Like I Have Time For This?

See, the thing is… I lost my watch.

I lost it way back in June. The kids were swimming and I was cleaning the back porch. It was hot and I was sweeping the porch, dust and grit floating in the air around me, and I was sweating a bit and thinking about getting on a suit and getting in the pool with the kids for a while to cool off, and my watch was sort of STICKING to my wrist in that way and at some point I went inside the house and went into some room or other to do something and I remember taking off my watch and putting it down on top of a little pile of… oh, I dunno… junk, toys, something… and I can see myself doing that and I can SEE the watch tumbling down the pile a little bit, and I can CLEARLY REMEMBER saying to myself: don’t leave your watch there, dummy, you’ll lose it for sure.

But I was hot and gritty from sweeping the porch and I just wanted to cool off fast, so I left it there, in that place where I was SURE to lose it and went and got my bathing suit on and went for a little swim with the kids.

And guess what? I haven’t seen it since.

And I LOVED that watch. RegularDad got it for me a year ago and it’s one of those uber-cool solar-powered things so I’d never have to get the battery replaced in it ever!

Sigh… and now it’s gone.

And I’ve thought about it and thought about it and retraced my steps again and again, and I can’t find it anywhere. I’ve checked all the likely places. The most common places where little piles of junk crop up, and nothing.

And then my camera battery went dead.

And every time I’d come up here to my office to get the charger to charge the battery so I could post some pictures of things I want to blog about, I’d think to myself: hey, I wonder if my watch is in THAT PILE RIGHT THERE? and I’d start looking and then I’d wander down to check the top of the microwave but it’s still not there, and then I’d wander into the bathroom and check there because I was about to change into a bathing suit when I took off the watch so maybe I left it in there. But nope. (I even let the trash can in there pile up for a quite a while because I was afraid to throw it out because maybe my watch had fallen into it, and it took quite a while for me to find the spare 10 minutes needed to dig through that trash, and let me tell you what a THRILLING 10 minutes that was for me. And guess what? It wasn’t in there.)

And then I’d forget all about charging the camera battery, and by the time I remembered it and realized I hadn’t done it, it would be time to take the kids somewhere or cook something or CHECK THE LAUNDRY ROOM BECAUSE MAYBE MY WATCH IS IN THERE SOMEWHERE. I know I already checked there, but hey, you never know. It could magically reappear there someday. Maybe. And by the time that was all done, it would be time to put the kids to bed, which seems to somehow TAKE FOREVER AND A MILLENIUM THESE DAYS and by the time that was done, I’d be too tired to do anything but sit on the couch and look for old House reruns, which I can’t seem to find anywhere lately. Dammit.

So, I’d say to myself, okay, I’ll charge the camera battery tomorrow. And then I’ll blog something. HONEST I will. PROMISE. Total Freekin’ Pinky Swear.

And right now, I’m in my office and the camera battery is charging, but it’s not ready, so I have no pictures. But I felt like I sort of owe you some sort of an explanation of where the hell I’ve been all summer, and the answer is, quite simply:

I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR MY WATCH.

God help me, in between the normal craziness that’s an average day around here, what with all the new curriculum to be ordered and the myriad social events my kids simply MUST ATTEND and the ubiquitous dishes and laundry that need washing, that’s how I’ve spent my summer vacation.

I’d tell you more about all the OTHER things we’ve been doing this summer, but… well… wait a minute… I see a pile of stuff over there in the corner that I’ve haven’t checked yet and—-