A break

This morning I woke up after a mildly rainy/very windy night & this was the view down the driveway:

So what else to say? We have a chainsaw.  I don't know how to use it.  I don't know how to put gas in it.  I don't have the knack for pull-starting anything & even if I did, the break itself is more than a little bit over my head, even if I were up a ladder which I would never do with a chainsaw having never used one before.

A likes to watch Americas Funniest Home Videos (& I like to watch him watching AFHV or AFV as they call themselves).  Invariably, somewhere in an episode there will be a group of boys/men doing something typical of boys/men & I will say "you just never see a group of girls doing that".

Things you never see a group of girls doing specifically include those activities in which one person or more will get thunked in the nads.  & no, I don't mean those box-o-charm videos of parents encouraging their children to punch Mickey Mouse down there, tee-hee-hee, I mean that kid teetering on a skateboard down a metal handrail until the rider loses balance & lands with legs splayed OR that other one jumping from the roof to the trampoline & right back up again OR that group of boys all standing on one end of a half broken tree limb, jumping on it to get it really rocking until CRACK.

All I am saying is a could have use a few of those boys this morning.

//sidebar: seriously what is the appeal of watching your little darling punch someone in the genitals?  I have LOST TRACK of how much of this I have observed while passing thru while A watches tv.  & once-upon-a-time when I worked in a large costume myself this was an almost daily occurrence.  If you know one of those fathers (in my experience it is usually but not always the father who finds this oh-so-hilarious), let me give you a few somethings to chew on:  chances are EXCELLENT it is actually a  woman in that male-character costume.  In fact pretty much the only take-your-picture-with-me costume character still dominated by men is Santa.  Second, what kind of idiot would you have to be to provoke an attack on a person who knows what you look like may very well have access to your credit card number & about whom you know nothing. 

Revenge of the costumed can take many forms, not all of them within the confines of the theme restaurant (although I will caution, if you are going to do this make sure you eat nothing that comes to your table afterwards; the kitchen staff live to watch you feast upon the...uhmmm...extra flavoring).  I would think it was a no-brainer, as you never see Chuck E. Cheese in the grocery store or the Easter Bunny getting a mani/pedi or the other school's mascot riding the bus, but somehow these deep thinkers never realize that the math tutor, librarian, plumber's assistant (all full-time jobs held by part-time costume-wearers I have known...or been) they are asking to help them pass that class, unstop that drain, etc. just might have reason to harbor a grudge.