Sparkle

7-2-12


It sparkles!!

Between Saturday and Sunday’s cleaning sessions, I managed to make me happy. We moved all of the books from the boys’ room to the living room into one fantastic bookshelf. I spent much of Sunday cleaning out drawers in various rooms, cleaning the back yard, and even scrubbed the kitchen. I am beyond pleased. With the men folk in my household away at camp most of the days now, my arrival home will not be as frat house as it has looked during their 2 week break.



Ok, our house never got this bad, but in my crazy mind...



This whirlwind of dust bunnies didn’t keep me completely cut off from the world. Sunday morning we took a nice bike ride up to Torrance Bakery to get the boys some donuts. Thank goodness we also stopped at the Decapitated Baker donut shop on the way home to get some standard donuts since the fancy pastries at Torrance Bakery were certainly not what they were hoping for.

In addition to the Sunday morning outing, I accompanied Brandy and Andrea to visit with an old high school friend, Hank. In all fairness, I wasn’t as close to Hank as both of them were. I would have loved to have known him better back then. I had creative writing with him and I know at the time I was in awe of his creative mind and was always flattered when he thought something I had written was any good.

We met up with Hank at his friend, Chris’s house in Manhattan Beach where we ended up hanging out with them and a few other of Hank’s friends. It was a mini high school reunion, especially once Cindy showed up and it was nice catching up and reminiscing with everyone.

I had not intended on going. Brandy and I decided we should go as chaperones for Andrea who has been smitten with Hank for years and years. When we explained this to her as we arrived, she told us we were probably over reacting. When we left, she said that yes, had we left her there they would have hooked up. I am not one to deny someone their mostly innocent booty call, but Andrea is in a long term relationship that she has not strayed from in 10 years. I think this would have been a mistake for her.

Of course, based on my description so far, this seems like a casual gathering of a handful of people in a grown up setting, right? Not by a long shot.

The house is where Chris lived. However, it was pointed out that he was renting it from his mother while she lived with her husband elsewhere. The house looked like a slacker hippie from the 90’s decorated it. It had the distinct odor of man sweat and pot along with a unidentified odor that permeated the walls and would pop up from time to time throughout the evening.

As we all sat down in the living room, I was amused at the “alternative smoking” offered. I have no issue with drugs, and in fact am all for them. It just was such an amusing setting of what was a bunch of grownups that were resorting back to high school activities just for the evening.

I will say one thing about pot smoke, though. It smells so much less yicky than cigarette smoke, which I was covered in by the time I got home. Between both kinds of smoke, I did need to take a shower when I got home since I didn’t want that stuff in my bed.

I did enjoy the fact that at one point one of the chicks there did ask me if I was a hairdresser. I was confused, but she said she just assumed due to my hair. She said she loved it!

This weekend Daniel comes to stay with us for a couple weeks. On Wednesday, the boys, Ken and I get to do the 5K! Other than that, the week is shockingly free. I am hoping that in the afternoon/evenings, we can toss the boys in the pool and Ken and I can start work on the hedge. It will take some time to remove, and we really want to get it done during the time the house next door is still being prepped for sale. Hell, if we play our cards right, we might even be able to use things like whatever dumpster they rent for debris.

Speaking of their house going on sale, we did spent a little time at their house on Saturday morning. They were doing the estate sale. Margie had tons of amazing, wonderful things. I picked up several Little Golden Books that still had price tags on them from when they were originally purchased. They were marked at $.48! I also picked up other kids books, many of which would almost be impossible to find now since they had old school mentality. Indians and Song of the South and things like that.

I also got a Parade Magazine that was dated one year to the day after JFK’s assassination. It had an interview with Jackie. It was really interesting to see the perspective only a year after. I also got a Life magazine from only 2 months after Lennon was shot. Hmm..I detect a theme of death here.

What I did not pick up, which I still wonder if I made the right decision on, were gobs of old records. Some were in their original sleeves, and some were even in those old fantastic album books where you write the names on the inside of the cover. I don’t have a record player, nor would I probably listen to them. I thought they were fantastic antiques, but really, I have no room for stuff like that.

The other fun find was a Richard Scary book, Best Word Book Ever. This in itself isn’t probably interesting, but what made it awesome was that this is the original copy before the world of political correctness took over. Stereotypes of women doing all the work in the home and not doing outside work have been updated in new editions. The pretty stewardess is now a flight attendant. I not have the copy in which she was still pretty.

FUCK! I just realized I forgot my book at home. Alyssa loaned me a book that she is convinced I will love. I thought I would try reading it while walking today. Grrr!!