Irony, Stress, and The Joys of Childhood

There has been so much happening lately... so let me sum up.

First of all, irony. Irony is one of those great writing tools that authors use to tell a story. O Henry was one of the best. Remember the guy who sold his gold pocket watch to buy his wife some combs for her long hair? His loving wife sold her long hair to buy him a chain for his pocket watch. That's irony. I've had real-world experience with it this week.

The house I'm currently living in has a nice, empty, upstairs family room. As long as we've lived here, I've wanted a table and chairs for it, where I could sew, the kids could do their homework, and it could generally be used and abused while my nice dining table was left alone. Last Wednesday I finally found such a set. I brought it home and immediately started sanding it, picturing it in a lovely shade of spa blue. While sanding it, I got a phone call. It was the real estate office (yes I'm living in a house that's up for sale). They wanted to schedule an inspection -- the house was sold.

Irony.

In a further twist of events, we started looking for a new place to rent on Friday. We found one on the first try. And it has room for an extra table. The owner wants us to move in on October 1. That's in two weeks if you haven't heard. The buyer's son/agent told me today that his parents are willing to let us stay here until May 1 of next year. But we really like the new place.

That's not exactly irony... more like stress. Final decisions will be made in the next day or so. There will be much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, for sure.

On the bright side, upon seeing the possible new digs, my daughter Jessica came home and immediately started packing up her bedroom. Had I known that this was all it took to get her to clean her room, I would have threatened to move a long time ago. If we don't move, she's got the cleanest room in the house. Now THAT'S irony.

In other news, I took my son Jamison to the dinosaur museum on Saturday. His chosen souvenir was a sandstone "rock" from which one must dig the bones of a tiny T-Rex and then put the skeleton together. Yesterday as he was "digging," he exclaimed with much enthusiasm, "Hey! I found the crotch!"

Ah, the joys of childhood.