I don’t know if my skull is cracked, but it would appear that I am still alive more than twenty-four hours later.  That is probably a good sign. It was still Wednesday when I woke up, so it was off to work I went.  It was a beautiful sunny day.  A scorcher.  My son asked if he could switch cars with me because his car’s air conditioning does not blow cold and the control that operates his windows is shorted out, so he has no air, and can’t open the windows. 

It was 1200 degrees in the little Civic when I climbed in after work.  I only had a mile and a half to go to get home, but it was the longest mile and a half I’ve ever driven.  I was drenched when I got home, and I was greeted by my sixteen year old daughter who wanted to jump back into the oven and drive someplace further than I just drove. 

In a fun little play on words I said, “Hell no!”  (Because the inside of the car was hot as Hell.) Yeah, it was funny when I wrote it. 

So instead of packing into the car and driving into the Sahara, we stayed home and I let her cook me dinner.  She didn’t set fire to anything or flood the stove.  A success! 

I decided to treat her to a movie for her culinary achievements, and we piled back into the still preheated oven and drove the three or four miles (that felt like twenty or thirty in the heat) to the movie theater. 

It was a nice evening.  The sort of evening I don’t get nearly enough of. 

And then we came home. 

The house was teeming with live bodies.  The ninja kitty caught my scent when I came in the door and ran up to greet me by reaching to sink his claws into my thigh.  I let out a yelp and the other cat hissed at him as he vied for my attention.  The dogs were swarming around my legs like a bunch of sharks waiting to be let out.  But the animals weren’t the only ones home.  In addition to the teenagers that live under my roof, there was one extra teen upstairs, my son was downstairs foraging for food and my husband was working on his month end reports in his office. 

I had barely settled in to watch the results on American Idol when the banshee cries echoed down the upstairs hallway.  It was a cat fight of a wholly different kind, and I suddenly felt like I was on an episode of Jerry Springer.  My teenage girls were spouting the most interesting language at each other at the top of their lungs while randomly opening and slamming doors like punctuation as they went in and of their separate rooms.   

It was like a pot of coffee to my nervous system. 

At a quarter to midnight as I write my blog, I am still completely rattled.  In fact, I don’t know that I can keep up this pace.  I really think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with this blog.  I just don’t have the stomach for it.  I feel like I’ve just ridden down a rollercoaster in the dark and I’m waiting for the next hill to fall over.  My children are crazed zombies, my animals are something out of a Tim Burton movie, and my husband is ready to drop me off at the nearest train station if I don’t take a break.  So I’ve decided that tonight will be my last blog.  I won’t be writing any more.  I’ve enjoyed it, and you’ve all been great.  But it’s just more than I can take.  Thank you so much for being so supportive.  I will miss you all!  I will be looking forward to getting a great deal of much needed rest and I may even take a vacation.  In fact, I think I’m going to quit my job in the morning.  Maybe I’ll just call in sick.  I cracked my skull pretty hard the other day…surely that gives me license to plead temporary insanity at the very least!  Oh I don’t know.  What do you think?

Until the next time…Gotcha! April Fools!