half of us is much less work than all of us
J got up around 6:45 this morning, so I told him to go find something to do until I was ready to get up (you can do that when they're four and potty-trained, as long as they're not hungry). We had some breakfast, then my mom came over and we walked up to the market. Before she got here, D called to check in. They got to the beach at around seven last night, but the Dude was so worked up over being at the beach (and probably because his brother wasn't there bossing him around) that he didn't fall asleep until after midnight. Then he got up at ten minutes to six. Poor D.
After the market we had some lunch, then my mom left. J and I went up to the library and signed him up for a library card. It was a little weird being in a small city library when I grew up in the Bon Air library - the BA library had a huge kids' section and a neat pit in the floor we could play in. It was a little like the pit at Cloverleaf Mall back in the old days, which probably nobody remembers but me. The city library is about a third the size of the old BA library, and the AC was really lame - it was about eighty degrees inside. There's also a big computer area with ten or twelve computers that were full the whole time we were there. I poked around the grownup book section, but they didn't have Valley of the Horses, which is what I was hoping for. I hadn't read the Auel books for a while, and before they deteriorate into prehistoric porn they're not too bad.
D is like Superman, by the way. While we were at VBS last week, he took out our old 18K BTU through-the-wall AC unit and put in a new one. The trick was that the old one, a Sears Coldspot that looked like it was made in the 60's, was half an inch smaller than the new one (also 18K BTUs). That meant the old chassis was useless, and the old chassis was cemented into the wall. He got up on the exterior, chipped off all the mortar, and removed the old unit while not destroying my azaleas. It was a fairly impressive feat, considering the access issues. Those bushes aren't any smaller this year, after all. Then he got the new unit up the basement stairs and into the wall by himself and reframed the opening. He's still got to insulate the hole and put some trim up on the outside, but that'll probably take him thirty seconds or so. We left at 8:40 and got back at noon,and the new AC was running by the time we got home.
After the market we had some lunch, then my mom left. J and I went up to the library and signed him up for a library card. It was a little weird being in a small city library when I grew up in the Bon Air library - the BA library had a huge kids' section and a neat pit in the floor we could play in. It was a little like the pit at Cloverleaf Mall back in the old days, which probably nobody remembers but me. The city library is about a third the size of the old BA library, and the AC was really lame - it was about eighty degrees inside. There's also a big computer area with ten or twelve computers that were full the whole time we were there. I poked around the grownup book section, but they didn't have Valley of the Horses, which is what I was hoping for. I hadn't read the Auel books for a while, and before they deteriorate into prehistoric porn they're not too bad.
D is like Superman, by the way. While we were at VBS last week, he took out our old 18K BTU through-the-wall AC unit and put in a new one. The trick was that the old one, a Sears Coldspot that looked like it was made in the 60's, was half an inch smaller than the new one (also 18K BTUs). That meant the old chassis was useless, and the old chassis was cemented into the wall. He got up on the exterior, chipped off all the mortar, and removed the old unit while not destroying my azaleas. It was a fairly impressive feat, considering the access issues. Those bushes aren't any smaller this year, after all. Then he got the new unit up the basement stairs and into the wall by himself and reframed the opening. He's still got to insulate the hole and put some trim up on the outside, but that'll probably take him thirty seconds or so. We left at 8:40 and got back at noon,and the new AC was running by the time we got home.
