Whitney Drake

So, the man who owned the company that makes Segway died in a freak Segway accident. While it isn’t ironic, Alanis, it’s tragic. And sadly, it is a little funny.

Just like discovering what feels like the missing piece to the puzzle that is a novel when I know I don’t have any free time to write. Oh well. It goes into my notebook, and hopefully wins up somewhere useful.

We survived the weekend. For those who didn’t know, we live with our wonderful in-laws. They added on a second story to their house so that TheBoy and I could save up for a house- since even with the dire status of the housing market, things are still pricey here in Southern California. To a lot of people, this would be horrible. But I lucked out in getting in-laws that remind me a lot of my parents. While they aren’t as into the arts as my own parents are, they share a lot of the same beliefs about religion and child-rearing… and best of all, I’m the daughter they never had, not the girl who stole their son.

While there is a bit of a lack of privacy, I have an amazing community under this roof. They let the kids invade their room when they come home from work, to give me a bit of breathing room. They watch the kids so that TheBoy and I can go to dinner, and on one occasion, kicked me out of the house when TheBoy was working so that I could have a little fun. (I was told to go out, get some food and to go see “my movie” – aka Scott Pilgrim vs The World. I did! And I had a fabulous time by myself)

The downside is that I’ve gotten used to this. So this weekend when the in-laws took a trip to Palm Springs… I found myself alone, and exhausted after a long week of sleepless nights taking care of The Kid with The Cough. Well, not entirely alone. TheBoy works nights, though, and so he slept through most of Saturday. The youngest brother in law was there, but he keeps similar hours to TheBoy (ah, the life of a college student).

But we survived! The kidlets took naps and went to bed earlier than usual. In fact, I think I’ve got them used to the earlier bedtime… which would make my life much easier. (Downside to having lots of people in the house: the kids get easily excited and want to spent lots and lots of time with them. So they try to stay up later and become grumpy)

The saddest part of all is that it’s hot. Over 100 degrees here. While not entirely unusual for fall in Southern California, feels much worse than it is because we had a pretty mild summer. I can’t remember a single brown-out warning.

I’m going to get back to melting, and helping the Oldest Kidlet (who has regained his voice and only coughs occasionally) rebuild a train track.

Originally published at American Whitney. You can comment here or there.