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On Saturday, we had a visit from the ultra-awesome Rennratt and the vibrant Miss Nooze. They are the kind of people who would drive over an hour to help friends paint their house.
I know, I'm pretty sure I don't deserve friends like that either.
While Renn helped do the final scraping and primer-ing in the hot hot sun, Nooze and the Things amused themselves by looking at several hundred LOLcats. See? The internet is good for something after all! The ruination of young minds has begun!
Nooze gifted us with a gorgeous picture of herself on "Pirate Day" at VBS. It's framed in popsicle sticks decorated with cool foam stars and stuff, with glitter gel writing and all. I love it. She'd brought it to the door and showed me her picture at first, and I, thinking that she is a young girl justifiably proud of such a fierce photo, wanted us to see it. Only on the occasion of their departure from the TH did she tell me it was for us. Now that? Brought a lil' lump to my throat.
Part of the agenda for the afternoon was to all go swimmin' at the Y. It has a crazy-cool water slide, and is a great place to hang out for a while, letting the kids exhaust themselves after so much WWWebbing, and the adults can either swim or just chill. I knew that I'd have to pay a fee for visitors, but really, they HELPED PAINT THE HOUSE, so it was the least I could do.
The man at the counter had other ideas. Apparently, they don't allow visitors to the pool on the weekends.
Que?
Pardon?
WHAT?!?!?
There's a little girl with a bagful of pool stuff who LOVES that water, there are my two boys with great hopes of water-slidin', and there are adults who just want to provide a nice time outdoors for their kids, and YOU, mister Y-pool-counter-man, are saying NO?
Indeed.
And so I threw a fit. I got hissy. After the hissy we left, dry as a bone and completely unchlorinated.
I am thinking of un-joining the Y. Is this a knee-jerk reaction, or what?
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Renn headed to home after the great disappointment, sad to say. She was already several miles toward home at that point, so backtracking to the town pool was not a smart thing to do. Plus which, it was already almost 5 bythat point, and home for her, let's remember, is an HOUR away. Man, Renn, you're somethin'.
It's too bad they had to go, because the town pool, to which we went for the first time ever after the letdown of the Y, is GREAT. Too bad we didnt' know this BEFORE going to the stupid-head Y.
They even have a diving board. How long has it been since you went on one of those?
Thing 2 used the board and the water slide, dousing himself in the 12-foot-deep water much to the discomfort of his older brother...who is not that great a swimmer, gets nervous on behalf of his brother (learned, no doubt, from ME. I hang my head in shame), and for some reason wants to ensure that Thing 2 continues as a real-live boy.
Ah well. Once Thing 1 got himself into the deep end to do some exploratory bottom-touching (the bottom of the pool y'all!), he was much more comfy with this whole deep water idea.
Can't say as his mother was though. I must work on that. Anytime I see that boy underwater I pray like crazy that he comes back up eventually.
We wrapped up the playtime with a little Thing-tossing in the 5 foot water, and then it was time to go home, to wait for their friend to call them and say it was time for a sleepover. By about 8 p.m. I had begun to lose hope that they'd ever call, and was facing the reality that the Things might indeed be disappointed in NOT having a sleepover, but we did hear from the parents and so they were driven over to BBB's (black belt boy, I shall call him, for that is what he is, almost) house. His folks were upstairs getting ready to go out and play cards with some friends, which I thought was kind of weird, but hey, the kids are 11 and almost 13, so I guess it's fine for them to be at home...alone....at night....
Yes?
Yes. They were.
Thing 1 stayed up until 5:30 in the morning. Thing 2 only held out until 2:30. Obviously, BBB's parents are much less stringent about bedtime than I am when the TH hosts a sleepover. Lights out at MY house is at midnight. There's a reason for that, and it's called 'crabby kid syndrome.'
See, I remember sleepovers when I was a kid. Lisa H up the block would host groups of girls to come over and sleep in the basement. There was a teevee set up, and we'd watch roller derby and scary movies until we passed out. Her parents only showed up to deliver more popcorn and soda. Soda! It was decadence personified! If my memory serves, it was routine that I should be the last one awake. It was cool to look around at all the wusses who passed out before me - I was the victor in the staying-up race!
And then, the whole next day I'd be a complete and utter mess.
I know about 'crabby kid syndrome.' I has it. It's never a pretty thing.
Eh, we all survived.
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Oh, and the house is fully scraped, primed, and caulked. There's nothing left for it but to apply the "Undercool" paint and wait for the neighbors' reactions.
Heh. THIS ought to be good.
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Hope your weekends rocked, and that you're well into a Monday of fun and games.
Tiff out.
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