Life goes on

It does. The sun sets, you go to bed, the crickets start chirping, the sun rises, you get up, and lo and behold, another day has begun. And suddenly there's a need to do things. You know, simple, mundane activities that make up your life. But as I was talking to my mom on the phone, and she was telling me how it was nice and warm in Holland and they were thus sitting outside, while I was closing the blinds to keep the sun out of the house, I realized how different these mundane activities can be.

One of the things I could do this weekend, for instance, was vacuum our new pool. That sounds bizarrely decadent, doesn't it? I vacuumed the pool. It doesn't matter that's it's a 500o gallon above-ground plastic kettle look-a-like with an inflatable ring, it's still a pool and it still needs vacuumed. So I got into my bathing suit at around 8am, when the temperature outside was still somewhat survivable, and jumped into the pool. Now I don't mean to brag about my chores, but how many people can say that they got to vacuum their pool on a Saturday morning? I have to say that it definitely ranks very high in my chores-top-ten, probably somewhere very close to returning loose change to the Coinstar machine, and picking out movies for a family movie night.

On the downside, having a pool, or any large body of water in Georgia means there will be bugs galore. It also doesn't help that our neighbors have horses, who, besides sending Zoe into barking fits every once a while, also seem to attract the oddest bugs. Bugs we didn't even know existed, such as tan-colored beetles the size of your thumbnail. So this meant that husband-dear received the request to purchase bug-repelling tiki-torches around our pool (can you tell I'm trying to put this word in as often as I can?), and entertained the neighbors by squealing like an opera singer on fire when I got bit. I'm not sure what bit me, but it's left a bite covered with a tiny scab and a nice red round mark. However, the fact that I can still walk, talk, and tell you my phone number makes me thing it's probably not anything deadly.

Of course, on Sunday we ran at 6 in the morning, which is again something I don't think I'll hear many people say. Trust me, I didn't want to either, and it really felt like a chore, but here in Georgia you just have no choice. If you want to stay in shape, you have to exercise, and if you want to do so outdoors without suffering from a heat stroke, you need to do it before 7 in the morning. So you drag your sorry butt out of bed, pull on some clothes, and go. It's sad when your exercise routine has you come home before any of the major news programs have even started.

And then of course there were dog-related chores. Over the past few weeks, Georgia has moved from a "let's go get some wood and build an ark" state to a "hotter than the 8th circle of hell" state, which means that Zoe really needed to be groomed. She has been shedding like it's going out of style, and even though we wash her every week, brush her daily, and sweep and vacuum like we're addicted, it has been getting way out of control. At times, our house resembled the midwest, with Zoe's hair blowing through the kitchen like tumbleweeds, and this in spite of our best efforts. So we took her to our local PetSmart for her "furbinator" treatment. I'm not sure what it means, or if it hurts, but Zoe came back happy, clean, and with another cute bandada, while the kids came home wanting to adopt "Lissy", a black puppy that had been rescued by the local animal shelter.

Throw in some waterballoon fights, husband-dear painting my toenails (but don't tell him I told you), a few really good martinis, one really bad movie, and you pretty much have our weekend.

Which leaves us with one question: should we adopt another puppy, or not?