A Sense of Community

Had an interesting afternoon today. I've been spending a lot of time in the air conditioning recently and finally felt myself surfacing in the outside world today. I pulled up outside the house and noticed most of the parents congregating at the school bus stop.

Turns out one of the kids got on the wrong bus. She was later dropped off, in reasonably good condition, by the bus she did take.

Anyway, it dawns on me as I walk up on the group that I'm actually socializing with our neighbors. I also actually really like the neighborhood. The Jen and I are both really amazed at how cool, or at least entertaining, it can be to really know your neighbors. I think it makes us appreciate the crazy in our own family just a little more. Or, at least I can take comfort in knowing that others, like me, can find entertainment in my irritation and pain.

IRONY

I have a couple of fish tanks in our bedroom. One's a 5-gallon tank, and the other's a 29-gallon community tank. I'm putting in a lot of work to make these stupid things look and work well. A couple of problems...anything that goes into the smaller tank dies, and I've had five fish just disappear from the bigger tank. So I keep spending a lot of time and money trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

During my neighborhood socialization exercise today, I walked by the pond in our front yard. I abondoned the project back in early June, when I found that the filter/fountain I bought emptied the pond every time I turned it on. Ani wanted me to check on the status of a bird carcass that was apparently floating in the water. It was there, as were all but one of the ten pond comets (gold fish) that I abandoned along with the project. I'm going to round them up and take them back to the fish store at the end of the summer. I'm hoping to use the store credit to keep replacing my other fish. I'm also getting rid of the pond.

HAPPINESS

The Jen took the kids to get new shoes tonight. Ani got name brand tennis shoes! Storm got a pair of "Crocs" that are shaped like pink Cadillacs with Barbie and a friend inside.