Destructive sounding, no?  I wanted to destroy something, trying to get that chainsaw started today.  Karen dropped it off yesterday so I could cut up some of the great lot of branches overflowing from our fire pit in the backyard.  It’s supposed to rain the next few days and I needed it done by Friday, so when the opportunity presented itself I went outside and messed with the chainsaw for a while.  All I succeeded in was hurting my left pointer finger.  The pull cord got stuck so I took it apart to get it back in, and when I did it zipped right back into place and the handle you pull on smacked my finger.

I could not get that thing to start.  I called Phil a couple times and even looked up videos online about how to start it, all to no avail.  Karen later told Amanda that Phil had had trouble starting it last time he used it, and I think she said he ended up using Earl’s chainsaw instead.  I’m guessing he forgot that when I was talking to him.

I ended up doing what I initially planned on doing with all that yard debris, which was to set fire to the whole pile and move the branches around as it burned.  I had to keep a pretty close eye on it.  The downside to this is that with we don’t have any small sticks for burning on Friday; just fat logs.  I should have kept some out, but there really weren’t many smaller sticks.  Most of what I burned was branches with leaves on them.

Milly sat at the table on the patio for a good long while watching me and coloring on a large piece of paper.  She warned me not to touch the fire, which was sweet of her.  I had a good day with her.  This morning she wanted to pull a chair up to my work desk then told me we were working together.  Work for me consisted of answering emails and making updates to people’s websites.  Work for her consisted of playing with a drawing app on the iPhone.

This evening while I was setting some things up for Nextwave, Milly spent a lot of time in the office.  Her organization skills impress me, and I told Amanda as much.  While Milly was back here she was hanging letters on Harvey’s crate.  The ones with hooks, like S and G, she hung in one row, and the ones she couldn’t hang she attached via magnet on a different row.

Before that Milly was playing in Harvey’s crate.  She probably sat in that thing for half an hour.  I didn’t realize Bruce was stuck in there with her for a while, but she was mostly gentle with him.  At one point she said to him, “Bruce, you wanna get out?  No?  Okay.”

She got to do a little Facetime with Auntie Rin, Mum Mum and Pap, but she had been watching herself in the iPad’s camera prior to that, so she was fussing about how she wanted to watch Milly more than she was talking or interacting with anyone.

Oh, and she was lip syncing to the Alphabet Song on her laptop.  Where in the world did she learn to lip sync?

Man, I’m tired.  It’s just now 11:30 and I fell asleep for a few minutes in the office chair.  I did that a few days ago too.  I tell you this: This chair wasn’t exactly made to sleep in.  My neck is killing me from my head lolling to the front for a bit.

Zach Dotsey