Return to the Real World
I took Friday as a sick day, I was suffering from allergies all last week and finally needed a day to rest up. I'm not used to having allergy symptoms, I've never been affected by them very much, so this suffering is a bit of a new experience, and it took me a bit by surprise. Had a guy come over to look at the foundation, and fortunately that appears to be okay, but on the down side we are left to wonder why the bathroom door is dragging a bit in one place.
Spent Saturday morning helping out at the Mount Carmel monastery, no not that Mt. Carmel, Mitzy and I cleaned up their basement for them. Evidently there are only two monks in the monastery, and this sucker is huge, so there's no way they can keep it up. I would appear that they quasi-frequently call for volunteers to help with maintenance around the place. It's a pretty area, but was obviously constructed at a time when there was more robust enthusiasm for cloistering. We worked for about two and half hours, then ate some burgers and went home. Mitzy had had enough, and as I'm not even Catholic I felt I had donated enough charitable labor.
Mitzy's sisters's three girls left with us, evidently that had had enough as well, so we took them home with us. The girls made phone calls to some of the other cousins and by the middle of the afternoon we had eight kids running amok on our property. There is no pest control company you can call for such infestations. I was able to introduce a couple of the older ones to some advanced boardgames, we played Metro and Bohnanza. Both games I had played while part of a gaming group and later purchased for personal use. The games went well, the kids seemed to enjoy themselves, and expressed that great fun was had playing Bohnanza especially. The day ended with us taking six of the eight to go swimming at Mitzy's older sister's house, which of course is five million miles from where we live. Fun was had, and the girls made spaghetti for us after swimming, but man it was a long, exhausting day.
My grandfather's brother passed away on Friday or Saturday, so we made the trip to Waco to attend the visitation. The funeral is today, but I didn't think I could afford to miss another day of work. It was a nice time to visit with family, but it would have been nicer under different circumstances. This was my grandfather's older brother, and both of them had been very close. I don't know much about my grandfather's side of the family, so I don't have much to elaborate on, but I feel for him, I can only imagine how much is must hurt to loose a sibling.
Before leaving to come back to Dallas I pilfered my father's tools, and garden. I got a good digging shovel, some tomato plant cages, a tray of squash seedlings and some fresh squash from the garden. Also got some blackberries he grew. I'm eager to get the cages around tomato plants, they're growing really well and starting to get tall. I have two tomatoes on vine right now. My late planted corn has breached the surface of the soil and appears to be growing well, I plan on putting the squash in the ground when I get home this afternoon. I've also planted two mango seeds to see what they'll do, and pineapple top for the same reason.
Aiight, back to work today, have to go to a meeting.