Not Quite Valentime Yet

On Friday February 9th Riley already had plans to sleep over Kassie's. But by the time Kassie reached out that evening, she and her family had already eaten dinner. So Kevin and I stopped to grab Riley some McDonald's on our way to drop her off, and then we ate at Qdoba.

Then we watched a bunch of Vikings and got to bed at a sensible hour since I had an appointment at Mr. Tire the next morning to have them rotate my tires and fix a failing plug in one of them.

Kelly texted us Saturday morning to let us know that she and Steve had taken the girls to Tyler State Park, if we felt like joining them.

That would have been great! But I was still at my tire appointment, and by the time I got home, Kelly couldn't really estimate how much longer they might be at the park.

With a rare free Saturday afternoon, Kevin and I got to spend it doing some spring cleaning and a bunch of chores that had been piling up around the house, including clearing the living room of all the empty "moving boxes" we amassed throughout last year and stacked from floor to ceiling and all over the sofa and the coffee table.

Then Taylor reached out to ask if I could help her with some work from her manufacturing class. So I asked Kevin if he would be amenable to that and suggested that we order dinner from Domino's so that neither of us had to worry about cooking on top of all the housework we had just finished or the homework Taylor wanted help with.

Incidentally there's a Domino's right next to the Giant in front of our apartment, but I never go to that one because it's staffed by dirtballs and the food is terrible. So we ordered from the one by my mom's since we had to go pick up Taylor anyway.

Kevin took these pictures of us going inside... and then coming back out empty handed:

Then I broke the news to him.

We used the time as productively as we could: Kevin had been playing Steely Dan when we went to pick Taylor up, and she was immediately enthralled and asked him to send her the song.

So he took the opportunity to play some other stuff she was unlikely to have heard before either:

At this point Taylor exclaimed that she would "listen to the shit outta this on vinyl!"

Finally the manager at Domino's motioned from inside that our new food was ready. And as an apology for the mixup and the wait, he threw in an extra order of the parmesan knots we had ordered :)

We headed back to the apartment and stuffed our faces with parmesan knots and pizza. And then I helped Taylor with her manufacturing work for a few hours before we finally decided to call it a night.

Sunday the 11th I had to do laundry since I hadn't gotten to it the day before.

But first, one of the boxes we had cleaned up the day before had been filled with packing peanuts, and Kevin discovered that they were the biodegradable kind.

He practically dragged me into the kitchen!

Then I got the laundry together and headed out to the laundromat
(and then to pick up Taylor).

But as I got downstairs and into my car, one of our downstairs neighbors came out with a 5,000 gallon trashbag stuffed to the gills. She ended up blocking me in my parking spot for almost two minutes while she struggled to carry-drag the thing along at a snail's pace.

I was already inside the laundromat by the time she made it across the parking lot and back so that Kevin could send me a final update:

The rest of the afternoon and evening was pretty low key. I brought Taylor back to help her with more homework, and then Kevin bought us all Burger King for dinner and helped her with some algebra after we ate.

Kassie and her mom dropped Riley off around 9:00pm, so I let her and Taylor hang out for a little while before I told them I had to take Taylor home so Kevin and I could get to bed for yet another Monday morning looming on the horizon :(

Of course, I had forgotten that Kevin didn't have the same grueling Monday ahead of him that I did: He had lunch plans!

He and Richard dined at Cancun, and then he sent me this picture shortly after noon yesterday:

A short while later he sent me some more pictures.

And then almost two hours later:

Kevin got back home just after 3:30pm and called me to ask if Riley or the landlord had reported anything to me about the two police SUVs and two fire marshals outside our apartment building, or the caution tape going from the edge of Jeff and Lillian's corner all the way back to the guard rail.

I hadn't heard a peep from either of them.

When he got upstairs and checked on Riley, she was just fine but she told him that everyone had been there for several hours (but she had no idea why either).

And a short while later Kevin happened to see these two outside our bedroom window, so he asked them what was going on.

All they said was that they were investigating a fire.

But...

This was a huge area to cordon off with caution tape.

And that red SUV unit was a K-9 unit all the way from Philadelphia.

And the white SUV ended up being here until well after 9:00pm.

And, I guess once the sun went down and it got dark out, everyone on the ground just sort of forgot about that one second-floor window that was open earlier (since my darling husband insists on leaving it open 24 hours a day despite it being the middle of February.)

...And so Kevin was able to eavesdrop on parts of the conversation the fire guys were having outside just a few dozen feet away. And among the bits and pieces of phrases he heard over the course of 15 minutes or so were:

• a bunch of back and forth about the "signature" of this fire vs. another one
• something about "full cooperation from Trevose"
• and finally, this rather alarming comment: "This isn't just the death or injury of a person, this is perpetual."

So when he came to relay all this to me, he and I immediately had the same thought:

[I did read on the police blotter a few days later that the fire was in the middle of the night on the back patio of one of our unknown neighbors on the other side of the building. And the police and fire company do indeed suspect arson by a repeat offender, but they aren't saying much beyond that since it's still an open investigation.]

Then today (the 13th) we had plans to go over to Kevin's parents' house for dinner.

We got a dusting of snow that afternoon that was still around as we headed out:

But there was also no longer a cloud in the sky by then:

As we walked in to Catherine and Ron's, Kevin saw a photo-op moment and figured Riley might not be as inclined to go "chinless" in a group photo like she tends to when it's just her by herself:

Catherine made her amazing lasagna for dinner. And it was, after all, Fasnacht Day, so Kelly brought doughnuts for dessert!

The doughnuts were 100% Livvie approved :)

And afterwards, Uncle Kev announced that he had a surprise in the kitchen sink and he needed Liv's help making some peanuts disappear:

Then Kelly said that Liv and Hannah had valentines to give Taylor and Riley.

Kevin had thoughtfully bought Riley and Taylor a card to give me:

And then we all visited for a bit until it was nearing for the girls' bedtime and Kelly's family headed out.

"Hannah, can you smile while Uncle Kev takes your picture?"

Exhibit A: An Odin booger left plastered to Kevin's nightstand

Kevin and I decided not to spend several hundred dollars on each other this year. And unfortunately the gifts I ordered for the girls were still in transit and wouldn't arrive until later in the week.

But Kevin had brought along his presents for the girls, so he waited until Liv and Hannah left, and then he gave Riley and Taylor each a Valentine's Day card and an album (on vinyl, since we gave Riley a record player for Christmas, and we hadn't realized that Taylor's girlfriend's player broke a while back).

For Riley, he chose Fear of a Blank Planet by Porcupine Tree, explaining that it's a progressive rock masterpiece that a girl learning to play guitar will definitely be able to appreciate, but it's also a concept album exploring problems that modern teenagers have to face, such as the loneliness, despair, and short attention span caused by too much social media exposure, and the mental numbing of prescription drugs being administered by overzealous psychiatrists who seem to want to diagnose every modern kid as having some flavor of ADD so they can medicate them.

And for Taylor, he explained that since he didn't know her all that well yet, he chose Sweetback since it was mellow but highbrow downtempo R&B with jazz and trip hop influences and subject matter covering everything from love and strength to loss and heartbreak and everything in between. He was confident she would definitely find something she liked on it.

Then Kevin explained that the three main guys from the band Sweetback were also the backing trio for Sade Adu. But both girls kind of gave him a blank look even though I had previously assured him they each definitely knew who Sade was.

So later on that night, I brought it up to them again. And Taylor said "Well I know who 'sayd' is..." (rhyming with spade). And she listed a few songs that she knew.

So I said "Right! Except it's pronounced Sha-DAY, not sayd. And so the guys who made this album that Kevin got you are the same ones who do the music on all of Sade's songs that you like."