Guns, bugs, alcohol and smokes...

That's how MizBubs summed up our weekend as we sat in the screen house surveying our back yard Saturday night.

Our youngest daughter, the Peculiar Girl Wonder, and a friend had caught a cicada, and it turned out it was just about to bust out of its shell. PGW snapped a couple of pictures as it emerged.


Our eldest and her boyfriend had a couple of old bb guns and were shooting some targets I brought home from work; the targets look to be late 80's vintage, and the integrated bad guys on them bear a resemblance to Chuck Norris and Gary Coleman.

So there we all were: me and Mizbubs sitting enjoying a drink and a smoke (I got a tasty cigar knowing I'd have time to sit and do nothing for an hour or so) while our one daughter played with a bug she found and the other shot stuff. I'm living the American dream. Seriously, I can't tell you how glad I am that I have a 15 year old who can still be entertained by catching a bug in a jar and watching it for an hour or two. MizBubs turned to me and said "look at this--we got guns, bugs, alcohol and smokes" and I knew on the spot I had a title for a blog post.

The inside of my house is a mess. It needs a deep cleaning, and I have a couple loads of laundry that need to be done, and it's generally in a state of disarray. And I don't really care right now. We've had the best time the past few days just hanging out together. The only real work we've done has been outside. I think we both decided, unconsciously, to spend what little time we have not working doing things that will bring us joy: working up a sweat in the garden, cooking together, and just sitting without doing a single damn productive thing. It's been restorative.

Just goofy bullshit like throwing a tennis ball, over and over, and over, for our mutt Duffy, until he falls down exhausted in the grass.
MizBubs invented a new drink for us on Friday. It doesn't really have a name yet so we're open to suggestions for a name. It's one shot of vodka, one shot of Bauchant raspberry liqueur, and it's topped up with tonic water, with a couple of berries muddled in. Damn it was good.

MizBubs planted a row of sunflowers along the back of the house, and they're coming up nicely. They're developing some nice buds, so hopefully they'll bloom within a few weeks. She found a couple of funny folk art chickens at someplace like Hobby Lobby and put them in there; I love it because it reminds me of Key West.

Ah well. I have a couple of things to put up in the next few days, but right now I got to get some sleep. Y'all take care.