TGI...
I wouldn't say I was counting the moments til I could head off to work. But I could...
Just another weekend...

• Daughter #4 left for a Las Vegas vacation with a bunch of girlfriends. Say no more. (I'm checking up on her via Facebook...She's lost IQ points already. Misspelled Las Vegas.) There's a major prayer focus for the week.

• Fran had a birthday bonfire/cookout for William. I saw the bonfire on Facebook. The lighting of the bonfire was an incendiary event that I am glad I missed. I'm sure the video will be on YouTube shortly. You'll know it when by the screams of "The chairs are going to melt." Say no more. Except the idiot who chose the acellerant for the damp wood was not homeschooled. Not by me.

• Spent a substantial amount of time with another daughter who was worried/enraged over her boyfriend* who disappeared on Tuesday night. Disappeared as in he lives down the block from us and his car was never home and by Friday his mother was calling the sheriff etc. He rambled on home on Saturday morning. I offered to run down to his house and straighten him out. At eight in the morning, while clad only in nightshirt and Crocs. That was more for comic effect...but really, I was tempted. Where do these wastrels come from and how do my daughters keep finding them? (*A Model Idiot)

• Grey Gardens and Wise Blood are "very long wait" on NetFlix. So I watched Frida, which I enjoyed much more than I thought I would. Of course, I had to watch it in interrupted segments, the final coming after the power came back on Sunday morning. An exploding transformer is a nice wake-up for the party guests camping in the backyard. The WoW addicts were bereft, but I was able to crawl into the nearest book the way some might "crawl into a bottle."

• The explosion didn't bother me much, having already come close to losing my mind at the 7:30am Mass. I thought about grabbing the red liturgical binders on Thursday...and then it totally drifted out of my mind. Until the beginning of Mass, when the realization of what had slipped my mind hit me in such a visceral way that I felt light-headed and nauseous. (A sure sign that I have started to take my ancillary job way too seriously!) But there was no way I would sit down until the feeling passed, since I know what the ushers are instructed to do with the faint and/or ill who are not accompanied by an adult able to drive them home or to appropriate medical care. There was no way I was going to exit church on my back while muttering "red binders, red binders, I forgot the red binders."

• Sunday lunch at my in-laws dragged. No one noticed my catatonia. Perhaps I am simply suffering from a malady which my sister has termed "jangle." (Or maybe it's "djangle.") She should know what she's talking about, what with her J.D., her career in medical transcription, a bathroom-less house that must be entered through a window and a wiener dog who locks himself in the family mini-van. She knows jangle. I tried to de-jangle with a nap, but then Em and the baby wanted me to go to the craft store with them. I had no money to spend. The craft store catharsis just doesn't click when you have less than $5 in liquid assets.

• It was not wise to conclude such an arduous week-end with the MTV Movie Awards. It's not that I didn't find some small bits of amusement, but they didn't make up for my irritation at the skanky material versus the intended audience. They were giving awards to High School Musical 3 and Twilight, so I presume they knew that 12 year olds would be interested. And yet...and yet, for example, what about the "Balls Out" and "16 and Pregnant?" Not High School Musical crowd appropriate... The blurring of the line between juvenile and puerile-adult entertainment was too depressing. So I called it a night, crawling into bed with a heart full of thanksgiving that everyone was well and the week-end was over. Make that a heart full of thanks and with a wee bit of envy of Susan Boyle for her ability to sing check into a medically supervised rest facility.

Jangle update: There is a man outside my office window with some sort of chainsaw/drill/grinding device making a noise that makes any higher brain processes almost impossible. But I'm still more relaxed than I was over the week-end. As long as the lawn guys aren't working outside of the school table when I get home, the day should be pretty much of a success!