We (me and the mrs.) were so excited last week. We were looking forward to a weekend with no plans and nothing to do except to get urchin 1.0 to soccer practice on Saturday at 11am.

Oh, how the simpleminded (me) are easily distracted from the realities of their lives.

Friday was great. I got off two hours from work (thanks boss) and got home, did my 4.2 mile treadmill hustle and was done before I'd normally be off of work. I like maximizing my screwing off on the weekend, and this clearly sent things off in the right direction.

I spent some time watching my neighbor scalping his yard, and that meant that I knew what I was doing Saturday: keeping up with the Jones'. Or in this case, keeping up with the Skip.

After a trip to the Chevron for supplies, we had a couple of beers and decided to invite the PZ's over for a drink and a little chatter.

Dinner never really happened except for the chips, cheese dip and salsa that the PZ's brought. That contribution was greatly appreciated and was the life preserver that kept UnkTodd and I upright.

Went to bed at a respectable hour (11pm or so after a 10pm urchin 2.0 feed) and looked forward to a liesurely weekend.

Up at 6:30am, contemplated hitting the treadmill, but instead hit the virtual link to lock up 2006 player of the year in Tiger Woods 2006. Great game, although I've just about gotten all of the good out of it. The time has come to start going through the list of missions / tasks to accomplish so I can be 100% or 200% complete. (Don't ask).

This time usually only lasts a little while (given the schedules of the urchins) but Saturday was special. Lauren didn't get up until nearly 8:00am and Sophia didn't get up until after 9am.

Oh, and if you wait until after 9am to start your Saturday, you're gonna fall behind on things like feeding, clothing and getting kids ready to be out of the house by 10:45am.

Hit the Home Depot around 10am with UnkTodd for some light bulbs and got some discount bbq stuff (like a rib rack and a veggie / seafood basket-wok thingy).

I also had a wierd thing happen at the Depot. A guy walked up to me while UnkTodd was discussing lawnmower spark plugs with a chick, and he said "Excuse me. Can I ask a favor of you?"

To myself I'm thinking "Umm...sure. As long as it doesn't entail me dressing up as Little Bo Peep and giving you a hand shandy here in the Garden Center."

My actual answer: "Sure."

He replied "May I borrow your height please? I need that (pointing) mower air filter from the top row of the pegboard there."

I reached and got it for him and he said "Thanks," to which I replied: "No problem."

But MAN, does that have to suck. I didn't even really notice him to be short, but having to go around asking other duded to reach stuff for you must not be fun. Although my wife's been doing the same thing to me for almost 20 years and neither one of us seem to care, so I guess it is what it is.

Found that the Depot didn't have UnkTodd's spark plug, so it was off to the Ace Hardware for a look. While there, I got some items out of the bargain bin (which I love shopping thru at any Ace):

two rolls of plumber's teflon tape for 99 cents
one box cutter / knife thingy for 99 cents
one set of allen wrenches on a ring for $1.99
some other thing for 99 cents.

Good stuff.

Since UnkTodd forgot his wallet and cash (a likely story) I was footing the hardware bill, and while checking out I noticed that the plug was $3.49 compared the $2 one at the Depot.

Unk Todd to me and the clerk: "$3.49?!?!?? That's insane! That same thing at the Depot is only two bucks."

My reply: "Dude, they could be claiming to sell them for a penny, but if they have none in stock, then who really gives a shit what the price is?"

UnkTodd: "Good point. But damn! $3.49!"

Anyway, we got home just in time to get to soccer, which was back at the old building. Minus any air conditioning. It was like sitting in the gym bag of some high school football player who forgot to bring his clothes home out of his locker for the weekend.

Yuck.

Oh, we also semi-haggled with one of the parents at soccer over birthday party locations since their kid's birthday is after Lauren's by about 3 weeks. It's amazing what kind of stuff you have to do when you have kids. Sheesh.

After soccer, the wife and the mother-in-law were headed out with urchin 2.0 and leaving 1.0 with me, which is totally fine and great. That meant I would be able to do my yardwork.

Unless UnkTodd had an idea to get out of it.

And that idea was, instead of scalping the Bermuda, let's burn it off like I've seen folks do.

You can bet he didn't have to sell the idea of burning his front yard with a blow torch very hard to get me on board. Plus, if it went well, we could do mine right after that.

Since I didn't take any pictures of this process (stupid me), let me resign myself to saying that I double cut and scalped mine instead of burning it. But man, was burning his yard fun.

Once that work was done, it was Miller Time and that's sweet on a Saturday afternoon showing the first signs of Spring. We also got a call from the wife from Harry's saying she was getting mussels for dinner and asking if we wanted anything.

No, I thought, but UnkTodd and I decided that we would enjoy a little dead cow to go with our mussels, so it was off to the butcher shop in the new Corvette to buy my first ever Prime graded ribeye steaks. (UnkTodd bought them, btw).

A note here: the UnkTodd clan has been basing their operations out of our house for a few days due to the hardwood floor installation, and for some reason they think they owe us meals all over and stuff, and that's ridiculous. I very much appreciate their generosity, but it's almot overwhelming given what they do for us all the time anyway.

(note: although they were good, they weren't "twice the price good" compared to the Choice grade ribeyes we normally buy, but it's good to know that now so I won't wonder).

Upon returning home, I bumped into a neighbor and invited he and the wife up for mussels and cold beers and steaks if they had any on hand, which of course they did.

We also got a surprise visit from the "I sharted in the wave pool at Lake Lanier Islands" and her husband, and that was quite a treat.

Our evening's fun was tempered somewhat by our clearly miserable 2.0, but we don't know what was wrong. She was screaming the MAD scream from about 8pm until 11pm, and that required frequent duty switches between the wife and me to try to keep her calm (if we could get her calm) and try to get her to sleep. When urchin 2.0 finally crashed, she crashed hard.

We went to bed at a reasonable hour again after a little bit of a cleanup, and looked forward to an easy Sunday of doing nada damn thing.

Until I remembered Sunday morning that we'd been invited by Caca and Feff to the MIL's house to let the kids play and to watch Olivia learn to ride a two wheeler.

It was great way to kill a few hours and tire out the kids. And it proved to be a momentus day in 2.0's life, since she ate from a spoon for the first time. She at the YoBaby yogurt and loved it.

We decided to try it since she's on an antibiotic, and that has made her turds damp and stinky and explosive. As in diaper integrity violation explosive. So we figured anything we could try would be better that THAT!

We got home around 2:30pm and I took 1.0 across the street so mom and 2.0 could nap and I headed out to rescalp and cross cut the yard, then headed to UnkTodd's for a cold beer and to help put the fridge back in it's place after the new floors.

That led to sitting and watching the start of the Cup race. (I'm so tough to please).

I checked on the wife and found that 2.0 had fussed for about two hours, so no rest was had by anyone but me. Blech.

We decided on Japanese food for dinner, and it was my first time at this place. I can't remember/pronounce the name, but it's a gem amidst the shit that is some strip mall in Buford, GA that contains an Aaron's Rent-a-center.

The place was enormous and apparently houses a Chinese place, the Japanese place and one other restaurant too. And they all deliver to our house. YAY!!

The show was awesome and Lauren loved it, even though the flaming grill cleaning trick. She loved the fire shooting onion volcano, the egg toss and crack with the spatula, and especially liked the "Chef throwing balls of rice for everyone to catch in their mouths" trick. I got plenty of pictures and they'll be up in a minute.

After returning home, we finally got Sophia down around 10pm. She at at 6:30pm and 10pm and about cleared both bottles, so she's obviously growing again. As of my departure this morning both children were still asleep, although 1.0 got up and came in last night again. I took her back to bed and slept in her bed for half an hour or so before I returned to the master suite.
If anyone has any ideas on how to break this annoying little habit (short of installing a dog run in the hall), I'm all ears.

So that was about it. Reading back thru this it sounds boring as hell, but that's only because I'm not awake yet.

But I'm hungry as shit. Why does Asian cuisine make you so damned hungry anyway???