I’m busy and maybe I’m still in mourning. I don’t know. I paint stuff and take the kids to the pool and think about Michael Jackson and Walter Cronkite and run and play variations of hide-and-seek, but blogging hasn’t been on my to-do list.

We’re heading to Michigan today (not Cluck & Tweet’s Michigan, but still). My sister and I will beat my my nephew’s girlfriend and my niece in tennis on Saturday morning and then we’ll spend the rest of the day gloating about that while the kids swim in the pond and play with their cousin Riley. Sunday, there will be an Aldrich family reunion, and then a childless trip home as the kids are staying a few days in order to camp with my inlaws. What will we do with no children? Paint, of course. I’m going to paint 14 hours a day for 3 days. I hope I finish the whole house. After  my 14 hours of painting, Bryan and I will eat at restaurants and maybe go to Zoombezi Bay one night. Who knows? We’re crazy kids, we could do anything! ANYTHING! As long as the painting gets done, I mean. The painting must get done. I will miss the children because they rock, but they’ll be in good hands and they’ll still rock when they get back. And the walls will be painted. Yay!

Oh, and new toilet! Monday! Plumber!

As usual, don’t break in while we’re gone and make sure you cry because you miss us. If you could videotape yourself crying and post it on Youtube, that would be a bonus. I’ll give you bonus points. (You didn’t know I’ve been giving you all points all this time? I won’t take away any points for that).

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Well, there was packing and then a trip for Kids Know Stuff. The kids and Kristen have to review the trip, but I don’t. I just pretended like I was Kate and used my precious twins for the free stuff they could get me. It was fairly satisfying. Part 1 of the kids’ review (Lincoln City, IN) is here, if you wanna know. Spoiler Alert! Abe Lincoln spent some time there as a young man. And there are several monuments so you can never, ever forget it.

Then I had to unpack and I got a new clothesline so I did all of my vacation laundry on my new clothesline. It smelled good, but it took a long time to dry. Stupid sun.

And then I vacuumed the basement.

And I might have cooked something and then cleaned it up. Aren’t you glad I skipped blogging for the week?

Tomorrow the kids and I will drive halfway up to Michigan to pick up my niece, Riley, for a nice long visit. Taylor isn’t coming for the long visit this year because she has a life. It happens. Cody never visits anymore, but I texted him and asked him if he would start visiting us again once he reached legal drinking age and he said, “duh,” so that’s something to look forward to. Riley’s still too young for a life. Except on Woogi World. Anyway, the kids have been squealing non-stop since before the trip and now they’re squealing again because Riley’s visiting. Thank god I didn’t finish all that tequila. That’s gonna come in handy.

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We’re going to the Unschooler’s Winter Water Gathering at Kalahari Resort  tomorrow morning with some of the weekly potluckers and other locals, so that’s fun.  Dawn has to work, but we’re making her son come with us because our children cannot bear the void caused by Noah’s absence.

Oh, I know! I read this book called I See the Moon by C. B. Christiansen and I got choked up on every single page and then I cried through the last 3 chapters. It’s about a 12-year-old girl whose 15-year-old sister is pregnant and placing the baby for adoption. The little sister dreams of being an aunt and she’s so excited and she wants to be just like her favorite aunt who now has dementia and it’s just so sad. Every page. Read it and tell me what you think. But lower your expectations because when I finally got around to seeing the movie Titanic, I did not shed a tear. For weeks everybody kept saying, “It’s sooooo sad! Bring a whole box of tissues!” And then it was soooo lame except for the musicians’ continued playing and the images of the old people and parents and children holding each other on the bed and waiting to drown. That part was sad. Oh, and the part where Rose didn’t die. That was sad, too. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, that book was sad, but maybe you won’t cry. It doesn’t mean you’re cold and dead inside. Probably.

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I don’t like my inbox to be full and I don’t like my Google Reader to tell me I have more than, like, five new blog posts to read so when I opened up the reader this morning and it told me there were 347 new items to read, I had a mild panic attack and then I hit “mark all as read” with enough force to shatter my mouse. So if somebody blogged about something super important, let me know because I so hate to be out of the loop. What if Dawn fell in a well or something? It would suck if I called over there and was all, “Hey, Brett, Lemme talk to Dawn; I missed that bitch!” and Brett burst into tears. Awkward.

We got back home last night and I’ve been grocery shopping, laundering, yoga-ing and just generally freshening since then. I suppose I eventually have to pick the hamster up from Kristen’s house. Maybe. We’ll see.

Chesaning was lovely. I make fun of it a lot, but there’s really nothing like feeling like you have two homes. My nephew’s party was tons of fun and look at these awesome centerpieces:

And look what my nephew made:

Yeah, he made that. Cool.

My sister’s youngest daughter is staying with us for a little bit so I have to go pretend like it’s fun around here so she doesn’t get homesick. More catching up later.

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It’s true.

I’ll be gone for a week with very slow internets that make me feel like I might experience a brain bleed from the trauma of watching the hourglass spin while I try to force lots of thick and juicy information through the narrow inter-tubes. I’ll miss you. If you know where I live, don’t break into my house while I’m gone. I don’t have anything to steal because we’re taking all of our expensive stuff (like Lena and Liberty’s DS games) with us. Also, you’ll never find where we hide our p@rn, so don’t even try it. Ha, I’m kidding! It’s right where you’d expect it to be. Kidding! God, take a joke.

That reminds me, when I was around 8 or so, I broke into my neighbor’s house to steal blueberry p*p-tarts because we never, ever had those in our own house and I really, really wanted some. They were soooo yummy, but then the guilt made them taste bad. My brother and sister love to make fun of me for doing that, but they used to break into the other neighbor’s garage to steal pop on a regular basis. And they wouldn’t share with me. I don’t know why I never told on them. I’m going to have to remedy that when I get to Michigan tonight.

Anyway, we’re taking our junk food with us, too, so just don’t even bother.

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And now he’s all grown up and only calls me Babby if he’s trying to get me to do something for him, which works every time. He doesn’t drool in my hair anymore while piling it on top of his face. And maybe he doesn’t play with his toy tractors anymore (that’s a big maybe), but that would only be because he gets to drive the real ones with real crops, which is no different than playing. But he’s still my nephew and I still adore him and I’m so looking forward to seeing who he becomes in this next phase of life. And I reserve the right to make him call me Aunt Babby for the rest of my life.

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As promised, my brother and sister-in-law took us to see the Weber Brothers and they were fabulous with their 2 drum sets and their stand-up bass and their way cool original music plus Johnny Cash and Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen and stuff. They even invited my brother to go up and sing Sympathy for the Devil with them, which was nice because Mike knows how to do that kind of thing. Plus he’s their #1 groupie. I love them, love them, love them and I’m pretending they’re moving to Columbus to play every night at Victorians’ Midnight Cafe. Let’s start a letter-writing campaign. You won’t be sorry. They had 2 drum sets! And the one brother plays a stand-up bass! And the other one reminds me of Rufus Wainwright only way cooler! And they rock! And stand-up bass! I even love them when they’re playing songs I don’t know, which for me is kind of a big deal. If I can’t sing along, then I’m all, “This is too loud. Can’t they turn it down?” but not with the Weber Brothers. They could play Enya and I’m pretty sure I would drool.

They played at a place called the Troubadour, which was waaaayy out there on some narrow, winding, hilly roads that really looked like what you think West Virginia should look like. It’s the kind of place that has a sweet 72-year-old owner (Joltin’ Jim McCoy) and a barbecue grill in the shape of a six shooter. And they raffled off 10 pounds of bacon. Twice. Yes, they did. I bet it was good bacon, too, because my brother ordered a steak there and it was the best tasting steak I have ever had in a restaurant. It tasted like the cow had been killed that morning after a breakfast of grass grown by angels. I’m not kidding. I’m a beef snob and that was some good beef. I imagine the pork would be nothing less than heavenly. Not Jewish or Muslim heaven, obviously, but definitely one of the other ones. One little piece of advice just in case you city folk are ever thinking of visiting the Troubadour: Don’t think that just because it’s way out in the country that they’re going to let you get away with fast and loose behavior. The rules are posted and it says right there that you may not sleep in the booths or your vehicle. Got it, y’all? They will cut you off before you reach that point. For real.

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