A day in the life

Now that school has started back up, I'm trapped in my daily routine of unfulfilling minutia. Do this, then that, then that, then that again, then do it all over again the next day. Each moment is filled with actions that repeat themselves Monday through Friday.

Get up at 5:00, make coffee, check for the newspaper, watch Sportscenter, check for the paper, drink coffee, check for the damn paper, feign interest in the Houston Astros season, get the paper, look at the paper's pretty pictures, do the crossword, pretend to care about the American League highlights, feed dogs, personal hygiene, put on clothes the wife set out for me the night before, wake up family, get kids ready for school, see the wife off to work, feed the kids chicken Cordon Bleus for breakfast, watch SportsCenter top 10 highlights again, finish coffee, get in the car and drive away, turn around to make sure I closed the garage door and turned off the coffee maker, go by the in-laws' house so my kids can say "hi," get in the line to drop the kids off at school, make room for someone trying to turn into the drop-off line from the wrong *friggin*lane, give the kids kisses, hugs, and priceless advice, drop them off, get to the high school, curse when I find out my classroom hasn't been cleaned, greet the 1st tutorial student of the day, resist the urge to tell them they are there 15 minutes before tutorials officially begin, TEACH MATH AT A FRENETIC, EUPHORIC, NON-STOP PACE, watch the clock for 20 minutes until my contract day ends, go to the in-laws to pick up the kids, spend 20 minutes telling my kids "we're leaving now, come on, I'm leaving without you, get your stuff, just 1 more minute, I'm serious, you can walk home, give Grammy and Poppy hugs and kisses, where are your shoes? and socks? do you have your bag? your homework? I'm leaving. . . . ," get home, check the mail, put the kids on their homeworks, sign their folders, listen to the stories of their day at school while I do a little housework to impress the wife before she gets home, feed the doges, feed and water the chickens and check their eggs, tell the neighbor girl to go home 'cause the kids are doing homework and that 3-year-old girls shouldn't come over to play without an adult, tell my son to practice his piano, make subtraction worksheets for my daughter, listen to the sound of no piano playing, yell a bit, check homemade math homework for correctness, correct a misplayed piano note, greet the wife when she gets home, help with making dinner making next-day's lunches and picking out next day's clothes (except my own), eat with the family while we talk about all the upcoming events that we need to fit into our schedule, I clean the dishes while the kids dote on their mother as she sits in the recliner relaxing while ET and the local news play, coerce my kids away from their mother and "encourage" them to take the dogs for a walk around the block with me, I take the dogs for a walk by myself, water the dogs, get the kids into the shower, listen to the wife's monologue about her day, nod in period affirmation while the wife speaks while trying to determine in the back of my mind if my child has spent too much time in the shower wasting water, I yell "hurry it up in there!! You wanna turn into a raisin??," get the kids dressed, make them read on their own a bit, do a bit of grading/planning for school while the wife watches primetime TV, tell the kids to go to bed, recreate on the world wide web, tell the kids to go to bed again, check the Astros score on the internet, tell the kids if they don't go to be now they can sleep outside with the dogs, personal hygeine, tell the kids they are WAY up past their bedtime, check out ESPN on the tube while doing crunches, burpees, and pushups, demand that the kids go to bed or I'll take away their birthdays, personal hygiene, read a book while the wife watches the evening news, turn off the TV that plays to a sleeping audience, finish the chapter in my book, check on the (finally) sleeping kids, lay in the dark in bed thinking about all the things I didn't get done today and all the things I have to do tomorrow, finally doze off only to be awaken every 3 hours by the incessant noisome barks from my ADD yellow lab, wake up WAY TOO SOON.

At least today is almost behind me and tomorrow's another BRAND NEW DAY.