A day of "ARGHH!!!!!!!!!"

Yesterday, the boys were with the in-laws.  Husband and I had the whole day to ourselves. And yes, we did partake of the privacy.  Mmmmhmmmm.   Then we got down to more "practical things" and this is where age starts to show.We decided to utilize our free time and shop for our oldests' birthday, throw in a little pre-Yule shopping and find some necessities.  Not the kind of free time of our youth, that's for sure.  (To be fair, hushand would have wisely chosen to do nothing but lay around naked, BUT, because he loves me, he chose to go where the wind [me] blew us). 

Today, in the midst of utilizing as much of the quiet times remaining before the boys' return, I cleaned, made a mental list in my head of the holiday feast prep., and discovered that the "really cool" tablecloth I got yesterday for a steal, was a steal because...."IT'S A FUCKING GOD-DAMNED VINYL TABLECLOTH!!!"  Where the hell did my mind go in the moment of "Wow, what a great price" and "wonder why it's so cheap?"  Really? Vinyl?  These were things that my suspicious Yankee mind would have ferrited out once.  Apparently no longer.  'Cuz here I am trying to figure out just what the fuck I can do with it.  I'm not returning it because frankly, the 3.99 it costs is not worth the 2.84 per gallon to take it back.

Then, I realize that I am simply trying to accomplish way to much with my remaining quiet hours and rethink when it is I will do the laundry, bring up the Yule decor from storage, and still find time to imbibe in a good glass of wine and peruse a magazine for holiday ideas.  About the time I'm congradulating myself for taking a break and only bringing down the box fans to the basement, I discover that mold has invaded an entire box of pocketbooks and anhilited two really old leather bags of mine!  If these things had gotten any fuzzier they'd be angora!  Christ!  As much as it hurt to throw away leather, I was more concerned at that point with saving a silk bag my sister had brought back from Thailand for me. 

We moved from our old apartment to this one when our landlord was nearly complete renovations.  We moved from the opposite side of town after years of swearing to one another we would never do it.  Here we are, beautiful sunsrises and sunsets, boys happy in school, more room then we had before, and MICE!  One of the reasons we left the old place was mold.  Mold that had only recently begun to develope but after a couple of years of heavy rain and flooding had taken hold.  So, now we have mice (and still some mildew from poorly installed windows (any suggestions people?).  I threw away my first trap with a decapitated mouse in it today.  Not a proud moment because I really hate to kill critters, but my family's health comes first. We have a cat who was clearly never a mouser, and, I write this from my sons desk which overlooks a steep drop off of trees and rocks, city views and clearly, lots of places for mice to hide.  I've worked really hard at not being a fanatic about cleaning to obsession because life is too short, and now find myself wondering what the solution is.

My longest buddy in the world and I talked today. Yesterday, a very old boyfriend apparently walked into her shop.  He's not worth a lot of wasted time to discuss, so suffice it to say, that some memories are truly best left forgotten.  I've grown up a lot since then; apparently, he has not.  His name became synonymous with dorky clueless behavior, except, that he believes somehow that he is till the intelligent one.  Ignorance is bliss.

But, it's been a day of good humor. Isn't that all we can really hope for?  That we have the good decency at the end of the day to not take life, or ourselves, too seriously?