"Stand by, we've done cleaning..."

LOL. We're ready for company, the steaks are thawing, and in a little over two hours our guests will be arriving for a cookout.

Our holiday actually started Wednesday, when James was supposed to pick up eight pounds of strawberries for our dessert. We had seen them at Costco on Sunday, but did not want to buy right away, not sure they would last the week. Of course, this is the night James gets a late call. At 7:30 he is still at work with no idea when he will get off the phone and Costco closes at 8:30. So I went myself.

The plan, however, temporarily backfired, when I discovered the strawberries were gone and hadn't been restocked. I did get gasoline there, though. And the International Farmers Market on Spring Road did have strawberries (the same brand that was at Costco, incidentally, "Sesame Street"—our strawberries have Big Bird on the box!).

Which explained why we were hulling and fixing strawberries at 10:45 on Wednesday night, because earlier we were watching the two episodes of The Baby Borrowers I had recorded. I don't ordinarily watch reality shows, but this one isn't a contest and looked like fun. Five pairs of teenagers who claim (or at least the young ladies claim) to love babies and who think they would make good parents are given homes to live in and in turn have to take care of babies, toddlers, small children, teenagers, and the elderly. The first two episodes chronicled how the project began and what will be entailed and at the end the babies arrive, and the second episode is more about caring for the babies.

I know these are older teenagers, but it's clear that a couple of the girls haven't done more than a lick of work before. I was especially upset when one girl, after being reprimanded by the child's mother (the parents are watching via closed-circuit TV and there is a professional nanny watching each couple, but they don't jump in unless the child's life is in danger), refused to interact with the baby any longer and actually went to work (a job provided by the program) to get away from the child. One young woman from Dunwoody, GA, started out badly, but then got the hang of it; another stuck her boyfriend with all the caretaking chores and asked him to go to work, too. Another young woman, whose boyfriend had volunteered for the show simply to show her that they shouldn't have children immediately, seemed a bit perturbed that the baby took to the boyfriend, not to her!

Next week, the toddlers!

Yesterday was a regular workday, but during lunch I ran to Hobby Lobby to see if there were any other Independence Day tchotches that I wanted, but I only got the little apple candy dish (with a red-white-and-blue apple body) and a square dish painted as a flag. Also stopped at Lowes for more suet for the birdies, and Borders.

After work was over, finished vacuuming, tidying up, swept and washed the floor of the foyer, finished the laundry. After supper we finished the kitchen. It sounds like the house is an absolute wreck, but it's just the usual thing, just stuff that's been allowed to stay here and there since we were away, and then James had his show last weekend. Things need to be put in their places, top surfaces mopped up, dust whisked away.

This morning we did the last of the tidying, got out the paper products and washed the last of the dishes, and then got to do something more pleasant, set up the new DVD recorder. This went well, although the channel setup seemed to take forever. We tried out a disk or two and the upconvert does seem to help The Rocketeer a little. Unfortunately the transfer is dreadful off the bat.

On the other hand, the combination shows off 1776 to great effect...movie quality. (In fact, I've been to movie theatres that didn't have a picture this good.)

Still have to figure out the VCR and all that other stuff, but it'll come in time.

Labels: electronics, food, housework, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 2:42:00 PM

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