Kleenex..um...Art?

A new trend at our home among the younger set- when one is angry or frustrated or maybe having really bad cramps....use Kleenex to make your feelings known.

After a bad baseball game, or really bad cramps....this is the scenery we find.  Sometimes the younger set asks permission to use Kleenex as a form of self-expression.  Other times it just appears.  In any event, the older set approves of this method of self-expression as opposed to ....well, other methods that might be more destructive or loud.  This is effective but quiet.

And now, the photo you've all been waiting for...

Thank goodness for the volume discounts on Kleenex at Costco!

Summer Wind-Up Winds Down

This has been a wind-down week for our summer sports.  Sisi had her final swim meet of the summer, and her best one yet.  She completed all her events without any goggle malfunctions and improved her 50 yard backstroke time by 5 seconds!  Her relay team for the 200 free style came in only 1 second too slow to qualify for the regional meet.  She was smiling "very bigly" as we left the Shirk Center last Sunday.  And on Wednesday she got 2 fifth place ribbons for her backstroke and breast stroke races.  She was very proud.

And she said the secret to keeping your goggles on in a race is to make them so tight that you feel like it's making you nearsighted.

J'dude's baseball season ended Thursday night with a difficult loss, 3-2, in game 3 of the playoffs.  He pitched a perfect 6th inning, but the damage had been done in the inning before.  It was a hard loss for him.  I think it might have been easier if it had been a big blow-out.  Seemed to make it worse that they could have beat this team on another day.

There's always next year.  And he had a great year, both with excellent pitching and his hitting really improved this year too.  In a day or two the dust will settle and he'll remember that.  

We watched a fascinating documentary last night on Netflix...The Battered Bastards of Baseball.  Bing Russell, known for his role as the sheriff on Bonanza, and also as Kurt Russell's father, started an independent minor league baseball team in Portland in the 70's.  The team was unconventional in a number of ways, and in spite of not having any major-league affiliation, came close to winning the A-level championship a few years.  It's worth a watch!

Dinner for the Modern Family, a Play in Three Acts

First, J'dude and Ironing Man must leave for hair appointments with the fabulous Aubrey.  (We all go to Aubrey, except for Sisi who goes to...a pair of scissors in her room when the tangles get unmanageable.)

So, while they are with the Fab-Aub, I make Sisi some spaghetti and pesto, so she can carb-load before swim practice.

I drop her off at the pool, then head downtown Bloomington to pick up J'dude who is "starving" and so I make his spaghetti and he eats it with Ragu Extra Chunky Mushroom red sauce, cold, and about 3 cups of parmesan cheese per ounce of pasta.

He heads out to cut the grass since he is no longer starving.

Ironing Man swings by the pool to pick up Sisi after his fabulous hair appointment (I received text that he now looks Suave and Deboner) and she finishes practice.  I'm home, boiling more water, and making more spaghetti noodles, and cooking hamburger to put in our Bertolli red sauce with garlic/olive oil/basil.

...the end

Epilogue...speaking of fabulous hair - I'm trying to go through the process of growing out my color and going back to nature, which these days is so White You'd Think It was An Add for Clorox.  So here's my plan...I'm going as a skunk for Halloween.

If I can't stand it, I'll just have to go as a witch!