Today was trying. I was up very late last night working on website for the Civilian arm of the Coast Guard and for National Black AIDs Day. Stayed up until around 2. And of course, the next day I was exhausted.
Tamika and I went out early in the morning with the kids to run errands. A friend of a friend had lent us some camping gear for our trip over the summer (which we ended up not using) and needed it back, so we drove to the Federal Hill Prep School where she worked. Ironically enough, I’ll be showing artwork there later on this month. Anyway, the lady was kind of rude, and it put Tamika in a bad mood.
After that we went over to Station North Arts Cafe to pick up my art. The Who Said What Art Show had been showing there as part of a collaborative show with Stephen Towns. I got a lot of sign ups for the mailing list, and the first Oscar Wilde piece sold. We hung out and had breakfast as we waited for Portia Smith, who had coordinated the whole show. The food was delicious, but the kids were already getting into it, and began fighting. For the past couple of weeks they’ve been really getting on each other nerves, and today was just the start of it. In addition, they’ve both become exponentially more talkative. I don’t mind good conversation at all, but it’s simultaneous. They interrupt each other and talk over Tamika and I when they can’t be heard.
After we said goodbye to Portia, we stopped by Capital One bank to close the Zerflin business account. We recently got accepted at Everbank, which has high yield business checking accounts, so I went in to wire the money over. Beautiful old building. But Capital One was going to start charging for it’s accounts, so we needed to get out.
After we got home, things just settled into a nice easy humdrum chaos. Tamika was exhausted, so she fell asleep up in our room. I hammered away at Zerflin projects in between playing referee with the kids. Eventually, Tamika got up, and when the kids went down for their nap, I went up to finish an episode of Voyager and catch some winks. I’d only just drifted off to sleep when I’m awakened to Arion howling in the bathroom. He hadn’t finished his lunch before nap, and was screaming at the top of his lungs because he couldn’t have a piece of Halloween candy.
I lost it.
He had eaten a bigger breakfast than almost anyone else except me, he had eaten granola as a snack, and had pestered me at least seven times before lunch about getting something else to eat. And then when I finally made him lunch, he didn’t finish it, and even after asking me if he had to eat all of it, went behind my back, woke up Tamika, and got her to skip the rest of his food, leaving it on the table for me to clean up.
I was furious. I gave him the talking to of his life.
Tamika backed me up too, but I was in silverback mode. I attempted to get back to sleep, but nothing worked.
The rest of the day I floated between peace and irratibility, and Tamika didn’t fare much better.
We finally came to peace at the end of the day, and unwound watching Fringe and eating a vegetarian pasta dish Tamika had concocted.
She persuaded me to get to bed early tonight too, which will be good for me. Tomorrow I have to travel to DC for some Penngood meetings.
I can’t wait for California…