Sit Rep

It's 7:09am on a Saturday. The fans are all desperately trying to make the house less than oven-like, and the cicadas outside sound like a hundred-thousand toy phasers all wearing their batteries out. Mrs. Marius, her mother, and the COA* are all asleep, and the KOA** have been fed and have ceased to pester me for more. I take this brief respite in the insanity to sit back as assess. We like this house, despite the lack of central a/c, and I, at least, seem to be acclimating to being hotter. At first we ran the window units a lot, but I quickly learned that cooling one room to a comfortable temperature meant moving to another room was like stepping into Hell's foyer. Now we mostly use them in the bedrooms at night. Otherwise the rooms are big, and the tile floors silent. This is a big deal since my wife and I have such different hours. I can creep across the bedroom in the dark and not worry about creaks and moans...other than from my knees...waking her up. The cats love the huge screened-in porch, and the front yard is big enough for the COA to play in, but only takes about thirty minutes to mow. We're mostly unpacked, though my office is still the repository of many unpacked, or at least uncategorized items that we haven't quite figured out where to put. The baby's room is nearly done. I have some curtains to install today, and the a/c unit for her room will come out of layaway soon. Of course she won't really be using her room for a while, so we still have some time on that front.

And speaking of the bun in the oven, there really isn't anything to say yet. There have been no more false labor alarms, and life has returned to something resembling normalcy...whateverthehell that means. Hopefully the dress rehearsal we had on Monday will create more of a sense of calm competency when the real moment arrives.

Work is still in the pre-production phase, but the students will be returning all next week, and classes start up again on the 5th. I'm looking forward to seeing my kids again, although I already miss those that graduated back in May. Ah well, that's the blessing and curse of teaching in college. You forge real friendships with your students, then release them into the world, in all likelihood never seeing them in person again. But I wouldn't trade this gig for the world.

And I hear someone puttering about in the kitchen, thus the magic quiet time ends. Have a groovy weekend, dear readers. See you soon.

Marius














*Child-O-The Apocalypse
**Kitties-O-The Apocalypse