Weekend at home

For the first time since August, my weekend calendar was empty. And my house was mostly empty too. My husband had gone to visit his out-of-state sister for the weekend, Boy in Black had taken my car to an Ultimate tournament, and Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter had gone to Bison City with Sailor Boy and Blonde Niece to visit Film Guy and Sparkly Eyes.

Saturday morning, I slept late and went to an eye doctor’s appointment, where I asked several complete strangers to vote on which glasses I should buy. (I hate picking out frames. It’s even more painful than the little machine that blasts puffs of air into my eyes.)

On the way home, I stopped at a thrift store, where I bought several low wooden tables for the living room. I drove home with my trunk open because it turns out that the tables didn’t quite fit into the car. With-a-Why, Shaggy Hair Boy, and Smiley Girl were awake by the time I arrived home, which meant that there was piano music as I made squash soup.

“I am not doing any work today,” I announced as I was cutting up onions. “I am going to just relax and do nothing.”

“We can watch an episode of Arrested Development,” With-a-Why offered, pulling the wooden table that held his laptop closer to the couch. “It’s weird. You’ll like it.”

Shaggy Hair Boy and Smiley Girl cuddled on one end of the couch (they are boyfriend and girlfriend – have I mentioned that yet on this blog?) while With-a-Why showed me a couple of episodes of a bizarre but cleverly written television show. Then Skater Boy and Thinking Girl arrived, and we all talked about how it would be cool to knock down the wall of the boys’ bedroom.

“The upstairs could be one big room just like the downstairs is,” Shaggy Hair Boy said. “That would be great!”

When I was growing up, my father was always knocking done walls, building new walls, and changing the inside of our house, so the idea seemed reasonable to me. I pointed out that the first step to knocking down the wall would be to empty the room. “You mean CLEAN the room?” asked With-a-Why. “I’m out.”

Shaggy Hair Boy decided that sending absent family members text messages that made it sound like he was knocking the wall down might be just as much fun and far less work than actually doing the job. “A photo would be even better,” said Skater Boy, and soon they were out in the garage looking for the sledge hammer.