Return of 'Rents

Ma & Pa are back from the beach. My brothers were ... less manic than the last time I took care of them by myself, which was about four years ago.

Ricky managed to sneak past my watchful eyes wearing a muscle shirt to school once. Horror of horrors! Otherwise, they fell into line nicely. My most forceful reproaches were "What part of 'Stop yammering about the zit in your ear' don't you understand?" and the like.

Thursday I drove to Eugene and tossed Billy into a sea of band nerds at the Hilton. He was selected for All-State Choir. So funny how you can pick a brass geek (shaggy hair, slumpy shoulders) from a soprano (gold pendants, Hannah Montana-chic).

The rest of us drove up Friday to watch the concert, which was billed as starting at 4 p.m. It was a band, orchestra and choir deal. Expectedly, some people were only going to watch part of it. So the organizers - clever souls - had the supremely boring superintendant of schools give slightly varied keynotes before each performance. Triple the boredom!

She used her best "Everything-I-say-is-profound" voice to tell us about the poor children in Klamath and the beautiful poor-kid music they make ("It's a hard knock life for us...") thanks to public schools. Speech no. 2. was about the Beatles. Blessedly, I've forgotten speech 3.

Dragged my family to sushi afterward, and us kids got some three-part Eagles harmonies going on the long drive home.

And those are my unemployed blog highlights! Ha-Cha!