Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Visiting Mount Gonnaspewa

Or: Why I'd Rather Be in Hawaii

The toy mess in my house is like an active volcano. It's gonna blow, it's gotta blow - it's just a matter of when.
I send the kids in to "clean up that *&$!!# mess" and end up with a worse problem than I started with. The middle child ends up bringing one item at a time to the princess and announcing in his best stage whisper that he's brought another one of her things to her to put away. The smiling child ceases to smile and gets quite teary eyed at the thought of perhaps having to get rid of any of his treasures. The princess hides and creates a mess in another room. In the end, the teen sends them all out of the room and makes a valiant attempt at blocking the inevitable volcanic flow of toys.

Unfortunately, it's up to mom to deal with the problem. The man I married is sympathetic, but isn't home to deal with the flow.

So here we sit, in a small oasis in the middle of flowing lava; the volcano grumbling and shaking, occasionally sending ash into the atmosphere. We know that the blast is coming, but don't know when. Should we grab our most precious treasures and flee? Should we stay and make what will be an inevitably futile attempt to protect our homestead?

Luckily for me, my life does come with a soundtrack. Currently it's Malaguena. I've always maintained that people would lead happier lives if we all had a laugh track, but I guess I'll have to settle for a soundtrack.

Here's hoping out guitar teacher finds new sheet music for the boys next week. Right now they're trying to find the theme to M*A*S*H, knowing that it's my favorite show. Unfortunately, the song is "Suicide is Painless."



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