Saturday morning, I got up at 8:00am. Yeah, eight. On a Saturday. Now, this isn't to say that I don't ever get up before noon on a weekend. Of course I do because I have kids and kids don't typically let you stay in bed anytime past nine. But, since both of my daughters are now in softball, I have to be up and out the door by 8:45am to get them to their practice. And since the assistant coach is... what's the word I'm looking for here? Ummm.. Oh yeah, smokin' HOT. I have to actually look decent. This means that I can't go with my hair sticking up in every direction decked out in my flannel pajama pants and the t-shirt that the girls made me for Mother's Day two years ago with '#1 Mom' colored on it next to the giant disproportioned picture of me towering over the tree. Nope. I have to actually put on a bra and brush my teeth.
Now the responsible part of my brain is yelling "kick ass!" because we (my brain and I) are actually out of the bed at a decent hour, dressed and ready to clean and organize things. But the Saturday part of my brain is sobbing in the corner.
Off to softball practice where I slow the car down enough for the girls to jump out their doors and I am back to the house. Why? Because I am on a schedule. I have from nine to eleven to get my place somewhere near the realm of clean and make lunch. At eleven, I had done the dishes, swept the floor, cleaned half of the girls room, washed all the towels and dried half of them and made lunch. The girls called me (I left them my cell phone) to let me know it was time to come get them at eleven fifteen. Ten minutes later I am standing in the... shit. Let me look in my Softball For Dummies book here... ah, dugout. I am standing in the dugout talking to the coach. He is all talking to me like I have some idea of what the fuck he is saying. It was so cute. Apparently, both my daughters bat left handed, which is strange because they are right handed. And Amanda pitches left handed and right handed. So she is baseball ambidextrous. Ok, so that isn't the right lingo, but I couldn't find it in the book. All it means to me is that I need to get her two gloves. Apparently Amanda is pretty good. The couch was practically raving about her like omg, she is going to SAVE the team!
I am just listening and trying to file away words that I can look up later. I walked away with the above info as well as that both girls need 11.5 gloves. I think. His daughter only has a 10.5. Anyway, I think I might actually stay at the practice on Wednesday and watch so I have some idea of what the hell they are talking about when they come home and start all that softball babble. Shit, I can't even think the word "softball" without thinking about Brian Regan:
They call it softball, it makes it sound like its harmless. Did you ever take a line shot to the face with a softball, you dont say 'hey thats downy soft, that was like a big ball of cotton, hey dont worry bout that, we're playin softball, we're all gonna float around like angels! Don't worry about that, that's bloodlite!' Did you ever strike out in softball? The other players are all like 'Wow... he throws a wicked twelve foot arc. It's hard to hit in only three tries. It should be a bigger ball, it should be a kickball, we should play 10 strike kickball'.
I love him.
Ok so after practice, we have lunch and head to The Cake Lady's house. You see, TCL's husband has been on vacation all this past week and they have been trying to get all of their home projects done. Like their new appliances and new cabinets and fans and plumbing... now I remember why I rent. Anyway, she really, really, really, really, really, really wanted to paint her house this weekend but hubby said that they probably wouldn't have enough time. So, what did I do? I offered to come and help. Well, why not right? She wants the damn thing painted and how hard can it be. I mean, I painted my whole bathroom. By myself.
Yeah.
I started painting at noon. We stopped at eight. That is eight hours of painting. Have you ever painted for eight straight hours? The only thing that keeps you going is inhaling a whole lotta fumes when no one is looking. So, at eight something, TCL and I went inside where I popped open a big ass bottle of wine and drank almost half of it in about twenty minutes. Then we ate a buttload of BBQ that her husband had been cooking in his magic BBQ pits. Why are they magic? Let me explain. I always bring chicken. Everytime. I buy a bag of frozen chicken breasts. I marinade them in this Southwest Chipotle seasoning stuff that I use at home and I throw them into a big plastic bowl and take them. And every single time, they taste better after TCL's husband cooks them.
I don't understand it.
After I had downed almost a whole bottle of wine, I didn't so much care about the understanding it part anymore.
After eating I rounded my girls up and went home. I was so totally in bed by nine o'clock and passed smooth out. I was so tired that when I got home and the idea of "drunk dialing" someone crossed my mind, I couldn't. Partly because my hands had decided to stop working and I would have been dialing by putting a pen in my mouth and using it to push the buttons but mostly because I was thoroughly whooped.
The next morning, up at eight thirty and getting the girls fed before practice at ten, I was seriously considering not going back to help finish what I had started. Partially because I had woken up several times during the night with my hands and arms cramping up. I had to flatten out my right hand and sleep with it between the pillows.
This is what three consecutive years of working in an office will do to you people. When you sit on your ass day in and day out, you can't do manual labor anymore. You can do basic housework and maybe even minor yardwork, but you can't paint a fucking house.
But, I got my act together and got to The Cake Lady's house around 1:00 where she and I finished painting her house. At about 4:30, we were done. The house was painted, all of it. Even the bird houses were painted to match. And she was still going. Cleaning up her yard and ready to cut the wood for the trim. I was going to, only I was going home. By five, I was laying on the couch watching Dirty Dancing and eating BBQ that she had sent me home with. I did three loads of laundry and then the girls and I went to bed.
The Cake Lady and I painted a whole house. A house.
