Important Things Done (so far) On This Long Weekend

1. Hosted a birthday party. Well, I didn't "host" so much as I bought food, prepared it, and stayed out of the way and out of sight. I met a couple of parents at the start of the extravaganza (no, we will not be serving booze to the teenagers, but thanks for checking!) then disappeared while my apartment filled with 10th graders. I had forgotten how much teenage boys eat, and also, how freaking LOUD they are. I haven't lived with a teenage boy in over a year, and don't miss it. At all. Even the cats were looking at me like, "Damn! It's soooo freaking LOUD in here! WTF?" Also, it was noted by a couple of the adult guests who came over to distract me (girls...all girls--and we were relegated to lawn chairs on the back patio...) that teenage boys are a lot like "men", who are mostly annoying as hell until they get to be around 40 years old, which appears to be the age they start acting like normal people. Looking back, I can't believe that I spent the first 15 years of my dating life, dating younger men. Yes, that's right, I was a cougar before cougars were cool. Now, you couldn't pay me to date anyone younger than me, because they all appear to be retarded.

2. Played Monkey Ball. This was one of the activities I engaged in while trying not to be seen during the party. I suck at Monkey Ball, by the way. But video game defeat was less painful than hanging out with teenagers. I threw in a little extra Monkey Ball time on Sunday, even though nobody was home, because I was craving the meditative state one has to put themselves into in order to do this. It did very little to clear my head--probably should have done dishes or something productive, instead. And, in a related note:

3. Bought Guitar Hero 5. I've never played Guitar Hero, even though I am often heavily encouraged to do so by the children. They love some Guitar Hero. Love, love, love. If we owned no other video games, they wouldn't care. My thing is, it is actually physically painful for me to hear someone playing a song badly. Oh, I can fall off a thousand cliffs in Monkey Ball, and consider it just a game, but for some reason, I don't want to do Bon Jovi the dis-service of missing a note on one of their songs, even though I don't actually like any of their songs. Perhaps I should seek counseling for this....I dunno.

4. Speaking of songs, I watched The Sound of Music. And cried. Why did I cry? Because Julie Andrews never missed a f*cking note, that's why. See what a psycho I am? Miss a note, writhe in agony, don't miss a note, cry. Yes, beneath this crusty exterior is just some marshmallow who needs a box of tissues to get through five minutes of spot-on harmony. I have yet to be able to make it past the bridge of either KT Tunstall's "Heal Over" or Indigo Girls "Free In You" without tearing up, and that's the truth. The Sound of Music is just a gigantic goob-fest for me. I was alone while watching it, which kind of sucked, because every time the waterworks started, I thought, "It would be so nice if there was someone here who thought that goobiness was charming, cuz I could charm the pants off of them right now...". And by "charm the pants off," I mean....well, yeah, I mean exactly that. If men only knew the brownie points they could accumulate by sitting patiently through chick flicks, and providing us a place to lean when we get all goobie, they would never complain. I once had a boyfriend agree to see Evita with me, then spent the entire time acting bored. No sex for a week. I'm just sayin'.

5. Got my friend in "trouble" by giving her a copy of Twilight, which she was not able to put down, and therefore got nothing done around the house and didn't even go to bed with her spouse at the spouse pre-approved go-to-bed time. Sorry!

6. Purchased a violin bow. I play the violin about as much as I play Guitar Hero. Obviously, the bow is for somebody else. Just like all the guitar strings and various other stuff I'm constantly being asked to pick up. The fact that I was entrusted with these tasks, even though I don't actually play, leaves me a bit uncomfortable, but, then again, I must not be screwing up too badly, or they wouldn't ask, right? Oh, wait...it's for the children, and, they have no money. I guess they would ask, wouldn't they? If you happen to go to a middle school orchestra concert in the near future and notice one kid sounds funny, you can blame me, cuz I don't know anything about violin bows...

Busy weekend, no? Oh, I left out the part about how on Sunday, I slept from about 10AM until 2:45. Don't know what the hell happened there...

Today, we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, and that is, hanging with friends and eating something that was cooked on a grill. Yeah, yeah...that's what everybody else is doing....how boring! But we'll try to keep it interesting. Tomorrow, school starts, FINALLY, and the unscheduled life of summer comes to a dead stop. Oh happy day! I hope you are all enjoying the weekend so far! Have fun eating grilled stuff!