Accomplishments

Today I feel a sense of accomplishment. At the end of this day I am finally able to sit in my bedroom, cross-legged with my laptop balanced on my legs as I type a new blog entry. Oh, and while I do that, I've got my iPod in my ears playing sultry vocals by Corinne Bailey Rae. I'm pretty happy in my electronic cocoon.

It's been an interesting day. I tried to get out of bed promptly at 5:30 a.m. I've been diligently trying to do that for weeks. What is actually happening is that I've diligently snapped the snooze button, alarm after alarm, day after day. Late start after late start, I've dragged myself downstairs to work. I can't keep a regular routine. But there has been nothing regular about the household routine for over a month. The Princeling has been finished school since early in May. His first year of college is out of the way, and he's preparing for another summer working as a camp counselor. In between he's taken a month off to rest, and to rest, and to rest some more. He's been lounging in various soft spots around the house, occasionally socializing with friends, and then bringing his friends home to rest and lounge, as well. I haven't minded the company too much. He doesn't emerge from his cage until mid to late morning, and now and then he even makes me coffee. He's a nice enough guy.
The other two teenagers were thankfully about the usual routine of getting up early, scraping sadly out of the house to school, and then returning home with an attitude befitting someone who had been breaking rocks in a quarry all the live-long day. That was until about a week or so ago when the end-of-year school schedules began to kick in.
The bizarre, irregular half-day/full-day/no day schedule of two different high schools has caused chaos. I woke up Middle Monkey one morning thinking that he was late for school, when in fact, he had no business being in school that day. A bunch of other people were taking exams, but not him. Then there was the day that Baby Monkey had a lie-in because seniors were graduating. School was closed. I just couldn't keep track until today.
This was the day. The first full day of summer vacation for everyone. Kong escaped the house by 7:00 a.m. and left me alone with snoring growls coming from the upstairs cages. I went down to my office and began a day's worth of transcription. I think I had all of one hour's uninterrupted work before the baby appeared. He didn't seem to want anything of me, but his presence had me thinking that an interruption was about to come at any moment. It wasn't long before the Princeling came down to see his brother home. "Great," he said. No enthusiasm there. It must have been a reminder that his time at home on the couch was coming to an end. The Middle Monkey didn't come down until much later, grunted as he walked past me on his way to the refrigerator.
The rest of the day was a stream of text message sounds, phone calls, people coming, requests to be driven somewhear, requests to be picked up from somewhere else, requests for money, inquiries about food, girlfriends in the house, girlfriends leaving the house, people wanting to play basketball, and more.
In the midst of this, I managed to go to the big giant office store and finally get myself a wireless card for my dinosaur laptop. I want to be able to escape and hide from them,and for that I need the mobility granted by a wireless connection. I managed to install the card with no problem, make two day's worth of family dinners, go to the Italian market, take Middle Monkey to get a new pair of shoes (black again - it's the only color he wears), and gassed up the van without getting too dizzy watching the numbers whir round and round as the dollars flowed into my fuel tank. I came home, tried again to get some uninterrupted work done, but Kong came home wanting me to do banking as well. Over the phone. Right. Sat on hold, hold, hold, hold. Refused to do it any longer, fought with Kong, and left to pick up Baby Monkey and his girlfriend. There was more working, more feeding, more people, less people, and at the end of the day . . .
My wireless card works, and my iPod is playing Corinne Bailey Rae. I have accomplished something.