Rite 13 Day

Today is Brian's big day. He has to stand up in church, with a whole bunch of girls, while the church recognizes his transition into "manhood". All of the other boys (well, all three) did this several weeks ago, and I hope it's done differently. Dean, our priest, made everyone stand with their hands on the shoulders of the person next to/in front of/near to them, while he went through eternities of readings. My shoulders were killing me by the end of it, and the Rite 13 (this is the name of their class) kids were in a circle in the aisle. But it's already nearly 8, I am the only one up, along with cats, and I have no idea what any of us are wearing.

Then we have to go for a pizza party tonight, so I have to get cookies for that. At least it's nit a nice day, all of this would be eating into our yard time. Yesterday, after running Brian to the soup kitchen and Megan to various random locales, we went to the garden center and picked up mulch and a "sand cherry" shrub to replace the half a tree. We also left our name so that the landscape designer can call us about redoing the shrubs in front of the house. We presently have Sigmund the Sea Monster devouring the front of the house, and he needs to be ripped out. I've spent so much energy on the back of the house that I have failed to mention this.

Kevin wants them all out as soon as possible, I wanted to finish up the back yard first. But this guy can also help with the movement of the evergreens, that will take over the yard if they're not moved around a little. When I bought them, I wanted quick privacy, and we will get that in a year or two. But in five or ten, we will have problems. And we need to install a shed, but in light of our disagreeable neighbor, we have to make sure we go through the town and get permits, and have the thing bolted to the ground, which means we need to put it in exactly within the confines of the zoning laws. With our house on this odd corner, that can get tricky.

So, that's about it for today. I hear the first person arising - and it's Kevin, of course. I will head off to the showers, after:

In other news, Megan's report card arrived and she got TWO A's, not just one (math and biology). That's it, time for a tutor. (joke) The rest were A+'s. She has nine absences in one class! That's because she was sick one day, missed seven for swimming, and made me pick her up at the end of the day once, for a stomachache. Really, she needed to come home and use the bathroom. Anyway, as they're honors classes, they will be more heavily weighted when her average is computed, so if she keeps it up, she should still be attractive to colleges. I forget if I mentioned the little boy at school who had been taken off in an ambulance. I asked on Friday and was told he'd been transferred to Robert Wood Johnson, a little north of here, so that can't be a great thing. I guess I'll ask again when I go in tomorrow. I hope it's nothing serious, but obviously it's nothing minor or they would have kept him where he was taken in the first place. Finally, Brian's rec baseball team lost AGAIN. I left at the end of the fifth, thinking it was the top of the sixth and the game was over, and apparently they staged a rally. But they did lose, 9-7, when two of their heavy hitters failed to get on base. At least Brian had a hit; even though when he scored, it was from a walk. He was left on base the other time.

Sorry, didn't mean for this post to get long. I guess I can't stop myself. (disclaimer: post not proofread)