While I appreciate having a day off from work, it's really screwing with me today. It's like having two Mondays in a week. Blech. And I'm taking Friday off, which means I'm cramming a lot of work into today and tomorrow. So, why am I blogging? Good question. Welcome to Procrastinationville — population: me.

I'm so glad I got to see my friend Einat sworn in as an American citizen. She was so excited. I got to talk to her before the ceremony and after. Our citizenship oath is really weird, by the way. They had to pledge to give up their allegiance to foreign princes or potentates. Our forefathers could really write an oath, couldn't they? Anyway, she was one of 100 immigrants representing 42 different countries, and there was a record-breaking crowd, just over 18,000 people, there to witness the swearing in. It was a very moving thing to see.

However, I can think of 10 reasons right off the top of my head why we should never attend another baseball game, and eight of them involve Jesse. The kid could not sit still. By the end of the night, he had ice cream and peanut shells all over him. At one point I tried to clean off his face with a napkin dipped in orange Fanta, which Jesse then refused to drink. He got up every time one of us got up. And then there was this:
Jesse: I have to use the bathroom.
Me: Why didn't you mention that when Dad got up to go smoke about two seconds ago.
Jesse: Sor-ry.
Me: Wait until Dad gets back.
(SkooterPie returns. Jesse meets him at the end of the row, and they disappear. An hour later, they return. Jesse now has a chocolate ice cream cone AND a new Redbirds hat.)
Ten minutes after he finishes his ice cream cone:
Jesse: I have to use the bathroom.
Me: You just went to the bathroom.
Jesse: But I have to go.
Me to SkooterPie: He says he has to go to the bathroom again.
SkooterPie: What?! You are lying.
Jesse: No I'm not.
SkooterPie: You just went to the bathroom.
Me: This is like that thing you do in the car when you say you have to use the bathroom just because you're sick of riding and want out of the car. Unless it's really like when you say you went to the bathroom, but you didn't. Like at SeaWorld, when you said you had peed, but the truth was it was so crowded you didn't feel like waiting so you left. Is that what happened?
Jesse: Nods head.
Me: Jesse!
I then threatened to stand up and yell loud enough for the whole stadium to hear that he had lied to us about peeing. But cooler heads prevailed and SkooterPie took Jesse to the bathroom again.


And it was a looooong game, what with the citizenship ceremony and the fireworks and the concert and the hour spent sitting in my parking garage. OK, that last bit was after the game, but it was a real mood killer. Well, not entirely, because it certainly created other moods among the passengers in my car as we sat waiting until we could leave. We got home around 11:30. I tried not to notice how dirty Jesse was when I dropped him at Lindenwood this morning.

SkooterPie if you are reading this, you'd better stop and get back to writing that paper.