and he calls this work?

Jimmy left today for Miami for a couple days of work. He assures me that such trips are no fun whatsoever, but I know better. I give you my arguments, counselor:

1. View from respective bedrooms tonight:

a) the advertised view from his hotel room tonight

b) the current view off my balcony (a video here would do more justice so you could see and hear the pouring rain):

2. Afternoon activities

a)Jimmy's afternoon will be spent driving from Miami in a rental car probably with the windows down and the smell of sea and salt wafting about.

b) my afternoon will be spent with much wailing and gnashing of teeth because of the evil invention known as homework (which now includes practice for the violin which Mac chose to learn but has conveniently forgotten that it came with a requirement to practice. I told him that doing "stomp" and beating on garbage can lids would be much easier but did anybody listen to me? No, I'm just the mom so what do I know?)





3. Dinner on the run

a) Jimmy can eat wherever he wants, whenever he wants (within the confines of his meeting schedule, of course). He can order room service, go through a drive-through, or eat at a sit-down restaurant of his choosing.

b) I have to feed a finicky 7 year-old who would prefer that I be a short-order cook to meet his whims and fancies. Or if we do as I suggested this morning - go out to eat - we'll have to battle over our restaurant selection because we're probably not going to agree at all on a restaurant. In any event, we'll have to choose a restaurant that's open at 6pm so we can get back home quickly and showered and in bed by 7:15 in order to read until 7:30 when it's lights-out. Oh, and did I mention there's a monsoon going on outside so we'll have to walk in the rain.

4. After-dinner activities

a) Jimmy can crawl into a big king-size bed and flip through a million tv channels with the tv set at whatever volume he wants.

b) Because of the layout of our apartment, our lone tv is very near Mac's bedroom. If I want to watch tv after he goes to bed, I either have to wait for him to fall good and asleep so I can shut his door to block out noise or I have to watch the tv at such a low volume that I practically have to lip-read to understand what's going on.

We sent Jimmy with a Target shopping list so as long as he produces the goods on Wednesday, we'll forgive him for 1a, 2a, 3a, and 4a above (even though 1a is a tough sell for me on a cold, dreary, rainy day when my heels are cracking from lack of exposure to sunlight and sandals!).