Avoiding the dreaded "To Do" list.

Good grief. Why do I ever write "To Do" lists? They just give me angst, grief, and a big old ulcer.

Oh, and they make me feel really good about my mad housekeeping skillz, when I write things like "put away box in dining room that has been there SINCE WE MOVED HERE EIGHT YEARS AGO".

So, this is my reward. Fluffy little diary entries, whenever I get something banged off of the To Do list.

So.

I'm on the second laundry load of the morning (accomplishment that deserves a break/reward). Nate had a piddle-accident in the night. Ouch on my interrupted sleep. That's two nights in a row, seeing as the previous night, he'd seen "big massive giant spiders" on his ceiling, and I had to go in and snuggle down with him until he calmed down... at 4am.

Ken's been playing through old Jazz Standard books that we've got, and last night, he thought "Hey! Why play this on the piano when I've got a soprano saxophone that I can be playing with?" Skip, who was SUPPOSED to be writing some riveting and compelling expository essay (choke), was distracted by the noise, and came over to the piano, and soon it wasn't the piano I was hearing, but a Jazz Combo, consisting of a sax and bass guitar.

They forbade me from taking video, but I did manage to snap this shot off.

This is a mighty step up from moments before, when they noticed I had the camera (Hmm, I think my camera deserves to have a name. Anyone...? Anyone...? Buehler? Buehler...?) and immediately made the international sign of "No Paparazzi", with their hands out towards the lens, so I couldn't see any faces.

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I'm waiting for the garage-door repair dudes to descend. I'm tired of not being able to go in and out of the garage, and I know it's just a matter of time before some dreaded garage-door-falling accident happens with Ken or the kids, so come on DUDES, come fix the door already.

They said "between 9 and 11", but I'm tempted to start calling the company and ask for an ETA in the next few minutes. I've got things to do. People to see. Diary entries to write.

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Saturday, one of the local schools hosted an e-waste recycle fair. It's a fundraiser, as the school gets paid by one of the big recyclers by the POUND for any electric/electronic stuff that they gather (large appliances need not apply). And yes, everything is shredded and recycled locally. There is none of that nefarious 'shipping-to-the-third-world' business going on here.

I thought we had a garage full of old computer parts, but it turns out that we recycled those last year. So we were casting about for any recyclables, when my eye landed on our old Stereo System. You remember those? Back in the 70s and 80s, they were All The Rage. You had components. And they all hooked together out the back of the stereo stand with about a hundred miles of red, black, yellow, and white wires. Well, we had one that was a fixture in our dining-room-that-is-really-a-music-room, and all it was was a big giant dust collector. The tape deck ("what is this "casette" that you speak of?") hadn't worked since Skip was 3, and had taken it apart very early one morning (and then promptly given himself a giant time-out on the sofa until we woke up and found him, sitting stoicly staring at the wall). And yes, it was a Nakamichi (with the auto-flip housing), and probably cost a fortune when it was bought back in 84 or 85, but we'd been carting it around BROKEN for eleven years.

It was time for the ENTIRE stereo to go bye-bye.

So after Kung Fu was done...

I took apart the stereo (saving the speaker wire, which was 'monster', and cost something like a buck a foot, and Ken isn't ready to let that go just yet), and headed off to recycle!

Oh. Good. Grief!

I was expecting a few parent volunteers, and a dumpster, or something like that.

Not. A. Chance.

This was a well-planned and well-executed operation. There were check-points. You signed in what you were bringing. You were directed to a lane for unloading. Hired guns unloaded your stuff for you, giving you receipts for tax purposes, if it was warranted.

And you see that? It's a BIG RIG! All that electronic has-been stuff was going into a BIG RIG.

I bet there were a hundred televisions and computer monitors. Maybe more. There were a dozen giant vacuum cleaners in a little herd by one lane. And I thought I would be the only person bringing stereo equipment? Oh, no. My three little obsolete components went into a sea of stacks of similar stuff.

(It was only after I'd gone through the line, parked, and was checking out the Fifth Grade Bake Sale table that I realized that I'd never checked the CD player, and there was probably a CD in the changer. Whoopsie. I went back, and some of the volunteers helped me find the CD player, and then we discovered that it wasn't going to open without power. They were all "We can find an extension cord!" and I said "You know, I've just gotta let this one go." Of course, I knew that it had probably been a year since we'd had a CD in the player, so it wasn't anything that was going to be missed any time soon.

Then the kids wanted to check out the playground.

Of course.

Eek. Why must they hang upside down? Don't they know it makes a mother get grey hair?

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