This COULD be the beginning of a not so good day.

As I begin writing this (8:11 a.m.), I've been awake for 41 minutes.

I just poured my second cup of coffee, I only got a few sips of the first one while it was still hot because I kept having to referee the fighting siblings who seem intent on making Nanaw lose her cool today.

Zach has been in trouble already for hitting his sister, throwing things, telling me no, wrestling on the couch, and locking MeriKate in the closet, wrestling on the bed.

MeriKate and Abby are tattling.

Jillian is having a blast.

Nanaw is leaning towards insanity.

I may be digging out, and dusting off, that bottle of tequila soon.

***
I almost forgot to mention my meeting with the "hole" last evening.

Miz Beans and I had driven the couple of blocks to Food Giant to pick up a couple of things after we dropped the Chick and Zach at Tae Kwon Do. When we got back, we parked near the aux door of the gym so all we had to do was climb a slight rise before entering (the Jr. college in Helena is built on Crowley's Ridge, the only hills in the delta and they built a danged school in em).

Anyway, I unshackled Beans from her car seat, set her out and pointed her in the right direction, then I reached in to grab my keys and purse, locked up, and followed her. There was this drain thingy set in concrete right up from the parking lot and I stepped a little to the side of it and swoosh, my leg, up to my knee, went into a hole that had been hidden by last Autumn's leaves.
The Beans heard me yell when I went down and came running back, with her little short legs, saying, "Oh Nananw, I help you!"

You know the first thing I did don't you? I bet y'all do the same thing whenever something like this happens to you, I looked around to see if anyone was watching. hahahahaha.

So, after I'd looked around to see if I was providing a month's worth of amusement for anyone,,, and I wasn't for once,,, I rolled around for a few minutes in order to get some leverage in order to get my leg outta the hole (there are rattle snakes all over Crowley's Ridge and I was having a few snaky thoughts right about then). I only had a little, tiny scrape on the top of my foot so the only harm was to my slightly wounded pride.

After the class was over and I was herding the kids toward the door, I told one of the MA instructors about the "dangerous" hole so he followed me out to see where it was so he could report it to maintainence. This was the Mexican instructor, with quite a heavy accent, and after I showed him he said, " Oh yes, si, si, Do not walk there, is de drain, dere is de hole."

"Ninguna Mierda Sherlock!"