Last night I kicked back on the deck for a bit. Tonight I’m listening to my kid trash his room. A kid who was supposed to be asleep almost two hours ago. Variety is the spice of life, ya know.

Mondays have all of this angst surrounding them. There’s an assumption that things will go badly or that if they are going badly, then it surely must be because it’s a Monday. How many times have you asked someone on a Monday morning how they’re doing and they respond, “Well, it’s Monday”?

So I’m not going to give Monday a bad rap. This could have happened on any other day of the week too. It just happened to be bright and early yesterday morning. Which was? Monday.

I was supposed to go to the gym yesterday, but I couldn’t get to sleep the night before. And I kept waking up. And then I felt like I was dreaming all night long. Just plain restless. At one point, I swore I heard strange noises in our house. But the dog was in our room and hadn’t moved a muscle, so another dream.

Then it was time to get up. Oh, joy. I let the dog out, came upstairs to shower and get dressed, then went back downstairs. Maggie was on the counter where she wasn’t supposed to be. I gave her the evil eye and told her I’d be back for her in after I let the dog in. I kept my promise and went to shoo her off the counter. But I noticed she was watching something intently, and assumed it was a bug. So I followed her gaze to the sink. There were still a couple of inches of water in there from last night’s dishes.

But there was also something else in there. Swimming around. It took me about five seconds to fully comprehend what I was seeing: A BAT!!!!

Where did I go next. I ran upstairs as fast as I could, because that’s how I roll. I tried not to scream at Scott. Instead I loudly and excitedly whispered, in a voice verging on a slight scream, “Scott! Scott! There’s a bat in the kitchen!!!”

He was up fast. So was Devin. And I was pacing the hallway trying to calm down. Scott made us stay put while he went down to catch it. Dev wanted to see it, but Scott very forcefully told us to STAY. OK. So we did. Then he had the bat in a big plastic cup and he was yelling to me, “What do I do with it?” Hello? You put it outside, silly. And he did.

So that’s how we woke up yesterday. Monday. I can assure you the flue is now closed on the fireplace.

(And the cat, who commenced vomiting not long after the bat flew the coop, is now OK as well. The apron string she swallowed came back up, saving us a trip to the vet and the ensuing bills. That would have made me blame Monday indeed.)

The day ended, though, on a much better note. The construction crews showed up with a huge digger right at bedtime last night. Here’s one of the very happy faces my kid was making as he watched the proceedings.

Just two grad parties this year, and both on the same weeken. Stepahnie yesterday. Shane today. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m one of the old people at these gatherings. Those teenagers definitely look a lot younger than me, but I swear it was only yesterday when high school ended. I know, too, that I didn’t appreciate my youth and the opportunities in front of me. And I’m sure that I squandered a few of those. But can you really offer advice to 18-year-olds? Because we kind of poo-poo’d the words of wisdom passed to us, I think. When you’re a teenager you tend to think you know way more than you really do. There are definitely times I wish I could go back to my young-adult self and have a conversation that would help to avoid a few of the mistakes I’ve made. To instill some more confidence in that younger me who may just have gone for a few of the opportunities that I let slip by. But, hey, I managed to navigate to a pretty happy spot, so it’s all good.

Festival happens every year in GR. I never paid much attention until we had a kid. Now that we’ve been down there a few times and I got the gist of what it’s all about, I was happy to volunteer for the PR committee when a friend asked. We made a family night of it on Friday and had a great time foraging for food (in long lines!) and watching the people stream past. Devin got to stay up two hours past his bedtime watching bands on the stages, which thrilled him to no end. I went down again yesterday to volunteer at the Regional Arts Competition, then walked around solo for a bit. It’s a great event to have in our city.

Left work sick today. After napping for a couple of hours, I did feel kosher enough to sit on the deck and watch the boys battle it out with squirt guns. Cheap and easy entertainment. The husband is fetching me some ice cream and a People magazine so I can enjoy the remainder of my sick day in comfort. Willing to get caught buying a gossip magazine? Now that’s true love.