Nary A Book

You know that line from my last post? There are some days when we read nary a book. I should have known that if I made nice plans to blog about our reading life for a week, something would happen. Kind of like when I finally throw out that old bottle of Gatorade and put the Tylenol and Motrin back in the cabinet, the kids will get sick the next day.

Long story short, we have read just a handful of books in the last two days.

Our AC unit has been threatening to walk out on strike for about a year, and we've been scraping money, trying to save enough to have the whole thing redone. Then in steps my Uncle. I'll not use his name here because I'm not sure how he'd feel about that. Let's just call him Uncle.

So in steps Uncle. He's an AC repair man by day, and a hospital orderly at night. He raises pigeons, doves, and rabbits in the backyard, and can call just about any bird with a whistle. He cooks the best gumbo and bakes a carrot cake that would humble Paula Deen. I don't think he ever sleeps.

Uncle gets wind of the fact that we're without cool air several days out of each month, and he loads up his tools and drives two hours one way to get us fixed up.

For the last two days, Uncle and my husband have been hard at work, hacking holes in the walls, crawling around in the attic, and soldering new parts to old parts. And now we have cool air. Blissful. And we've had Uncle all to ourselves. You must understand that at family reunions, Uncle's company is in high demand amongst the little ones. He works a special sort of magic with the kids, the likes of which I've never seen. For two days, he's had my three year old son drilling, pounding, measuring, trash bagging, and hauling tools up and down the stairs. And Tommy has loved every minute of it.

So I'm sorry I don't have much bookish news for you today. Maybe tomorrow we'll try this again. But although we've hardly cracked open a book, I wouldn't change a thing about how we've spent our time. Except that maybe I would have cuffed Uncle to the patio table until he consented to a round or two of Chickenfoot, and hotdogs alfresco.

But alas, late afternoon, Uncle drove his big white truck off our front lawn and left a trail of tears in his wake. That is until Tommy remembered the package of Fig Newtons on the counter. He and Pippi are now in the backyard under the oak tree in the box that once held our new coil, sharing the last of those figgie cookies. My own Fats Watson and Christina Katerina. If you don't get that reference, you must, must, must get this book, posthaste, pick up a box that fits a few kids, and a bag of newtons.

So there you have it. And look at me, guys! I managed to sneak in a bit of bookishness after all.