Random Notes

The

The kids play Mario Kart 64.

snow knocked out my sister's electricity, so she loaded up the kids and took them to a hotel Saturday night. Since the power was still out today, she brought the kids to Parkersburg to spend the night at my apartment.

I ran the vacuum around the living room, washed the dishes, and moved some stuff to less accessible places. I started looking around and feeling like an inadequate host in advance, since it's a small apartment. Thoughts of the children running wild and burning the building to the ground also crossed my mind; I love 'em, but that doesn't mean they're incapable of turning into minor hellbeasts at times. I could imagine the stress of keeping a constant watch getting to me until I snapped and started babbling about horrors crawling out of the earth to devour the living.

The kids were fine, I'm happy to say. I have a lot of video games, so it wasn't hard to keep them busy. They started with Mario Kart 64 and hit some of their favorites. Lego Star Wars and Lego Batman were major players, as was Animal Crossing.

The magnetic letters on my fridge proved popular, once they got around to asking if they could play with them. I didn't have crayons or markers or pencils for them, so magnets were their friend when it came to making comments about who had the biggest butt or the smelliest farts.

Of course, that's just to entertain the children. The trick was entertaining April. Her laptop couldn't connect to my WiFi, and that was disturbing because she really would burn the place to the ground if she couldn't get Twitter and Facebook time. She called one of her techie buddies to talk her through the changes she needed to make to my router settings to allow it. Crisis averted.

I

Andy and Emma arrange magnetic letters on my fridge.

kept an eye on the kids while she went shopping for chili supplies. She called at one point to say I should speak in code so the kids didn't hear, but she was getting some Ben & Jerry's ice cream for after they went to sleep and was there anything I wanted. Peanut Butter Cup, of course.

We have very different recipes when it comes to chili. I like mine almost hot enough to make you sweat, while her chili is mild and somewhat sweet from brown sugar. She was cooking, so it was her style. I didn't complain and ate two bowls while the kids watched episodes of The Simpsons.

We finished out by watching G-Force, since having the kids around meant I finally had an excuse to watch it. The movie is not great, but it's not wretched. The kids certainly liked it. Steve Buscemi doing the voice of a crazy hamster was a definite bonus.

April got an AEP rep on the phone to check on her power. Worst-case scenario, her power would be out until Christmas.