Whew! I survived it. Last week was rather busy. All sorts of little things combining to fill up the time. The big "event" of the week was an Orff Schulwerk seminar which Noodles attended all week. Every morn she would get up at the crack of dawn and make the 45 minute drive down to Puyallup. I was stuck with the child wrangling--undoubtedly the biggest block of child wrangling I've done in my life. Then, since the schedules didn't mesh, I ended up shlepping the kids along with me to work and they had to cool their heels in the lunch room for an hour and a half until Noodles could come fetch them. (Actually, that was a good part of the week, for me. I didn't go parading the children about the shop, but a number of my coworkers naturally ventured into the lunchroom and got to see what wonderful, well-behaved children I have. I refrained from shouting out, "See? This is what my life's really about!") In between that, I squeezed in a trip to Poodlepums' opthamologist on one day and Hiker's funeral on another. (Actually, I missed the funeral proper, which was in the evening, but by taking a long lunch I was able to shuttle Poodles from ballet class to the church and pay my respects to Biker. Hiker's ashes were also there, which for some odd reason kind of creeped me out. Maybe I was just raised to be a burial guy.) On Friday, the kids were spared the Bloatmeal experience as Noodles' class had a recital. It was kind of odd seeing a bunch of adults running about, eagerly introducing their family members to their teachers and then giving a musical performance. But the show was good--or at least the part that I saw. The schedule demanded that I depart early to get to work on time. A lot of driving and rushing about. Normally, I love to drive but by Saturday I was content to put the car in the garage.