The weekend was good.

We firmed up plans for our friends from Portland to bring their girls
down for the second week end in November. I know we’re planning on
going to the Childrens’ museum in Boston.
Outside of that we had also talked a little about Salem, but once
Halloween is over Salem really settles down. I’m not sure we will want
to go there. We might. Maybe we’ll do the children’s museum on Saturday
and Salem on Sunday — while its not EXACTLY on the way its not
terribly far off the beaten path either. Hmm… I’ll have to give it
some thought. I like all of Cape Ann
and would kind of like to take them there, but … well, in November
its not as nice as other times of year. The shore tends to be cold and
windy. The forests have shed their leaves and are also cold.

On Saturday Gabriel played soccer. In the morning the painter came 30
minutes early (8:30am) and I soon figured out that I needed to hustle
the kids outside. Liz came down with a nasty looking cold. That is, it
looked nasty from where I sat. It made her miserable. She’s feeling
better now. But with the painter in the hallway, liz not feeling well
and the dog yapping to play I felt I needed to get the kids outside for
a while. So we went to Breakheart reservation in Saugus. We found a cool pond and walked through the woods for a while.

We got back in time to drop Chloe off for Gymnastics and took Gabriel
to soccer. His team was beaten rather badly. I visited with some
parents and took to see what he could find.

Since Liz was still illin’ I took the kids out for lunch. We went to
Applebee’s after we found out Friendly’s was too full. We finished up
lunch and got home around 2pm, I think. Somehow it kind of shot the
rest of the day. For the life of me I can’t remember what we did with
our afternoon.

I made dinner.

Seriously. I did.

Ok, it wasn’t much of a dinner. It was whole wheat spiaghetti. I had a
round loaf of bread and a small container of spicy olive oil from
Polcaris. Me and the kids enjoyed it. I got it all done kind of late
and by the time I finished cleaning up it was 7pm. That’s when the kids
eat their evening snacks. I didn’t have anything I thought they would
like so I thought it would be fun to walk down to the local ice cream
shop. We did that and I was right: it was fun.

Today, I got the lawn mowed. And I put a fence. Well, its one of those plastic orange barrier fences
you see around construction sites. Why? Well, the giant tree that fell
over the other day is still in my yard and hasn’t completely fallen
over. It could fall and hurt someone. Also the dog could hop the fence.
Also the little woman is concerned that the damaged wall between my
house and the apartment building will fall over. So we need to keep the
young’uns away from all the hazards that have become my backyard.

So I fenced off all the good stuff and kept the crappy stuff. That is,
the swingset is on the other side of the fence. The sandbox is on the
other side of the fence. The playhouse is on the other side of the
fence. The adirondack rockers are on the other side of the fence –
that was a case of poor planning on my part. The only thing on THIS
side of the fence is a crappy picnic table.

*sigh!*

I wanted to get out geocaching today, but between everything I had to do I didn’t get there. There’s one I haven’t gotten to over in the Middlesex Fells. For my birthday Liz got me several travel bugs
and my plan was to release my first one. Geocachers are supposed to
move it from one cache to another. Although a purpose isn’t necessary I
think it would be a shame not to come up with SOMETHING. So I decided I
wanted mine to get to a place called “Shore Acres” near my parents’
house in Oregon. It should also pick up as many of those tacky
collectible spoons as possible. I still need to deposit it in a cache
to get it going.

After all spoons a-wasting!

I spent an hour or so watching the Patriots.
They finished the first half tied at 17 - 17 against the San Diego
Chargers. Then we went to Ben’s soccer game and I guess they fell apart
because they got badly whooped.

Similarly, Ben’s team got … what’s the right word? “TORE UP” I think
is what happend. I think the final score was 7 - 1. The other team
looked really well organized and the coach was giving them pointers at
the half time break and trying to get them pepped up.

At half time our coach just wants to make sure everyone is having fun.

I happened to be watching when there was a substitution. The other
coach looked at his clipboard and had the whole rotation worked out. He
had obviously already figured out who should be in and out throughout
the entire game. He had loads of fresh players on the sidelines and his
players were all much bigger than ours.

My coach’s wife looks at the other coach and, teasing her husband, says “Hey, Glenn, where’s your clipboard?!”

I had to laugh! it was really funny. Glenn had treated this like a
chance to go out and have fun. Like a fun little kick-around. So when
someone got tired he pulled him out and plopped someone else in his
place. The coach is really a good guy and I think Ben has had a lot of
fun on his team and has certainly improved over the years. I think this
is his third or fourth season with Glenn.

I don’t mind that we never seem to win. Ben doesn’t often let it get to him either.

The painter did a really nice job and got the primer applied and the
first layer of paint. The floor guys are returning tomorrow and so
might the painter.

Oh and I think my printer is shot. Its making wholly inappropriate mechanical grinding noises. I hate buying new printers.

My monitor is also on the fritz. Its turning unpleasant colors. Its a
pretty old monitor and I guess its about time to replace it. But it
will be a few hundred dollars.

Come to think of it the flash on new camera is damaged too. Somehow it
looks like it got jammed inside the camera and now it won’t pop up.
I’ve tried prying it open, but it won’t budge. I think I’ll have to
take it to be repaired.

I think the printer and monitor can’t be repaired, though.

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