Day 2 of 9. PM report

HannieC is funny as hell sometimes. I don't want to turn into a mommyblogger, but I'm going to relate two stories:

Yesterday, we were at Old Chicago for dinner. HannieC was having me read something to her from The Childrens' menu, and I was doing my bad Russian accent. She leaned over to my ear and whispered:

Daddy. I have to tell you something. Right now you're sounding an awful lot like a Canadian.

Wow.

Then, today we were out back, and I was cleaning and refilling the ponds. HannieC came up to me and complained that she couldn't find any "pet quality" bugs. I explained that it was winter, and all the bugs went underground for the winter. She said:

But it's warm outside now. What kind of Democrat bug would go down into the cold ground to get warm when it's warm up here?

So, now I know that my darling daughter uses the words "Canadian" and "Democrat" to mean "idiot." That's what you get for having a certified super-genius, I suppose.

Right on schedule, The Mrs. began to melt down today. She always goes absolutely insane about 2 days prior to her mother visiting. I think it was exactly 50 hours before the flight lands this time. Somewhere around 3-3:30ish she want bazonkers. I had just started to make the pellet gun backstop, and somehow this triggered some kind of panic attack in The Mrs. Can't really explain it, but everyone ended up hollering. About an hour later, everything returned to normal. The Mrs. came out to say, "What have you been doing all this time? You've been working on this thing for two hours already and you haven't done a thing!"

Quite the contrary, I had been working for only one hour, and I had already cut the board in half, modified the hinges with the Dremel tool (they did not open as far as I needed), disciplined HannieC for trying to kick her mother, pushed MaxieC around on his tricycle, rescued many tools from the clutches of MaxieC, listened to HannieC complain about how mean I was, listened to HannieC complain about how mean The Mrs. was, picked up most of the toys in the backyard, put away the hose that I had used to fill the ponds, helped The Mrs. find a wire on which to hang a Christmas Tree ornament she had made while it dried, and spilled my Keystone Ice. All The Mrs. recognized, of course, was that I had cut the board in half.

I took me two hours from cradle to grave with the backstop. I didn't end up using the 2x4 legs, as I ground the hinges to only open to as far as I wanted. I also attached the foam so that it met perfectly there and also helped hold the right angle. I expect it'll all fall apart soon, and I'll have to do the legs, too. But it was getting dark and cold.

The neighbor lady across the street came over after dinner with her three childrens. Her hubsband got to go down to Denver for the football game (lucky bastard), so she came to hang with us for a while. The five childrens were pretty well behaved, though MaxieC managed to throw some kinda toy at one of the other kids, and that caused some crying and all. Nothing major.

Our dear neighbor brought over some margaritas that she had mixed up yesterday but that she felt were too strong to drink. She handed me a 12oz glass and said, "You'll probably only want to drink that much of this," denoting about 1/3 of the glass. The Mrs. and I exchanged a knowing glance, and I said, "You don't know me all that well, do you?"

I made the ladies black Russians. They did not want to try Minty Freshes. I don't know why. Probably all the smack talking about mixing red and green. Though The Mrs. claims it's because she can't imagine having lime juice mixed with Creme de Cacao. Their loss.

The margaritas were standard-strong, I would say. Nothing special. I enjoyed the glass, though I transferred it into an on-the-rocks glass a little at a time so as not to look like a craven drunkard.

I also vacuumed the first floor and the stairs to the cellar. I did this so that the neighbor would think that The Mrs. is an exceptional house keeper. But I was four stairs from being done when the company showed up. Our dear neighbor said, "I hope you didn't vacuum on our account." So I replied, "No. I vacuum every day after dinner. It's part of my chores that The Mrs. assigned me."

I'm not sure anyone bought that story.