Bah Humbug

I shouldn't be complaining but I have to say that of all the holidays we celebrate here in America, the 4th of July has to be the most annoying. Of course I like the significance of the holiday and I like America but I don't understand why we have to celebrate it with such stupidity. Aren't gas prices and food prices ridiculous? Isn't the housing market in the crapper? Doesn't Michigan have the highest unemployment rate in the country? Yes to all (at least I think we have the highest unemployment rate.....). Anyway - explain to me how everyone has enough money to buy explosives. It's no different than putting all of your money in a pile and lighting it on fire - in fact, I would have much preferred it if my next-door neighbor would have done that last night AT MIDNIGHT since it would have been much quieter. Instead we got 45 minutes of Baghdad. Sweet. Tomorrow morning he's going to get about 45 minutes of big circular saw......

We've been working around the house for most of this holiday weekend - Steve built a clothesline for the backyard (I'd post a picture but really, it's just a clothesline....) and tomorrow we're making a screen to fit in one of our front windows so we can have a nice breeze in our living room. One project we weren't planning on, though, was to have to scrape and repaint a wall in our basement. During the monsoon we got on Wednesday, our basement wall sprang a leak so we've peeled off all the old paint and repainted it with Drylock. Not much fun but since we're at it, we've decided to paint the same wall with a cool color to brighten up the laundry room. We're buying the celeste paint tomorrow. The storm was pretty impressive, though, and it gave me the opportunity to drive down the sidewalk since our street was so flooded. This is what it looked like just before the wind and rain started. And a picture of our cat helping us out with our chores.

I did manage a ride today - about 3.5 hours on my mountain bike. I tried out a friend's saddle for the ride and immediately regretted it. Nothing like riding around with a 2x4 for a seat. Ouch. But with all the housework and homework I've got piling up, it was good to get out and just pedal for a while. I rode from our house in Alger, picked up a friend downtown, rode out to Egypt Valley, did a lap, and rode home. Probably 35ish miles - not too shabby for not having really ridden much this week.

So that's it for now - more chores tomorrow and back to reality on Monday. I'm going through a slight withdrawal, though. I have my vestibular test on Monday and there are strict instructions to avoid alcohol for 48 hours prior to the test. Now who's the idiot who scheduled this test for the Monday after a long weekend? Duh.