The Panic of August

August is a month of panic, even more so than December. It's the end of summer, end of the summer term, State Fair time, no daycare or summer camp, the beginning of the fall term, and get the kids ready for school-gymnastics-Chinese class.
As a kid, I couldn't wait for August to end. I wanted to get back to school. Back to a schedule.
I wish I felt that way as an adult. I do have to admit the panic started when Sarah first started school. Maybe it's the byproduct of having a GoGoBaby (Sarah) that never stops.
I think it's mostly a parental stage, the length of which is determined by how far apart your kids are spread.
I feel like there is so much to do–but I want someone else to do it for me. NOW I need that robot that Rachel has promised to build me.
I need to take a deep breath, and make my lists. How does everyone else cope with end of summer/back to school time?

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Things That Bug Me No End

It's a small, petty list, but it's mine.
— Organizations that wait forever before cashing you check.
— Dirty dishes put away as clean.
— Medical bills that are coded incorrectly or duplicated.
— Near-empty cans rolling on the bus floor.
— horseflies.

What bugs you?
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More random bullets to round out the past 14 days or so…

June 13th

  • Working on master course updates in my outdoor office. Smells like peonies and roses. Beautiful day in Minnesota…3:31 PM

June 17th

  • Can I get all my grading done on my big computer before the thunderstorms start tonight? Stay tuned…5:49 PM
  • Weather radio firing off tornado warnings (not 4 me), Rachel #Maddow on TV, kids running around crazy. I should give up on the grading.8:12 PM

June 19th

  • Lunch time retail therapy at Macy’s 1 day sale. Score: blk skirt, bl slvless top, aqua shy slv top. #flylady12:06 PM

June 24th

  • Stated more clearly: RT @WillAtWork: “The biggest self of self is indeed self.” -Mark Sanford, the biggest tool of tool #Maddow. Still LMAO8:23 PM

June 26th

  • TGIF. Party w/some old college friends tonight. Trader Joe’s opened today 3/4 mi away.3:00 PM
  • I think I just stepped into the party bus. These guys are having way too much fun on public transportation.3:06 PM

Unsettled

It’s been a week where things feel up-in-the-air. Unsettled. Some of that is due to the weather, which I’ve been whining about here. But there seems to be something else. Restlessness mixed with inertia.

That’s an odd combo. But that’s the best description for it. Or just-don’t-wanna-do-nuthin’ disease. But somethings gotta be done.

It’s farmer day. The day we get our farm share for the week. I didn’t even look up to see what we’re getting. More salad greens, I suppose. I still have turnips and arugula from last week that we haven’t eaten. It’s like the heat hit and we all lost interest.

On top of everything, we’ve had our periodic visit from the head lice fairy. I went 44 years without dealing with it. I think I’ve made up for that downtime in the last 6 years. Yuck.

Now to summon up enough energy to get off the bus.

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Hot Birthday to John

My dear friend Kay (R.I.P.) use to say “It’s not the heat, it’s the whining.” Let me whine a bit about the weather.

One of the Titans has uprooted my fair state and dropped into a super-sized Finnish sauna. Literally, my breath was taken away when I left work just now and stepped outside. It is hard to breathe. It’s 92 degrees, 70 degree dewpoint, 98 degrees heat index. Yuck, whine, whine.
We turned on the a/c for the first time yesterday, and was happy to find it still works.

Tonight we celebrate John’s birthday. His wish was to go to Big Bowl. I have to finish his cake (frosting) before I can go off to work for Metro.

Is it fair to leave squirrelly kids with your Spousal Unit on the SU’s birthday? I am really going to work and earn money, not sitting ina coffee house and schmoozing. I’m not the schmoozing type.
I think the ethics here are sketchy.

The cake is from scratch. It’s a recipe called Grandma’s Thunder Cake. It’s from a book Rachel and John read together a month ago. The kids and I call it Dada’s Thunder Fart Cake. I don’t know if that’s a by-product of the cake or not. It’s made with tomatoes, so anything is possible.

A happy hot 62nd Birthday to John.

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Invaders from the Planet Cute and Furry

Our chuck of St. Paul has been taken over by rabbits. Old rabbits, baby rabbits, mama and daddy rabbits. There all here on our block. One morning, I counted seven rabbits in one yard.

About a month ago, while walking down the alley, I noticed nine rabbits total: 3 senior, 3 juvenile, 3 babies.

I’m not sure how many we have now — I haven’t looked up the breeding cycle of the bunny to find out how many more may have been created in the last month.

They are terribly cute, hopping their way down the alley or across the yard. There’s an older rabbit (I’m guessing that by the amount of white fur around its eyes) that I have named The Easter Bunny. This particular rabbit has been around since Easter, and it has a strange habit — it doesn’t run right away when the kids and I approach. And I think it laughs when Laddie has a rabbit-inspired barking fit.

For as cute as these rabbits are, they sure can destroy things in a hurry.

I have several new rose bushes, including three that are in a semi-fenced part of the backyard, next to the tomatoes. I had watered the tomatoes and roses one evening. When I came home from work the next day, all the leaves were gone from the rose bushes — as were several about-to-bloom roses.

The neighborhood rabbits must have had a party in my roses. There were a lot of leaves and buds. More than just one or two rabbits could eat. I think it must have been the Bunny Eat-In of the Year.

I mentioned to John that my bushes had been stripped of their leaves by a rabbit dining club. He was surprised. He had noticed the rose were missing their leaves earlier that morning. He thought I had some weird new rose bush pruning approach this year, and I had stripped the roses myself the night before.

A week later, the roses are starting to sprout new leaves, but it will be a while before I get new rose buds. The roses are recovering behind wire structures that look like a Gitmo exercise area.

Not So Random Bullets of Tweets

My tweets over the last week. As you can see, I’m not exactly a consistent tweeter on Twitter.
As they say on “Rate Your Students”, enjoy the flava.

Thursday 6-4

  • RT @maddow: My inner 8 year old will not let me do anything today that does not somehow involve this website: http://whopooped.org/ 6:46 PM
  • @ maddow Thanks to you, I now have a 20% discount coupon for the kids to use at the MN Zoo this summer. 6:46 PM
  • No one knows more about poop than a mom… 6:47 PM
  • … well, a daycare provider and a proctologist would be knowledgeable, too.6:48 PM
  • Is this hashtag working? #edublogger 7:12 PM

Saturday 6-6

  • @twitopain Missed the poop reference*, but loved the “Hey, that guy looks like me” (or something like that) at the Pyramids. 7:21 PM Jun 6th from TweetDeck in reply to twitopain
  • Going to Grading Jail now. Will not resurface until all 27 papers are graded! 7:48 PM

Monday 6-8

  • Out of grading jail. It’s so bright out here…6:43 PM
  • Amen!!
    RT @Ali_Davis: Maybe Newt is meant to be the Republicans’ clean energy solution? Less power from gas, more from gasbags? #maddow 8:45 PM
  • Looks like I’m missing another good #maddow. TG for the repeat! 8:46 PM

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* According to my friend twitopain, President Obama made a poop reference sometime during his visit to the Pyramids of Giza. I missed it.

Lost, Then Found

My computers need some serious Spring Cleaning. I have junk scattered all over them, and scattered all over my thumb drives. I need to bring some order to my computing life again. But that’s another task that has to wait until the grades have been submitted.

Fortunately, I found this little gem in a folder in a sub-directory. And it’s still relevant!

I will be so glad when the Senate race is settled. But that’ll happen just about the time the ground freezes this fall. That’s my prediction.

Last week on The Rachel Maddow show, Senator Amy Klobuchar predicted the race would be settled when “the corn is knee-high on the 4th of July”. And if not then, she’ll “be mad”. The prediction talks at 6:50 into the piece.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I think our solo Senator is an optimist.