Thursday Thirteen, Monday Style

1. The Boys were back in town for another overnight last Thursday, which of course begs the question "Did they keep their shirts on this time?" Of course they didn't. Our house standards are laxer than a certain Texan we know. And on that note, I am wondering. Other parents of male children, please chime in. Do you care if your offspring sit around the house shirtless? Inquiring minds want to know.
   


2. Two, yes two, people brought doughnuts to the office Thursday. I ate three. After having devoured those three doughnuts, I was informed it was also Pizza Day. Pizza Day is a revered and cherished tradition at my office. I ate three slices of delicious Bugsy's Pizza for lunch. Bugsy himself delivered.


3. Last week after work, the mild outdoor temperatures found me running around with the dogs outside after work. Pixie loves to race around, turning tight corners around obstacles and flying across the open, uneven expanse of our backyard. I clap my hands and urge her on. She's fleet, graceful and born to run.


4. While out there, I began a bit of spring cleaning: picking up sticks. Picking up sticks in our yard should be a constant chore, but we're lazy. Who knew trees shed sticks at such a rate? No trees I've ever had before did. Fat sticks, thin sticks, red sticks, blue sticks. No fish sticks.


5. The weather turned cool again, just in time for us to dispose of those sticks in the fireplace rather than bundling them for curbside pickup. A veritable mountain of sticks we have burned! There is something oddly satisfying about toting an armload of sticks inside and feeding them one by one into the fireplace until it's blazing so fiercely we are forced to back away until it burns down.


6. American Idol. Buh-bye to the boy with a decent voice but little else. Katharine's dress for Tuesday's performance: yeeoza! She should leave the bra at home every week.


7. Houston police are using undercover policemen and arresting people for being intoxicated---while in bars! Supposedly this exercise is an attempt to reduce the instances of driving while intoxicated. Pre-emptive strikes? Modern America. It's not a good thing.
   


8. My hair has been falling in my eyes all week. I've never experienced that before. It's an interesting sensation. I think I like it. I said to my mom last weekend, "Didn't you notice I'm letting my hair grow?" She looked at me blankly then asked, "Why would you do that?"
   


9. Our American Idol pool ended up with twenty-eight players. As soon as I saw the chart, I immediately wanted to sort and analyze it, adding percentages and ratios for who picked who and in what position. What is wrong with me? I forced myself to not waste my time on such a silly task. I settled for scoping out how many predicted the same winner I did and immediately felt a closer kinship with those people. The majority have chosen Chris. I wonder how many actually vote?
   


10. You'll never guess where we went this weekend. What's that? You guess we went to my mother's again? Bing bing bing.... not a very challenging question, was it? Maybe I should offer my readers fake points like Gina is dispensing for answering questions. Man, I want me some of those fake points!
    


11. While we were away, a rash of vandalism hit our neighborhood in the form of someone shooting out car windows with a beebee gun. Fifteen automobiles were damaged. Yikes!
    


12. I think I did a bad thing. I spoke my mind to someone about their behavior. I hope I didn't make the situation worse, but it was solicited in a round-about sort of way. I tried to be kind. The story is too, let's say personal, and yet not personally personal enough to be told here. I'm sitting here at the moment thinking I should have just kept my mouth shut. Oh well. Too late now.
    


13. This past weekend was spent cleaning out my mother's garage and tackling the destruction of my stepfather's workshop. I call it "destruction" because that's what it felt like. That room, outside of his sailboat, was the heart of him. So many memories on every surface, in every corner: the plane he used to fix our bathroom door, the decorative pulls on the light cords he crafted on his lathe from scraps of wood, his sockets neatly stored on a handcrafted holder, the scraps of wood on which he had practiced his "signature" for his finished projects, the pegboard walls and shelves housing tools with names and uses I can only imagine. The worst part was picking up after the projects in process or yet to be begun. He left too soon, he did.
    

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