About twenty minutes ago the rain was falling hard from the south, hitting the windows on that side of the house. Wonderful. Didn't last long. The sun is out now.
Cleaned part of the big bathroom. Made a cup of tea. Russian caravan tea. Built a fire. I wish that it would rain hard all day.
Doing more laundry. Need to clean up from lunch for the kids. They're squabbling well together at the moment.
I don't have more to say. I don't feel down any more. Glad that it rained again, hope that it rains more later. Rain makes me feel better in general. The harder and longer it rains, the better I feel. I ought to move where they have monsoons.
Time will pass, night will fall... winter will end, spring will turn into summer. I want to walk barefoot on the lawn this summer. Barbecuing and listening to A Prairie Home Companion and drinking an ice-cold Tecate. I want to watch fireworks from out in front of the house this 4th of July. I want to watch baseball games with the kids on television. We have a trip to Disneyland planned in early June. Flynn will start junior high school in the fall. Cassidy will start first grade. We can go to the beach this summer. I remember the fantastic mountainous thunderheads last August. How incredible those looked. Once football season starts it will be time to dig out the holiday decorations. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
Looks like more rain is coming from looking at the radar picture. I really like rain.
What to feed the little monsters for dinner tonight? Maybe just vegetables and rice. Cassidy turned her nose up at teriyaki pork ka-bobs that I grilled on Sunday AND vegetables AND rice. She had some drinkable yogurt instead. She'll eat every once in a while. I think that one reason I enjoy the fish is because they'll eat when I feed them, and what I feed them. With no fussing. They have yet to ever once say "Yuck. I hate it." which is a nice change from trying to feed Cassidy.
Why does Flynn have to talk constantly while he plays that stupid fucking video game? I mean, EVERY SECOND has to be filled with his voice. Drives me nuts. And it's a boring game. Dragged them out to the playground this morning and they played for a short time until it began to rain again. Take them bowling? That could be fun. Not today. Stay inside today and pray for rain.
Mike told me that Diane wasn't responding to whatever they're throwing at her this current stay in the hospital. I just don't get it. The whole thing. Only too happy to have her gone. The kids didn't seem to care about Diane's being obviously unavailable to take them either of the past two Saturdays. Fine with me. I didn't like her having them that one Saturday. Six o'clock couldn't arrive too quickly to suit me. And that was with Diane being three hours late to pick them up. Someone called about a check from Diane for "Doberman Digest" and I just paid it with a credit card. $110. Wonderful. Don't want to miss an issue of "Doberman Digest." One less thing for her to worry about.
Could take the kids to the zoo and have them walk around. Or somewhere like Torrey Pines and hike there. Something. Something other than video games. They're both slugs. Some training wheels arrived for Flynn's untouched bicycle, perhaps Cassidy will be inspired to learn to ride. She determined that she did NOT want to play soccer, this after signing her up and going to her first practice. We were at Sportmart looking for shin guards and soccer shoes for her when she announced that she didn't want to play. Go forth and figure. She's asked to play since her first soccer season ended in May. I didn't know what to make of that.
Have the aquariums backed with mylar to block light that was causing too much green algae. Have the lights off in the aquariums, also. Might give up on living plants, though I prefer them to plastic plants. The large tank, in particular, had a lot of algae forming on the gravel. Did two partial water changes on the large tank instead of one 10-gallon change. Need to get more fish water and do more frequent partial water changes to keep the algae down.
Searched on "Whitney Otto" on Friday and found a current photo of her from a writer's seminar and a column either written by her or someone with her name. Always a sobering experience. Odd and interesting that her photo is on the web and she's semi-well known. So that was that.
What else? Nothing else. I ought to go through my toolbox/filing cabinet and try and straighten things out. Ha. Organization. The final frontier. I like things better when they're cleaned up and organized. Makes me feel better. Finally got Cassidy's clothes put away yesterday and her room picked up. I have some ironing to do on some of her clothes. Haven't tackled much more of Flynn's room after moving his bookcase into his tiny closet. He needs to part with some clutter.
A couple of months ago I collected all of the video games I could find in the house and secured them, marrying the disk with its case where possible. The kids just don't treat the games all that well, and they're expensive.
Also organized all the DVDs I own. Many old science fiction movies. I have a ton of videotapes, too, and I'm getting pretty weary of them. And all those cassettes. And audio videotapes. Arrrgh. Still. It is nice to hear an old Dead show now and then. When I get a cassette near a cassette player. I wish the iTunes store had Dick's Picks.
I feel like I have too much clutter. I ought to attack the toolbox/filing cabinet and see if I can't organize some of it or part with some of it. I just have a ton of clutter, even after years of trying to get rid of pretty much everything.
