Do-Nothing Kind of Day

I try to keep myself in a writing routine of sorts because it's very easy to "not have enough time" and not get much done. So, while the kids are in school, I'm at the keyboard from 8AM to roughly noon, when the Boy comes home.

Now it's summer, so the Girl is home. The Boy, however, is in a summer program that runs through the middle of August. So, from 8AM to roughly noon, guess where I am.

Then, after the kids are tucked away for the night, guess where you'll find me again?

Well, today was not one of those days.

Now, normally, I don't like when my routine is disrupted. I'm a creature of habit. I like to do things the way I always do them. Boring? Yeah, maybe at times. But effective when it comes to butt in chair, fingers on keyboard (BICFOK for short.)

The Girl and I usually watch a move together on Saturday night. She has pretty good taste (with the occasional kid-lapse that is forgivable) and she usually picks something funny. Two weeks ago, we watched Robots, which is really funny and (in my opinion) kind of underrated as far as CGI movies go.

Somehow, my husband and I got to talking about the movie Clue, that came out in the mid-eighties. I remember watching it with my friends and laughing my ass off at the scene where Col. Mustard (Martin Mull) opens a door and gets whacked in the head with a small ironing board. So, the Girl says she wants to see it. My husband rents it, along with The Pink Panther 2 (there is one scene in this movie, near the end, that made it worth sitting through the other 90 something minutes of crap.)

Now, there are a few movies I remember loving as a kid, and finding them hysterically funny then, only to come across them as an adult and being bitterly disappointed by how badly said movie really does suck. Midnight Madness is one of those movies that was best left in memory. Funny when I was 14, made me want to poke myself in the eye with a fork by my mid-twenties.

But, Clue was not one of the movies. I still think that scene with Col. Mustard and the ironing board is funny - and the rest of the movie was okay as well. Far better than The Pink Panther 2. Trust me.

Now, after seeing it, and knowing it's actually based on the board game, the Girl wants the board game. Being Mom (and having had and loved the game as a kid) I went out and got it.

Aside from the fact that Colonel Mustard is now Jack Mustard (retired profession football player????) and everyone else has been "updated" (read: ruined another childhood memory), and the conservatory's been replaced with an observatory (because all the well-appointed manor houses have their own observatories, I guess) and there are a lot more cards than I remember, and the lead pipe and wrench have been replaced with a bat, a bottle of poison (WTF???), and a trophy...

Well, it's still the same game. My husband won. But the Girl had a great time playing. I got no writing done because we played this morning, after the Boy left for school.

Then I had a few errands to run. The Girl and I went to the pet store for gerbil and dog food. We then went to Burlington Coat Factory, where I bought a few reed diffusers in my favorite scent (cucumber & melon), a backpack for the Girl, socks for the Girl. Then it was on to the grocery store. Then, home.

By then, the Boy was home. The weather was unexpectedly beautiful, so all of us went in the pool. Including my husband - who's finally got the go-ahead to return to work (whew!) - and it was the first time he could actually swim. Until today, he'd been in once, and then, only on a float for about ten minutes.

We did steaks on the grill (my husband truly is the grill-master. These steaks were to die for!) and we ate outside. Then, I cleaned up and gave the Boy a bath while the Girl and my husband walked the dog. Then the Girl and I watched All My Children (thank God for Soapnet - I got hooked on AMC at the gym as the TV across from the ARC trainers is always on ABC, and now I can't miss an episode. Kendall's kind of pissing me off with her "I'm guilty" whine - I almost hope she goes to jail now, but I digress...)

Then it was 9PM and I came down to my office to write this post. Needless to say, I did not get a damn word written or revised today, and you know what?

I don't care.

Yep - that's right. I gave myself an unexpected day off and it's been wonderful.

Tomorrow, the Girl and I are going to see G-Force. I don't really care if I see it, but she really wants to, so we're doing lunch and a movie. Even if the movie sucks, it won't matter. We'll have a good time and it'll be good to spend some Mother-Daughter time together. She's turning out to be a pretty interesting kid (a little weird at times, but I think she gets that from her father.) and it'll be fun.

But I will get some writing done tomorrow. I don't know what I'd do with two do-nothing kind of days in a row...