It's Sunday.

Yup, sure is. Beautiful day, too. Clear skies, cool, slight breeze.

I'm thinking I should be getting something in my tummy but not sure what. Don't much want to cook and, since I haven't been grocery shopping for some time, supplies are low. We polished off the cheese slices last night, someone ate the last of the bread and there is only one egg left.

Tomorrow, DS3 and I are going to the bread store and Aldi's and we will stock up. I don't mind the shopping so much but sure hate the hauling in and putting away parts. Can't be helped, though, all part of the deal. Will be nice to have the staples we've used up even though my list has about 125 items on it. I don't even want to think about how much this will cost.

Have to get the Terrors registered for school this week. That will be another 200 dollars or so. Then school supplies but am hoping DS3's father will help some with that. (He usually does.) I can hear the checking account shrieking already.

DS2 went to a bachelor party last night. Don't have any idea when he got home, either. Came out to make coffee this a.m. and there was a bottle of Kamikaze shots and a bottle of vodka sitting on my kitchen counter. With a note for DS3, "***, to be blunt, what the hell?" ROFL*

DS3 is off to his father's family reunion. They left well before 8 this morning and won't be back until, well, who knows? He took a bag of balloons with him because a water fight is a tradition. So is general horseplay and harassment of anyone and everyone. It's kind of like a combination mosh and fraternity hazing. Everyone is guaranteed to be tired and over-fed by the end of the day. (DS 3 didn't go, though. I don't expect to see him much before noon. Maybe later than that.)

The ex's family is an odd mix of religiosity and profane behavior. They cheat egregiously at cards and other games, tell stories that would embarrass a longshoreman, pull gag jokes that are guaranteed to humiliate, frighten or embarrass the victim, swear like troppers but spend regular time in confession and at mass. (For someone raised as Methodist, dour as they were back then, it was both surprising and confusing.) As the older generation has passed away, the younger takes on the mantle. DS2 got tired of it all a couple of years ago and doesn't go to family stuff, anymore. DS1 and DIL go when they can but, like DS2, they aren't real comfortable and feel out of place.**

Since DS3 is not here and won't be here all day, SS will not be doing his usual and expected running around town. Instead, he will help his father shovel dirt out of the back of the pickup. He's sulking about this as he feels slighted when DS3 isn't working and he is. He doesn't seem to mind when DS3 is here breaking his butt helping me move stone and clear ground, weed tomatoes, freeze corn, and he is out running around, though. Odd perspective.

DS3 has been entertaining himself in his free time by learning to make adobe brick. It seems an odd sort of thing to do. He is experimenting to see what is the difference between bricks made from mud alone and bricks made with a binder of some sort, like grass or straw. I don't have any idea why he decided to do this but he seems to be enjoying himself. They whole lot have always been taught that learning for it's own sake is not a waste of time. The broader your knowledge and experience and interests, the better able you are to cope with what is thrown at you by the world. At least that's what I have always thought.

Finally found the driver disc for the video camera. It vanished over 2 years ago and haven't been able to use the camera since. Now I have to learn from scratch because I don't remember how this works. *sigh*

This is a couple of hours later and, TADAAAAAAA, the camera is now properly installed and I have relearned how to capture videos and suchlike. It's nice to have it working. So, here is a video of Himself and SS shoveling dirt, then a pan across the rest of our backyard. It's of no particular interest, just fooling around. (Once, if you can play this, you can see how low the river is. The actual bank is that second terrace up from the current water's surface.)





* Won't touch that Kamikaze stuff but that triple distilled vodka makes nice Bloody Marys. Lots and lots of Tabasco and very little booze, though.
** When they were married last March, only the grandparents made any effort to acknowledge the event. DS1 doesn't understand this at all and felt a little hurt. I think it may be because he has been gone since 2002 and has had little chance to attend family gatherings. The fact that the divorce created a lot of bitterness, combined with the fact that DS1 is obviously my son, may also have contributed something. Who knows? Even his father couldn't find out why nobody but Gramma and Grampa were interested.