She's Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!
2005-08-04, 7:40 p.m.

This message is brought to you by the numbers 6, 4, and 2, and the letter P. 6, 4, and 2 combine to make $642, which is how much it is costing to begin my children�s free and appropriate public education this year. After school fees, materials, instrument rentals, field trip costs, lunch accounts, extortion money, and bail, we give you the letter P which is for Po, because that�s what we will be for a long, long while.

Speaking of long long whiles, yes it�s been one since I�ve updated, but we haven�t been home much lately. In fact, this entire summer can be summed up in one word:
DRIVE
My booty outline is permanently molded into the car seat, and I think I have carpal tunnel in my right ankle. We covered just shy of 5,000 miles (seriously) in the past month and a half, going many miles without covering any appreciable distance. It was all back and forth, back and forth between parental units as dutiful children will do, with a couple of days of frenetic fun thrown in. Take, for example, last weekend:
Saturday morning�clean house, load car, drive 8 hours to mother-in-law�s beach house, unload, go to bed. Sunday morning�eat breakfast, hit beach for half an hour, load car, drive to mother-in-law�s main house to retrieve pickup truck, drive 8 hours back home.
Relaxing, ain�t it? Yeah, I didn�t think so either.

And just WHY did we have to fetch our pickup? Because Hubby had to leave it there when he rented a UHell truck and trailer to bring home this:

This being Hubby�s favorite toy inheritance, a 1969 Camaro that he helped his dad restore. It looks even better washed and with the rims on; this was the MY GOD WE FINALLY MADE IT HOME AND IT ONLY TOOK US A WEEK TO CLEAN OUT A SPOT IN THE GARAGE FOR IT AND ONLY AN ELEVEN HOUR DRIVE ON THE HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR photo. Excited, in a demented sort of way.

And why did he have to rent a UHell truck? Because he tried to haul the car and the equally heavy trailer home tethered to his little pickup, but got a tad unnerved when the thing would haul, but wouldn�t stop. Brakes can come in handy, you know. So can a transmission. Best not to blow up your pickup or send yourself careening down a mountain highway, all in the name of saving a buck or two. So overpriced UHell truck it was, along with another 988-mile round trip the following weekend.

And why did he have to get the car now? Hubby wanted to get it before his classes started. Yes folks, Hubby received his preliminary acceptance into the Masters of Statistics program. At the end of this month, he will be juggling full-time employment and family life with heavy-duty mathematics, and he is thrilled. So am I, for him, although this means my own plans are on hold for another 5 years or so. C�est la vie. My happiness is entwined in his, and whither he goes I shall follow. I might follow with a cattle prod and a cat o�nine tails, but hey, someone�s got to keep him out of trouble.

And why were my cholesterol levels up AGAIN at my physical today? Certainly not parking my fat behind at home cookin� restaurants while visiting my mother (where they serve anything made of starch, lard, and fatback specked with the occasional vegetable), or my mother-in-law�s table (butter beans cooked with bacon, squash with bacon, bacon with bacon, I swear she butters her toast with bacon grease and puts it in desserts, but DAYUM it�s good). For good news, I gained only two pounds. Perhaps not so good since I was supposed to have lost 10 by this visit. My blood pressure was good�80 over 50. I broke the bad news about being alive and all to Hubby, forcing him to shelve his life insurance-yacht-nubile harem fantasy for awhile longer.

By the way, my mother-in-law loved the house.

And now, I leave you to go watch The Tick and revel in simply being home. SPOOOOOOOOOOON!

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