Gratuitous Single Llama Dad Posting

The Missus is off today to visit a friend in North Carolina who just had a baby. ("Come and see the baaaaaaay-bee!")***, leaving yours truly out-numbered and out-gunned to deal with the Llama-ettes over the weekend. Wish me luck, my friends.

Actually, it should prove to be a pretty good time, so long as the gels don't start going after one another. Ironically, the nine year old, who is the cross-grained one of the lot, has been working very hard of late on being pleasant and helpful, while the seven year old, who's always been the sweetheart, has been whiney and tempermental. Go figure. The five year old remains, as always, in full swashbuckler mode.

Although for most of the week we have an iron eight o'clock curfew, we usually let the elder gels stay up later on Friday or Saturday night. Tonight I think I'm going to run off my DVD of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo for them. Now before you start rolling your eyes, let me just say that they have suddenly become very keen on opera. Last weekend the eldest and I watched the first two acts of The Marriage of Figaro and on Wednesday her class went to the Kennedy Center for a workshop on Don Giovanni. Meanwhile, the seven year old still talks about the time she watched Handel's Tamerlaine with me. Plus, they've been pestering all week. So there you go. L'Orfeo will be a good choice, and certainly beats the hell out of a Sponge-Bob marathon. Aside from the beautiful musick, beautifully performed, it is relatively short and straightforward. And since both gels know the story of Orpheus and Eurydice very well, they should be able to follow along with no problem.

Tomorrow is the five year old's final soccer game of the season followed immediately by a team pizza party. If I know anything at all about that gel, she's going to spend the entire game saying, "Is it pizza yet? Is it pizza yet?" Ah, well. At that age, one cannot expect much more. Speaking of soccer, I neglected to mention that the eldest gel's team, the Creepy Green Leprechauns, won their league championship this season, with a 5-1 regular season record and a victory in their mini-tournament last Saturday. It is a real pleasure to watch these matches, as the girls are at an age where they are really starting to play as a team instead of just a mob. I wish I could say that the gel is one of the team's stars, but she isn't. She's certainly got talent, but she's also lazy, and hasn't developed the Suzuki Bonfire mentality of all-out effort yet. I talk to her about this but don't yell at her, figuring that she'll get it herself eventually.

One of the perks of living near Your Nation's Capital is, well, living near Your Nation's Capital. For tomorrow evening, the seven year old's Brownie troop has wangled itself a tour of the White House including, I'm told, the West Wing, which is not on the ordinary touron path. Pretty cool - I never even set foot in Dee Cee until I was in my twenties. (The invite was through the auspices of a senator's chief of staff who is connected with the troop. Alas, the senator is retiring, so we'll have to work up a new connection.)

Sunday my RCIA class is on donut duty again over at my nominal new church. I thought briefly and madly of taking the gels to this, but I'm pretty sure the Missus would scalp me if I did. And anyway, the seven year old's youth choir has got the anthem over at St. Looney-Up-The-Cream-Bun-and-Jam this week, plus we're on a roll with Sunday school. So I'll just take them to St. LUTCBJ instead. This'll give my old TEC friends something to chat about anyhow, especially as I've taken to smiling subtly at people there. Speaking of which, I noticed about two weeks ago that somebody finally removed my photo from the vestry bulletin board (although I'm still listed on the website). The Missus and I had a good laugh imagining who did it and speculating, if it was one of the more liberal muckety-mucks of the place, whether he also ripped it into tiny pieces and jumped on the bits. Wouldn't surprise me in the least.

So that's the weekend entertainment. Of course, there will also be chores. The seven year old was actually teary with the Missus yesterday because she thought I was going to make everyone work all weekend. (This because I required them to help me store the porch furniture last week and - gasp! - put away their own clean laundry.) "No," I said when I heard this, "but there are things that need to be done and we're going to do them. For instance, we can start picking up leaves." "That's right!" chimed in the eldest. She's my ally in this in part because she likes to play with leaves but also in part because I just bought a new wheelbarrow: it's got three wheels instead of one, plus a handbrake. The gel gets a huge kick out of pushing it around. I figure I'll take advantage of this enthusiasm while it lasts.

Anyhoo, that's how the ol' weekend looks to be shaping up. I expect what free time we have will be devoted to endless games of Sorry!, to which the gels have become addicted of late. Anybody who talks about the Innocence of Youth obviously has never played Sorry! with one. They're vicious and merciless.

***Spot the quote.