Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Frankie and Annette get Summer Jobs

The summer Idyll is over.  Sigh.  Stubble got a job at a Nationally Known Pizza Chain and Ms. Flippers is working at a Nationally Recognized Zoological Park.  This means that they are finding out what it means to have a job that does not wrap itself around your college class schedule and is onlly 5 - 10 hours per week on average.  Just enough to buy gas and a movie (if you don't purchase from the concession counter).  Their friends are distraught.  No more fire pit!  No more marshmallows!  At least not every night.
 
We have yet to get used to Frankie and Annette's schedules.  They writhe like snakes.  My understanding was that Ms. Flippers was working Thursday - Saturday and Monday - Tuesday from 11 - 3.  She now closes.which means that she doesn't get home until 8 PM.  She is regularly called in on Sunday when she has stayed up late on Saturday anticipating a day off.  Luckily they have only called her in for afternoon shifts.  Stubble started working Thursdays and Fridays and Sundays (I think).  His schedule (I think) is now Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  Except that he got called in on Saturday AND Sunday.  And as for the TIME of the shifts.  Oh, sometimes it is 11 - 2.  Sometimes 3 - 6.  Sometimes (for Stubble) 11 AM to 11 PM).
 
On Sunday, Stubble had made plans to "play in the pool" with The Bearded One.  Literally a "date" to get into the pool together to play basketball and/or volleyball.  When Stubble was called in, the date had to be cancelled.  The Bearded One was sad, "He won't be here much longer and we used to play in the pool all the time.  Is that silly to be sad because we can't do it today?"
 
I assurred him that it wasn't silly.  I am sad when one or the other of them is not home for dinner.  I am doubly sad when both of them are not home for dinner.
 
They won't be home much longer.  It has begun.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Frankie and Annette Embrace the Summer

You know summer is here when the "children" arrive.  Other peoples children.  Released from the repression of school (college) and unable to find a summer job, they descent on our house like a swarm of yellow jackets at a picnic.  Except that they are no longer children.  They are turning 21 at a rate that continues to astonish.  Just yesterday they were excited munchkins headed for kindergarten in their new clothes with their new little backpacks holding their pencils and paper.  Yes, they were anxious, but now they were "grown up" and didn't have to just play school anymore.  They were there.  They were BIG kids now.

Fast forward to this summer.  They no longer arrive in their parent's car.  They no longer carry a note with their parent's cell phone number.  They no longer run back to the car to hand their parent a note with our cell phone number on it.  No.  Now they arrive with a 6 pack of Schmirnoff Ice and a foot long sub sandwichThe rule at our house is if you have been drinking, you do not leave the house unless you have a designated driver.  More than once I have had to break that news to gigantic hulking young men - who, gratefully, have always said "Yes Ma'm, Stubble already let me know that."  God Bless Stubble.

Now that it is summer they do not continually congregate in the game room like lumps on a couch with a controler and a headset (which allows them to be international lumps).  They head to the backyard.   To the pool and the hot tub.  I would be appreciative if someone would explain to me why they did not want to use the hot tub when it was 50 degrees outside but now that it is above 90 they want to get in.

And then there is the firepit.  Thoughtful previous owners left us a gift.  A fire pit on the deck area near the pool  The kids (I mean young adults) now have a huge wood habit (they prefer leaping flames to glowing embers) and are going through a bag of marshmallows a day.  I did thoughtfully provide the fixings for s'mores, but they are into "just plain burned" marshmallows.  Of course after their pilfering of every skewer in the kitchen, we went on an extended search for our camping toasting forks.  Could we find them?  You already know the answer.  A quick trip to a National Sporting Goods Store solved that probloem.

It is really nice and I do mean that sincerely, to fall asleep on a Friday or Saturday night listening to the crackle of logs, the sound of young voices, and music played over someone's smart phone.