It was a productive weekend.

The parents are safely back home in Arkansas; my house is clean; the dishes are washed and put away; and life is ready, thankfully, to get back to normal.

Since my parents and I only see each other every six months now, it's commonplace to see changes every time we DO see each other. I think I was most shocked this time by how much older my father looks. He is fifty-six now, and he looks much older. I think a lot of it is that his hair is completely white. Not that off-white yellow that some people get, but a shocking pure snow white.I'd rather have that than grey hair, actually.

My mother no longer colors her hair, for which I'm grateful. I've never really understood why women color their hair to hide grey. I'd say that my mother's hair is now 25% grey; I wonder how many of those I put there?

You know, this social life thing is pretty good for me. Since changing jobs, it seems that we've been hosting visitors at our house about twice a month. It's hectic, and it's difficult to keep the house as clean as I'd like, but I have to admit that it's comforting to know that if I don't show up at work for a few days, there are people in this town that would actually worry enough to call the house and check on me.

Jeff's headed out to see his parents tomorrow. Their computer is acting pretty unstable, so Jeff's going to take his trusty software and know-how and apply the good ol' Wipe And Reinstall tactic on it. I should go out there with him—his folks haven't seen me in a while—but quite frankly, there's so much to do here at the house that if I want any hope of getting a rest break before Sunday, I'll have to stay here tomorrow and get stuff done.

Funny how you don't realize how much you do around the house on a daily basis until you get sick, don't get to do it, and then try to pick up the pieces afterwards. I think that today we're finally going to get a handle on the mess in the kitchen—it seems like every time we've turned around, the kitchen's been a mess again, and we've never managed to get it thoroughly cleaned up.

I'm thinking that perhaps I've lost what few vestiges of common sense that I had lying around in my malfunctioning little brain. So it's Monday, July 3, and the husband-spousal-unit-person has the day off and I don't. He stayed up a bit late last night washing clothes, because we were bordering on the "if we don't wash clothes tonight we're going naked tomorrow" thing.

Where do I sign up to get George Michael to come over and do a slinky-diva concert in my living room? I gotta know. I was just looking at the cover to Older and marveling at the Armani goodness. Doesn't matter if he's not interested in women; I can handle that; after all, I'm not exactly the kind of person that people drool over. I'm listening to this slithery bit of sonic goodness he recorded for Deon Estus (talk about where-are-they-now material!) and just drooling in general.

Hey, you come here for a prurient look into my twisted little mind—don't bitch if you get TMI.