Moving is a Crazy Affair
July 2007

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28 July 2007 - Karns 5K & Community Fair

My people got home yesterday evening and we were all very happy - grilling out, jumping on the trampoline, and playing with fire. Alas, the rain came before we had a chance to roast marshmallows. C'est la vive. We'd needed to get to bed anyway because the Karns 5K was at 7:30 this morning. Cara & I were excited to find half the Baileys were also running - that is until I realized how fast Ty has gotten. Alora & Brittan would never let me live it down if I got beaten by their best friend's 8-year-old little brother, so I ran my ass off. I finished in 29:50 and Ty crossed the finish line about 30 seconds later. Cara finished in 38:02 to take 2nd place in her age division.

After a quick shower we headed back up to the high school for the Fair. Unless you were alive in the 1890s I don't think you've ever been to fair like the one in Karns. There's games, refreshments, a chicken auction, kissing booth, crafts, boy scouts, volunteer fireman, companies hawking their wares and politicians vying for your vote. Government is, of course, corrupt in Knoxville like anywhere else, but rather impotent and subject to distrust of most of the citizenry. At the fair they give out fans, candy, pencils, pens, notepads, stickers, magnets, nail files and just about anything else they can put their names on. I had a particularly long conversation with my state representative Dunn about Tennessee's annoying laws against direct shipment of wine which I personally find so onerous. He tried to feed me some crap about protecting the children (with his son standing next to him of course) when really it is the alcohol distributors the law protects.


24 July 2007 - Spoons

When there are 6 people living in a house, there are always dirty dishes somewhere. That's just an inescapable fact of life. Sometimes we run out of tongs, or plates, or glasses, etc, because they are all in the dishwasher. Ergo when one looks for a particular kitchen implement and cannot find it, usually one just grabs a substitute - like a fork to pull the hotdogs out of the pot rather than tongs. This, however, can lead to us overlooking a real scarcity. Right now all the dishes in the house are clean . . . and there are only 3 spoons. Sure there are still plenty of large spoons (which probably led us to overlook the lack of normal spoons for so long), but it seems our collection of regular-sized spoons has dwindled to a mere trio. Now I admit there might be a box hidden in one of the kids' rooms holding a treasure trove of spoons, but I doubt it. Most likely there is a little boy being less than careful when scraping his plate into the trash. We had a similar experience with forks not too many years ago when there were two little girls learning to clean up in the kitchen. Of course, finding a fork in the trash and seeing the red faces of the culprits when confronted with their misdeeds gave us ironclad proof of where the forks had gone to.

AN EPIPHANY is what writing the above paragraph gave me. Maxwell has recently been charged with the task of putting away the silverware and has apparently been rather careless differentiating between kid and regular silverware. I found 2 more spoons mixed in with the plastic spoons and forks in the kid drawer. Searching the knife drawer and serving utensil drawers yielded no more however. Five spoons is still only half the number of forks and knives, but quite a bit better than three. Now we almost have a placesetting for everyone in the family. Perhaps a questioning of the boy will lead to further discoveries when he returns home.


23 July 2007

Right now my family is at the beach and I am at work. I drove down there this past weekend (only 6.5 hrs from K-town if you don't have to stop so 7 people can pee). It was good to see them, but then I had to leave. The kids are having fun, but a little stressed out from not staying in one place for more than a few days for almost a month now. Zara has taking to screaming when she is frustrated. We're not sure if she even realizes Knoxville is home now - maybe it's just another stop on this neverending trip that will lead her back to her real home in California at some point. Along her journeys Zara has also developed a term for nice-female-who-is-not-mom, namely "Auntie Dell". In Montana Cara's friend Erin was Auntie Dell. In Indiana our friend Kara was Auntie Dell. In Pennsylvania my old neighbor Donna was Auntie Dell. Back in the southeast my Mom even became Auntie Dell for a while before Zara was finally convinced to call her Nanny. Now it is game, call people by the wrong name, she plays mostly with her brother. Maxwell sneezes alot here, but other than snot production he seems to have no ill effects from eastern pollen - but we did miss spring though.

Dad also came down to the beach (but he is staying longer than me) and we played as well. He tires more easily, but is otherwise unchanged by his heart attack. Although I did get the feeling from mom that our hedonistic carousing was unusual for post-heart-attack dad. Of course, I hadn't drank that much beer in a long time either. Living in California one rather gets in the habit of drinking wine...


17 July 2007

Why, when moving across the country from CA to TN did we make a detour into PA? Well, we just couldn't resist the opportunity to meetup with some of our favorite YouTubers and get silly. Nalts has more free time than me, so here's his video (I'll have one up later):


16 July 2007

There are many things which go missing when moving across the country; not the least of which is sanity. Although a close second is probably those little pegs which hold up shelves. I put them all in one special, very important place so that none would be lost. Alas, I do not remember where that place is. We have lots of things which go on shelves sitting on the floor near the empty shelves - books, pictures, games and the like. 90% of our boxes have been unpacked now, and I have gone through my stuph about 47 times. Still no shelf pegs. A few days ago Cara went to Home Depot to buy new ones. They do not fit. They are too big. I am starting to wonder if we should get down the christmas boxes in the attic. Or maybe we should start looking in the storage boxes of clothes too small for Alora & Brittan but designated for Zara one day to wear. I'm going to go look through Maxwell & Zara's toys again. Maybe I will find sanity with those pegs...


14 July 2007 - Unpacking


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Last ∆ on 24 July 2007 by Bradley James Wogsland.
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