comedy of errors

Today is the last Thursday of my summer break, so I'm trying desperately to learn to keep my blogs short and sweet (yeah, right, after yesterday's post, huh?) so I can continue to blog and not feel guilty about it.
Alisa survived day #2 at her new school, and pick up went a lot more smoothly. I still need to go online and check out their volunteer opportunities so I can do my part, limited though it may be.
Tia had a lunch date with some of her lady friends from Cursillo (semiannual Catholic retreat movement) so she asked me to watch Xavier and Leyla for a couple of hours this afternoon. I don't get to see them much, and it will be even less once school is back in full swing so I agreed. She dropped them off around 11 o'clock.
Prior to that I couldn't decide whether to tidy up the kitchen and be ready to help Xavier bake a cake for his Mom & Dad's anniversary or take a nap (I had been up quite late posting yesterday's blog and I was tired). The nap prevailed. I fell asleep listening to the Chaplet of Divine Mercy (a chanted or sung version of the Holy Rosary). I awoke and headed straight for the kitchen to get ready to bake. I also had to make cupcakes for the teachers' back to school luncheon at Gunn tomorrow. I opened the oven door and noticed the floor of the oven was a little nasty. I think I mentioned a burning oil smell when my turkey was roasting the night before last. If not, the smell permeated the house, and I think I asked my sis-in-law for suggestions for getting rid of the smell. Anyway, I went to wipe the bottom of the oven and it was saturated with oil. I mean it looked like someone had just opened a bottle of olive oil and poured it in my oven! My first thought was some variation of the word "dam," followed by the realization that my entire family could have been deep brown and crispy like the turkey turned out had all of that grease caught afire in the middle of the night. the aluminum roasting pan obviously must have had a slow leak (there were still a lot of drippings in the pan with the turkey). Thank goodness the temp was on a moderate 325 degrees and not any higher! When Xavier arrived I explained that I had a huge mess to clean up before we could begin baking, and that I could use his and Aaron's help to keep an eye on Miss Leyla while I went to work.
Once the mess was no more than a bad memory, I baked the cakes for Xavier, then baked my cupcakes. (I could still smell the burning oil smell a little-maybe I'll set a measuring cup of vinegar in the oven overnight.) It was going on 2 o'clock and not looking as if I would have time to decorate the cake before Tia returned to collect the kids. I hadn't even made the buttercream frosting. We came up with a plan: If I wasn't done with the cake by the time X's dad picked him up from Tia's house, I would bring the cake to their house while Xavier and his family were at his school to meet his new 5th grade teacher. It would be more of a surprise that way. Xavier had planned out a menu which included Ramen noodles and salad as appetizers, cheese sandwiches, steak, fruit salad and quesadillas for the main entrees. Bless his heart; he wanted so badly to surprise his parents on their anniversary.
Here's the plan we came up with: Tia made chicken spaghetti for the Flowers. I baked and decorated the cake for their anniversary. Xavier was supposed to make the salad. I had to let Derrick in on the secret a little bit so he would leave the screen door unlocked for me. All I told him was there was a delivery scheduled for their house while they were at the school. Sneak a peak started at 6 p.m. & Shannon was supposed to leave work, pick up her family & head to Xavier's school. Tia & I would sneak in the house, leave the food and anniversary gift and be gone by the time they returned home.
Here's how the plan finally went down: Tia & I pulled onto Shannon & Derrick's street at 6 p.m. thinking they should already be at the school. I called D's cell phone just to touch base, and he was still at home waiting for Shannon to show up. Okay, slight change of plans. I told Derrick to hide in his bedroom and have Xavier open the door. We could still drop off the stuff and be gone by the time Shannon arrived. Xavier opened the door with the telephone to his ear; and to whom do you suppose he was speaking? His mother, of course! I stick Tia's dish in the oven and rearrange a few things in the fridge to accommodate the cake plate, gather up the boxes and bags and head back for the front door thinking, "That wasn't too bad!" I turn the bend from the kitchen to the foyer and what to my surprise do my eyes behold?! Alisa talking to Aunt Shannon on the telephone! She ended the call as Aaron, Tia & I stared daggers through her. What was she thinking?! How exactly did she explain her presence at Aunt Shannon's house? We skedaddled out of the house, into the van and down the street. It turned out that Xavier kind of spilled the beans when Shannon told him it sounded like Alisa in the background and he somehow got the impression that he should pass the phone to Alisa (tell-tale heart :-).
Xavier called me later this evening to tell me everything went off nicely. Shannon and Derrick were grateful for the food because they were tired and hadn't really made plans for the evening. Again, I say to you, all's well that ends well.
We stopped by Lorenzo & Lani's house for a quick visit then headed home to "barbecue turkey sandwiches" and fruit for dinner.
My neck has been bothering me most of the day. I don't recall whether it was hurting when I awoke this morning or if started after my nap. Obviously, this can be attributed to "sleeping wrong." At any rate, the kids took turns trying to "adjust" my neck by pulling on my head and trying to massage my neck. I'll have to put Mike on the task before he drifts off which will probably be any minute now if he's not already knocked out after working a double shift today. Good night. Until next time...

p.s. I need to work on timing a little more. This blog took the better part of an hour even if I subtract the time spent chatting with Mike and tucking in Aaron. Of course, once classes resume next week, I won't have nearly as many adventures to blog about. I'll just come up with a template like we used to give the parents at Advent PDO: Today your child was:____. This is what we did today: _______. S/He ate ( ) all ( ) some ( ) none of his/her lunch. S/He slept/rested from ___ to ___. etc. Only mine will look like this:
Today class was: ( ) boring ( ) exciting ( ) somewhere in between
I learned about ____________________. My next exam is ___________________.
I did/did not attend study group.
Here's what I did today:_____________.
And so on and so forth! Oops! I just added about 10 minutes to my blog time. Gotta go...