Boys, Boys, Boys

Did I live or did I die? you ask. I'll let you be the judge.

First, the aforementioned running around the house, shooting each other. Then a trip to the pool. This was from about three till about five in the afternoon. I was pretty impressed with the apartments behind our neighborhood. They don't look like much from the outside, but check out their indoor pool:



Pretty swanky. The boys played hard, pinching and poking each other the entire time they were in the water, then comparing bruises and red marks. Boys. And then? One of the boys decided he was STARVING. Again. Yeah. So we went home.

Before I tell you what they did at home, can I just say that I missed out on an awful lot of life by never living in an apartment? I'd forgotten what it was like out there. The type of people who wander around in the middle of the afternoon when the rest of the world is working. There were the two men who asked if I had five singles (I have no idea if they were willing to trade a fiver for it or if they just wanted five bucks). One of them lingered to talk, since I was the lone adult at the pool. That was a treat. Got to hear all about his cliff diving incident in Hawaii and the loss of all of his top front teeth. Ayup.

Then the lady and her son who wandered through looking for the free chips and wings. She sat right next to me - all kinds of empty seats all around the pool - and lit up a cigarette. I'd have complained if it weren't for her son. He was twelve and very personable. And didn't seem the type to have friends his age. I was smocking and he declared that I should teach his mother a thing or two about sewing. I can't recall, but it might have been about that time that she lit up.

I dragged the hungry boys home and fed them leftover pasta from last night. Ayup. No pizza or Chinese food. Leftovers. And watermelon I cut up two nights ago. The thing about ten and eleven year old boys is that they think anything their friend's mom serves is exotic and wonderful. Except I misunderstood them when they said they were going into the backyard to have a watermelon fight. They weren't spitting seeds. They were breaking off and chunking bits of watermelon at each other. *sigh*

So that puts us at, what? Six? Another round of ice cream sandwiches, then upstairs to play video games. Around seven they discover Little Guy's millipedes. No lie - they spent 45 minutes playing with them. One of the boys was afraid of them, so the first half hour was spent convincing him to hold one, with me yelling at them not to bully him into holding it. Being boys all, he eventually held a millipede, then begged to take one home. *sigh* I had to demand that they let the poor things go back to their dark, damp place so the boys wouldn't kill them.

Around eight o'clock the boredom set in. And poor Maybelline was playing around on the computer, headphones in, and happened on one of those scary videos that's all idyllic, then a scary, screaming face pops up. She freaked and the boys came a'runnin'. It was all down hill from there. Here they are, about how the rest of the evening went:



Looking for scary things on the internet. And frustrated because dad has security in place to keep them from the really scary places.

Winding down involved sleeping bags in the bonus room and the movie The Matrix. More power to 'em. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to bed.

Until I write again ...

Flea