When the Cat is Away. . .

the Mice shall spend too much money, crunch the car, murder a kindle, and cook really weird and/or fun food.

Mr. Flavius is far away and has been since Saturday morning.  These trips always cause a bit of flurry anxiety and impulsivity in me.  Being the only parent in the house seems a decidedly unnatural thing to me.  I am not particularly accustomed to being the HERE where the buck stops.  That is not to say I roll over when he is not here, but they are many and I am singular.  When he is at home, I know he's got my back.

Anyway, we're here not doing much of anything in particular.  My ankle is really bugging me this week.  I made Chicken Feet Stock to help combat the ever-shrinking cartilage in my sad ankle.

I saw a woman with the tell-tale black orthopedic boot on my way to the barber shop with the boys.  She had fallen through her attic and broken her leg when she hit the concrete below.  I really hope that there was someone at home with her.  After my ordeal, I couldn't bring myself to ask her who found her.  She said seeing me walking gave her hope.  If someone can take hope from my achy-breaky, gimpy-limpy walk then it is all worth it and I will quit complaining and take it like a woman.

A few months ago, N. got the worst haircut ever.  Somehow before I could get all the children inside, the gentleman wielding the clippers of doom managed to wrangle him into a chair and faster than most people could whip one of those capes on-- he had practically scalped the poor boy.

N. was stricken.  I was too.  He's always been sensitive about this teeninesy scar on his forehead from a game of Open the Door-Close the Door when he was 15 months old.  I don't why he is so preoccupied with it, but he is and this just about killed him.

It took getting a really bad haircut to appreciate a mediocre one.  For this I am thankful.  For whatever reason, I have not mastered the language of the Barber Shop.  I keep asking for a Classic Boy's Cut and it looks different everytime.

 B. is by far the nicest toddler I have ever had the pleasure of taking to the barber shop.  No screaming or flailing or crying or terrorizing the barber, the customers, or young mothers.  He sits up on the chair just like his brothers, but with the requisite lollypops.

He's saying, "Cheese!"

A few minutes after this we had lunch.  And a few minutes after that, I accidentally cut a corner short and  ran over a boulder.  That pretty much did it for me.  Then we went home.

 We got out the grill for out last days of Texas Summer.  It had to be 100ºF or hotter.  May I say that Texans grill in the summer to prove that we can take the heat.  If not that then why?  House after house in Johnstown had something called a Summer Kitchen.  Usually a stove in the basement between the washing machine and the laundry sink.  It might get to 90ºF outside there, but central air conditioning is not common.  Here in beautiful sunny Fort Worth, we have ALL the a/c you could want, but we still go out and stand over the grill.  If you do it right, you can get cooked on both sides with the sun on your back and the grill at your front- you can come out looking like a bright red cherry tomato!

After dinner, I realized that I let the coals burn down too far so made s'mores over the stove.

I managed to get all sorts of undefinable goo all over my phone.  It started with a piece of Press n' Seal that I wadded up and stuck in my pocket.  Being the same pocket as my phone, it, of course, melted sticky muck all over my phone screen.  As I was trying to get the mysterious substance off, it occured to me that this is not necessarily a product to be used in the microwave.

Taking this picture, I managed to get S'more all over the home button.  This was cause for mild concern, but Mr. B. took care of that and replaced it with a new anxiety after he washed the darn thing.

I may not be taking anymore pictures.  At least not for a few days, while I wait for my "it came from the eighties" picture filter to go away.

Thank the Lord, he is returning tomorrow evening.