New Week

Optimism did not work as well as I'd hoped on Friday. When I went to pick up my new glasses, they were the right prescription -- but the wrong frames. (They gave me the glasses anyway, so I can see -- luckily, the wrong frames are not horrible -- and are re-ordering the glasses with the right frames.) And when I tried to stop for my allergy shot, they looked at me like I'd grown two heads and told me that after failing a vial test, I needed to wait a week before coming back. Would've been nice of the first person to have told me that, so I didn't burn an hour for no purpose. The status for my computer repair changed from "in progress" to "on hold - part ordered." Having no idea what the part is, I can't even hazard a guess as to when I'll get the computer back. The fact that the repair shop didn't have it, however, isn't the best sign.

Saturday morning started out right on the same vein -- I tried to take Penny out to use a gift card she'd gotten for her birthday. The store wasn't where I remembered it being, and I wound up driving from one end of town to the other and then back again before I found it.

But the afternoon improved -- KT and I went to the beach. It was the perfect day for it -- a few clouds, but not too many; warm enough to swim but not so hot that sitting on the beach was miserable. The beach was packed, but we found a spot and swam for a bit, then settled onto our towels to enjoy the weather.

Some kids near us were feeding the seagulls, and it only took about five minutes before they had an entire flock of the sea-rats hovering around waiting for treats.



We couldn't decide who was funnier: the kids, who would hold up a Cheeto in the hopes a bird would take it from their hands and then shriek and fling it to the ground as soon as it looked like they were going to get a taker; or the tattooed bikini-bimbos just behind them who huffed and rolled their eyes and were indignant about the whole thing. I do think my favorite part was the bimbo who finally got up, stalked the four steps over to the kids and said, "Could you stop feeding the birds now?!" angrily, then stomped back to her towel... about five minutes after the kids had run out of Cheetos.

After we'd had enough of the sand, we wandered up to the shops to pick up souvenirs for the kids (I got Penny a shell that had been painted with the Batman logo) and then down the street to look for somewhere to eat. KT had originally wanted seafood, but we walked about three blocks without seeing anything but fast food (and one raw bar, but while I will occasionally eat sushi and am trying to learn to like fish, I am really not a fan of shellfish), so we eventually turned into an Italian place. They had wonderful food (and a cute waiter), so we felt pretty good about it.

Sunday was the usual errands, plus a trip to Target to get cards for a couple of Penny's teachers and new shoes for her. (With laces! Pink ones!) I've started teaching Penny how to tie her shoes, starting with the initial cross-and-through step. She's pretty awkward just at that first step, so I'm going to leave it there until she's got that more or less mastered, before trying to move on to making the bow.

Speaking of learning and growing: Alex, who still doesn't really crawl all the time, has decided to move on to bigger and better things. This morning, he pulled himself to standing at the couch, and for just a few seconds, there, looked like he was trying to figure out how to "cruise" sideways.

This week starts out calm, then crescendos -- I've got Book Club Wednesday evening, then Thursday morning is the elementary school's "meet-and-greet". Thursday afternoon, the daycare is having an end-of-summer party and then they're closed Friday, so Matt and I will probably each take a half-day off to stay home with the kids.

We're doing another proposal compilation at my work this week, too -- the boss wants to have it all assembled and ready to go by Thursday so as not to interfere with anyone's long weekend plans, but I suspect that means I'll be doing last-minute changes into Friday. (Not sure how that's going to play with the kids being home all day... I might need to get my parents to babysit. Of course, they've spent the last two and a half weeks in Cancun, so they're probably ripe for some grandkid time anyway!)

It's a new week. Let's hope it goes better than the last one.