Sunday

What an exquisite weekend. It makes up for my shitty Friday.

I returned home to a household of six sixth grade girls. I was swarmed immediately. Luckily, I arrived armed with tag board so they could begin making signs for that night’s football game. Once we went to the game, the girls abandoned us for whatever grade school girls do at football games - I imagine flirty with boys in their class, try to impress the older girls, and pick out which players to cheer on.

On Saturday, Kristie and I woke to the girls up bright and early at 7:30. Kristie had to work until noon, so I was up and making pancakes by nine. One of Koko’s friends, Natasha, happens to be boy crazy. I hope Koko avoids this phase all together. Natasha spotted a couple of boys outside and was gone in the blink of an eye. I imagine they ran into the boys at the football game and told them that they were having a sleep over.

I was keeping my eye on her while I was trying to make 20 some pancakes. Not an easy task. Before I knew it, the girls had invited the boys in. For some reason the boys were hesitant to come in. They wouldn’t go near the kitchen, where I was toiling away. I heard one of the girls whisper that the boys thought I might get mad at them. So armed with this knowledge, the girls ran giggling and cackling through the kitchen and into the basement, leaving the boys stranded in the dining room. They were too scared to follow the girls, since they would have to go right by me. I told them to come on in and that the girls were hiding in the basement and that they were more than welcome for some pancakes. They agreed on all counts.

After breakfast, the girls challenged the boys to a game of football over at the high school. Six girls verse two boys - they thought it was fair and the boys were too proud to admit they were in trouble. As a result, the girls claimed they won 11-5. I’m not sure about that scoring, but Koko is solid muscle and quite capable of being a great linebacker. I don’t doubt that the girls clobbered the boys.

Finally, Kristie came to my rescue. The girls carved pumpkins and I retreated upstairs to watch some college football.

Soon it was clean up time and that meant dealing with the influx of ladybugs - or asian beetles as someone called them. Our porch windows were thick with them. Many found their way inside. So I brought out the vacuum cleaner to deal with the intruders. Once I sucked up all the ones inside the porch, I snuck outside and took care of the ones clinging to the screen, the door, the window sills, and the roof. I couldn’t believe their numbers.

While doing this I noticed a steady stream of leaves sweeping over the roof and landing in our front yard. There is a huge elm tree between our house and our neighbor’s. It towers over the entire block. In the past two weeks its leaves have yellowed. Now they were waiting for the right breeze to tear them free and sail them over the roof and into the yard. It seemed like a new leaf blew past me at least once very couple seconds. Some were eager for the ground, whooshing past me, and landing quickly. Others were intent on enjoying their journey and sauntered across the chimney, down the roof, looped around the tree in our front yard before finding a spot to drift down. There must be several thousand leaves, so this evacuation could take days. I look forward to it.