Dragonfly
Mr. Clean has been gone a week now. The world hasn’t fallen in on my head but it may as well have. I don’t function well without him. It’s just that simple. So far, I’ve lost 3 lbs (no complaining on this one!) and am getting the bulk of my sleep through random power naps. I have two more weeks to go before he returns. Any bets on how many more pounds I’ll shed following the popcorn-for-dinner diet?

Yesterday, the spawnlings and I met up with the… hmm, “grandparents” isn’t the right word. Like I told my Daddy, I just don’t see Senior Citizen when I look at them. They start a ballroom dancing class next week. They’re sailing down to the Virgin Islands in a few months. They make out in public (which is really cute). Senior Citizens? No. Aged Teenagers? Umm, yeah. That describes them well. So we met up with the ATs and went to see The Pink Panther. [Hilarious movie, by the way]

I should have gotten a Senior Citizen ticket. I fell asleep during the movie - TWICE. It was Four in the afternoon for goodness sake! Utterly Pitiful. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve fallen asleep during a movie and not Once has it ever been in a theater!

On the way home, we stopped in to see Baby Sis and have some soup and sandwiches where she works. She went off the clock about the time we walked in so it was a nice family get-together rife with yummy sandwiches, hot soup, and… oh yeah… spitballs. Did I mention Aged Teenagers?? Thanks to Daddy, the spawnlings now know the correct and most successful way to spit wads of napkin through a straw. He’s a crack shot and I think Shaggy now understands why you don’t aim for the eyeballs. Yep, my family is a great big conglomeration of cut-ups who never grow up. Am I complaining? Lord, NO! I love it – and can use all the electric shocks of fun I can get at the moment.

The entertainment ended when we arrived back home and I found more laundry waiting. So far this past week, I’ve done more than half a dozen loads of laundry. Laundry! It’s turned into a four letter word. Last night I went on strike. I’ve had it. I think Shaggy noticed the blinking red light in my pupils indicating a Meltdown was imminent. He quickly volunteered to do his own. A good decision. I wasn’t just venting or playing around with snarky sarcasm. I was serious. I’m not doing Any More laundry. Unless it’s my own.

I’ve also gone on dishes strike. I don’t understand how two spawnlings can go through half a dozen cups and glasses in a single afternoon/evening. Literally, from four o’clock to nine o’clock, they use at least three glasses EACH. Where’s That Fruitbat?? I manage to use ONE glass per day -- and usually for more than one day because I do this amazingly difficult thing that apparently takes years to perfect… I WASH IT. So striking has commenced. This picket line will not be crossed. I imagine it will go unnoticed, however… at least until dinner – when they realize I’m the only one able to eat because… Yes! I Wash My Dishes!

Mr. Clean called yesterday evening. I did not inform him of the strikes. He’d only worry and then feel bad about being gone. He’ll find out soon enough. I’m sure Shaggy has probably already emailed him to tattle on me. Undoubtedly, it will read something along the lines: Help! Psycho Mom is on the loose! She won’t wash my stinky socks and the fifty million towels I used today! And we can’t eat because she won’t wash the dishes either! When are you coming home?!

Mr. Clean will most likely laugh and then call to ask: “Is everything OK there?” Heh. Luckily, he seems to be having an OK time of it over there, beyond a few items. The pollution is horrible. He reports that the sky is literally brown. Ewww. But amazingly, in the gated compound where the office building is… it’s not bad. They call it an Oxygen Green Zone. So I’m imagining brown air until you drive through the gates and then, amazingly, you can actually see the defining line of pollution just beyond the walls. I was downright Gobsmacked to find that my imagination was spot on! How the heck do they do that??

They have an assigned driver who takes them from their hotel to the office every day – at 80 kilometers/hour (approx. 50 mph) through streets packed with motorcycles (3 & 4 people on Each!), cars, people, goats, and cattle – and no defining lanes. That would completely freak me out. The average time to travel two miles is roughly 30 minutes and they’re whipping through it like greased lightning. Yesterday was even worse. The whole country was out in the streets celebrating a cricket match won. Fireworks going off all night long. Woo Hoo for them, I guess. I hate to think of what it’d be like had they lost.

Today, he was supposed to go shopping. On the surface I may appear to be a disorganized tornado with a healthy touch of scatterbrain but really? I’m a list girl. Thus, he has a list – or more specifically, a detailed sample board of silk swatches and notes/pictures describing patterns, colors, and the best areas to find bolts of cloth for insanely cheap prices. I’m nothing if not prepared. We’re building a house soon and I’ll be damned if I’m paying $400+ a window for drapes! It’s this mental prancing about in anticipation that’s saving me from going over to the dark side. The lack of sleep, the laundry, and the dishes… it’s all good because at the end of the day, I’m going to have bolts and bolts of gorgeously luscious SILK.

If I’m not found dead beneath an enormous pile of laundry first, that is.
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