The Move Part 1 of Whenever I Get Bored of Writing about It

I repeat: If Suck were an Olympic sport, moving would win the gold every four years. We had decent plans for how we would manage to load everything we owned onto a truck one day, and then unload it the next day. We intended to spend all day last Thursday hauling junk out of the townhouse and into the truck. Except, "We" turned into "He" because "Me" ended up spending the entire morning at the new house waiting for the water to get turned on. Except, "She" from the water authority was wrong when she said the water was off--it was actually already on, so "Me" spent two hours hanging out with our Realtor for no reason whatsoever.

By the time that giant chasm of time suck ended, "Me" had to run a few essential errands and then go to work. Yes, go to work. It was only for an hour, but by the time all the Not Helping was done, it was 3:30 and Mr. Husband had been stuck working by himself for a very long time.

He was positively giddy about it, too. If by "giddy" I actually mean in a really, really, really, really foul mood.

I probably didn't help that mood when I pointed out that only one person in this family should be putting money on games of Tetris, and it isn't him. I'm still really confused how the stuff from a 1000 square foot townhouse wouldn't fit in the back of a 26-foot moving truck, but I fully intent to find Tetris for Wii because I now know that I can slay Mr. Husband at fitting lots of things neatly into a perfectly square.

Anyway, when 2:00am rolled around, most everything was loaded, but I was still in the yard digging up plants that I refused to leave behind. I'm sure the neighbors LOVED that. Ever try to dig quietly? It's HARD, yo. I don't know how grave robbers do it because I know every time I launched the shovel into the ground and slammed into a rock, the resulting *CLANG* was loud enough to wake the dead.

When morning came, two hours after we finished murdering plants with shovels, we were reminded that kids like to prey on the weak. Alexis was ready for action, and we were ready to crawl into one of those empty graves. She was insistent that she not go to school, and instead go play at the new house. Only thing was that we had two closings to deal with, so the odds of her having fun while with us were somewhere between No Way in Hell and Not a Chance. Unless she gets some sort of secret joy from hearing the words, "Sign here," she really was best off enjoying life in the company of all of her bestest friends. If we hadn't been so sleep-deprived, we might have been able to get our point across with significantly less effort. As it was, dropping her off at daycare felt like the biggest Herculean feat of all time. I mean, it was harder than giving birth to the child. There was definitely more screaming involved.

What? I'm not allowed to scream when I drop the kid off? Whatever.

I blame "She" for making "Me" waste time.

Or something.

Teaching Daddy to Dance

In which the guest blogger rambles. A lot.

Hi, I'm Trinity.

I wasn't drinking when I suggested that Burgh Baby's mom get someone to post for her while she's out of commission this weekend but I didn't think she'd want me to post, either. Lesson learned. Put your fingers where your mouth is.

Last time I guest posted for someone, I asked for an assignment. It's just how I do things. I feel less pressure if I can prepare ahead of time. I did. And then I threw it all out the window. No copy/paste for me today! So here we go.

Alexis, you've got it easy when it comes to sports. Your parents are fans of the same teams. They'll talk Santa into surprising you with Pens tickets before Christmas because they're cool like that. Enjoy it. I bet you won't envy Deacon when it comes to things like this, because we're a split household in more than one ways. We're Steelers & Phillies fans in this house. Even after spending the majority of my life in Pittsburgh, I couldn't get behind the Buccos of Suckitude [Thanks, PittGirl]. We won't talk about how Deacon's dad was a Baltimore Colts fan [he really is older than the dinosaurs] or that he's a Minnesota Vikings fans now. What it boils down to is that Deacon's a Steelers & Phillies fan. With the help of your mom & her friends, we're trying to become Pens fans. Given the excitement of the Stanley Cup finals this year, that might not be so far off into the future.

So you can see why it's easy to be a sports fan in your house. No arguing over which game to put on [especially difficult for us come late August, September and - God willing - October Dad usually wants to leave the Phillies on, Mom & Deacon want to watch the Steelers]. No designating rooms for hanging up things up on the walls - Phillies in the front hall, Steelers banished to the guest room [I'm working on it though!]. Your family knows it's okay to buy you anything Steelers/Pens/Pirates related. Our family has to call & ask before they buy anything, because they inevitably try to sneak something Vikings in there. And as gross as this is, Deacon's Grandpa tried to sneak a Ravens jersey into his Christmas gifts last year because their quarter back played at the University of Delaware. Don't worry, I put my foot down on that one. If Grandpa wants Deacon to wear a Flacco jersey, he can get him one from when he was at Pitt.

And I guess now is as good a time as any to respond to this post:

1. You already got a lot of advice about "those girls" in high school. Keep in mind that some of them choose to never grow up & will try to make life awful for everyone around them because of their insecurities. It's okay to walk away from those people without feeling guilty about it. In fact, it will save your sanity to do so.

2. Never be ashamed of having friends who aren't girls. Some of my best friends are guys & I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. "Those girls" will probably hate you for being friends with guys in high school [especially the ones that they fawn over because, likeomigodheisjustsoooocute!], but that doesn't matter. As long as the two of you know that there is nothing between you but friendship, stick to it. I'm still close to that guy from high school. I haven't even thought of those girls in years.

3. One day in the future, sit down with your mom & watch the Gilmore Girls. You will thank her for loving it, Amy Sherman Palladino for coming up with the concept & Lauren Graham & Alexis Bledel for doing such a great job with the characters. It's also a nice way to compensate her for all the times you made her watch Dora & High School Musical.

4. Life is always better with a sense of humor. I promise. Laugh about things that would normally make you cry. It makes getting through them a lot easier.

5. Love your sports teams. Even when they stink, because that's going to happen. They'll come around eventually. Maybe one day you'll get to see this in Pittsburgh.

I really couldn't help it. Sorry. But you have two of the three championship trophies in Pennsylvania right now. Cut me some slack.