It was held at Gameworks, which has an authentic Robotron machine. I can still play that damned game! I got up to 700,000 on it, nearly past wave 25, before my luck ran out. Kouryou-chan seems to have preferred to play Gauntlet and Dig-Dug.

Unfortunately, the party ran late enough that I missed out on the third scheduled event of the evening, a birthday cocktails party being held about thirty miles north of here, which I would really like to have gone to, but by the time we all got home, kids included, it was seven and I didn't want to be two hours late for the main event. Pity that.

I went to bed early.

Sunday update...

Sunday was actually quieter. The girls have suddenly gone mad for crepes, and I've actually gotten very good at making them. I made a batch today with a little extra khamut in them-- nutty, and good for body, which is maybe not what you want in a crepe, but they worked well. I like my crepes stacked with butter and maybe brown sugar or maple syrup; the girls go for them rolled with cream cheese, brown sugar, and jam.

After breakfast, I spent a few hours hacking on a problem for friends of mine, and lunch finally rolled around. I did a load of laundry while Omaha ran out to help a friend with her incredibly slow Dell computer. They ended up doing a full re-install.

Today, Kouryou-chan ran her first role-playing game. It was a fully scripted scenario, highly railed, from the makers of the Warrior Cats [LGT Wikipedia because the official site is 100% Flash] books for kids, which involves the characters as cats. It's basically Bunnies and Burrows, only feline, and it's diceless, which I think sucks a lot. Kouryou-chan had trouble thinking outside the script, which seems unusual, but it was a new thing for her and she'll figure out how to handle the characters trying not to get killed better in the future.

LisaKit offered up a bowl of her fabulous green bean soup, and Omaha had some political shindig to go to this evening. Both girls are being snotty about going to bed on time, but I'll get them there eventually.