Goats, dirtbikes and hardwood floor sliding

 

I couldn't log in to my Blogger account with Firefox, and I spent an inordinate amount of time getting from the bed to the keyboard, so I have lost a few of my marbles along the way. Here's last night's recap:

I was living with my folks, and some roommates, in my folk's palatial home in Minnesota, conveniently located in the parking lot behind the Del Taco. One of the roommates was a Russian girl who made custom acrylic spheres out of personal mementos. She would pour the liquid resin into a cup, add a few sprinkles of weed leaves to the suspension, and then throw in some marbles or nick-knacks to make a whimsical desktop ornament. 

"Oh, no!" she cried, as she dropped some of her marbles into the snow. "How can I make nice ornament now?" She threw in a few more weed leaves and took the last remaining marbles from her pocket. "I guess that will have to do."

Back in the mansion, I was just getting acquainted with the floor plan. It was still wide open, as most of their furniture hadn't arrived from Ikea yet. I took a moment to do a full-length slide in my stocking feet across several rooms worth of pristine hardwood flooring. I tried to encourage others to try it, getting a running start like a basketball player on a full-court press, and then going to my knees at the end, finishing in a rockstar pose. It didn't catch on.

I plopped down on the couch next to my mom and she gave me the warmest hug that I can remember. It was so full of emotion, and I felt completely content in that moment. Greg was sitting beside us, still a little unsettled from the hardwood floor sliding. Just then, the family goat came in and snuggled in between my mom and I and gave me a playful bite. He looked up at me with the most endearing goat face and said, "Hahhh," or its equivalent, in goat. The goat's sudden appearance broke the tension, and the room erupted with laughter.  

I went out to the garage, where one of my roommates had a new dirt bike that he'd been showing off. I took it out for a joyride in the parking lot and amused one of the local girls with my sideshow antics. It was a powerful bike, and I couldn't help popping wheelies every time I hit the throttle. Likewise, every turn became an opportunity to do donuts and smoke the tires. 

Pretty soon, though, I had trashed the bike, and the throttle cable hung limp, the adjustment knob snapped out of its bracket. I snapped it back in place and got the bike operational again. I put it back up in the garage, scratched and dented, hoping no one would be the wiser.

Sometime earlier, I had been eating out on the patio, on a table that utilized existing pine tree stumps for legs. I noticed a few ants on the surface of the table and hastened to find their source. They were crawling up the trunks of nearby trees that were still alive. Somehow, none were actually on the table legs, so I couldn't figure out how they'd made it up to the tabletop. Paratroopers, perhaps? I decided to let them be, since there were too many to kill with one can of Raid, and they weren't really making a direct incursion.

Those are the scant details I can remember. I'll come back and fill them in later, as I recall them.