On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess

Other surrealness that happened this weekend to Mr. Isis:

When Little Isis gets a new interest, it's not just an interest. It quickly becomes an obsession. This weekend, Little Isis decided that he was no longer a small human child, but a whale. He would only eat foods with krill in them (krill sandwiches, krill chili, krill breakfast burritos, etc.). On Sunday, this obsession culminated in a trip to the book store, where Dr. Isis fueled this fire with some extra gasoline, buying two books on whales, a book on sharks, and one on the ocean. Little Isis returned from the store, and announced that he was a sperm whale, "because sperm whales have teeth." The problem with three-year old, land-locked sperm whales, however, is that they want you to pretend to be an octopus or orca, and then use those teeth. Ow.

Throwing dry brush, jet fuel, and treasured keepsakes from the attic on the fire, Dr. Isis suggested, and Mr. Isis accepted her proposal for, a family vacation to Los Angeles in April to do some whale watching, among other things. This will also allow Mr. Isis to take in games in Arizona, Anaheim, and possibly San Diego. So everybody wins! [That trip suggestion did make me a rock star, didn't it?]

Little Isis was also decidedly high-energy all weekend. By 9:00 last night, as he called his mother up to sing him a song before bed, Dr. Isis decided she had had enough. "Ice cream," she told Mr. Isis, as she met him at the stairs. "That's not a question or request." Intimidated by the wild look in her eye, Mr. Isis asked meekly, "Do you know what kind you want?" "Something chocolate," she glowered. "Don't get what you usually get." [Those cookies in that picture look delicious.  Why did I get none of those cookies?]

So, Mr. Isis ran to the grocery store. Mr. Isis pulled into his parking spot directly opposite another beleaguered-looking guy who was just getting out of his truck. Mr. Isis then followed him into the store, and both headed directly for the ice cream. As they stood, intently examining frozen case after frozen case of ice cream, Mr. Isis looked over and said, "So you got sent out for ice cream too?"

"Yep. And they're never specific about what they want, are they?"

"Mine just said something about chocolate," said Mr. Isis.

"So at least I have a genre to work in."

"I heard her say chocolate and caramel," said TCM's new friend. A bond was forged.

After both heading through the self-checkout, the brothers-in-arms stared at each other briefly before exchanging "Good luck"s, and drove away.

Much of this weekend was spent finally finishing the sink and vanity in Mr. Isis's new bathroom. Alas, Mr. Isis was called into the sink and vanity project relatively late in the game. Dr. Isis had started it three weeks ago, but events conspired to keep it from completion. By the time Mr. Isis got to the sink, there were parts missing [no there weren't] and no way to tell what had been done from the instructions [did you even look at the instructions before you started? Nooooooo], and what still needed doing. So Mr. Isis began taking things apart and starting from scratch. Alas, Mr. Isis kept needing more and more things, and ultimately made seven trips to hardware stores (because there are only so many times you can go to one hardware store before you are too ashamed) over the course of Saturday, buying new, flexible pipes for the water, more plumber's tape, a rubber washer, an extension for the drain pipe, a second extension for the drain pipe when it turned out the first extension was the wrong diameter, and a new drain to replace the one Mr. Isis broke. Mr. Isis is ashamed and feels like much less of a man. On the other hand, he does now know how to not screw up when taking apart and putting together a new sink, because he's already made all the errors a person can make.

Or did he?