Our ten-year-old middle son (we call him “middle” since he lands between the two oldest and the youngest who are twins) has build a squirrel trap. Not because he’s worried about our finances and us not having enough food. Well, maybe — but in a fantasy-type way. I suppose dad could have been explaining groceries and how food costs money, not to waste, things like that, and he just ran with it. Lootie’s a hunter-gatherer type of kid.

Want a fire? He’ll comb the yard and come up with enough sticks to fill a few brown bags. He’s tried eating ants (good protein), worms and goodness knows what else.

At any rate, yesterday, for whatever reason, he went outside in the early evening and spent at least a half-hour out there. Upon entering the house, he announced he was going to catch a squirrel for us to eat for dinner. They’re all over — we can eat them!!! Nevermind we live in the city and setting squirrel traps is probably illegal. Not to mention, city squirrels don’t sound like the tastiest treat considering they are almost like rats around here. But whatever. I admire his determination.

Lootie, dad and I sat at the window, admiring the trap. Twice I “admired” what I thought was the trap, before my eyes rested on the actual rock and stick contraption. Oh yeah, that’s goooood, I told him. Patted his little head.

This morning as it was time to get backpacks, shoes and sweaters, he ran in the kitchen and opened a Ziploc of peanuts. I told him to just take the whole bag, figuring he was taking it for snack, but he took three whole nuts and put the bag back (which is more I can say for the 16-year-old who puts NOTHING back EVER). It’s for the squirrels!!!

Oh.

And it was. During the 10 minutes of waiting for the bus, he reconfigured the sticks and stone (which had been knocked down during the night).

I have to admit, I’m a little nervous that he might catch one with those peanuts out there.

Yesterday my Middle Son yelled, “We have a Special Delivery!!!” Sure enough, look what Amazon.com brought us:

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Oooh. A four-day weekend. Yeah.

The kids have off of school for two days and I have off work for two days, too. So, me, my 16-year old daughter and my mother went to see the movie, Things We Lost in the Fire. We set out to see a movie, not really intending to see this movie, but I’m glad we did.

It could have been very cliche and sappy, but it was not. Benicio Del Toro was fantastic. Both my mom and myself decided he should get an Oscar nod. It was one of those movie where you end up with tears running all the way down your neck. Or, well, at least I did.

Though I’ve been off, I’ve still been working. I have the kind of job that, if I take off, my work piles up. I don’t really like that and didn’t anticipate it when I was hired for the position. But it is what it is. Since is is newsletter crunch time I’ve been working on that from home to help ease the burden of work when I return.

It was Frank’s birthday yesterday and we went out with friends, had some beers (well not me because beer keeps me up at night — I had a Bloody Mary and cranberry and vodka). We played darts, ate a slice of New York (style) pizza, came home. Today we shop a bit. I don’t have the brain power for an all out BIG shopping trip right now, but I can pick up some veggies, snacks for the games tomorrow (the twins and middle child’s season-end games), things like that. My daughter desperately needs a dresser, but we’re not having much luck finding one that fits our budget specifications (under $100).

PS - Anyone else having site troubles? Things look fine to me in my lower-resolution PC but are compacted to the left on my laptop. One person said her computer froze up while trying to view the pizza picture. Let me know if you’re having issues.