I took a break last week.

SuperDad I ain't.  I do what any good parent would do: I take care of my daughter, I love her endlessly, I ensure she is happy and healthy and I — GASP! — discipline her.  But even Delta Force takes a break to recharge from time to time.

But I've come to realize that, as an adult, "taking a break" really means "taking time to do what you didn't already have time for."  Rarely does that include "party like a rock star" or "go bungee-jumping."  So I spent the weekend…cleaning.  Top to bottom.  Front to back.  I am no longer embarrassed by the thick layer of dust that had managed to settle on the unused surfaces in the room.  Of course, I was appalled to see that, 24 hours later, the dust layer was regrouping for a counter-offensive.  I'm reminded of a bit of Simpsons humor:

Homer: "All work and no play make Homer…something-something…"

Marge: "Go crazy?"

Homer: "Don't mind if I do!"

Being a parent is a great thrill, but it can be maddening at times.  Even more so when you're doing it alone.  Sometimes God is the only friend you have to talk to about it, too (of course, that's never a bad thing).  But I had friends helping me enjoy my time off, from Wednesday evening through Saturday night, when I went out for a beer and a plate of hot wings with a neighbor from down the street.

I do have one question for the universe, though: why does it always rain when I am picking Her Cuteness up from her mother?  I kid you not, every single time — every one — it has rained at some point during the drive.  And Monday was nearly a monsoon.  It was one of those rains where you wish you had yet another speed for your wipers: intermittent, slow, fast and my-windshield-will-explode-if-it-comes-in-contact-with-water.  Granted, it saved me from having to perform one of the tasks I ran out of time for over the weekend, in that I no longer need to wash my car.  I may need to repaint it after the pressure-washing it took, but at least it's clean.

Other Ramblings…

Note: These are a little old; I didn't get around to posting this last Friday, so the links are a little more stale than I would prefer.

• There's grand theft, theft and petty theft.  Then, there's just plain stupid: from the What-Is-This-World-Coming-To department, we have a case of a crook knocking off a 12-year-old girl's lemonade stand. It's hard to imagine there being a happy ending here, but there is: the girl proceeded to chase the robber into a nearby house, where he hid for an hour before giving it up.  Had he gotten away with it?  He would have walked off with a whopping $17.50.  Instead, he gets the grand prize in the stupidity contest: a felony robbery charge and $50,000 bond.  Now, if he could just find a way to steal another $49,986…
• Democrats responded to President Bush's call to lift a 27-year-old ban on offshore drilling by offering up an idea (if it can be called that) of their own: the government should take ownership of all refineries so they can better control the output.  I'm thinking of a word for this…let's see…Hugo Chavez recently did this exact thing; Fidel Castro has done it; Stalin and Lenin did similar things in other industries…ahh, yes, it's called Communism!  You know, that thing we spent 30-plus years fighting with a cold war?  That concept that the government should run your life completely?  That thing that is just one step further left than Barrack Obama has already gone?
• The housing market is still pretty ugly, but at least the Department of Justice is looking into the causes.  They've recent;y rounded up and formally charged over 400 people with varying degrees of mortgage fraud.  Of course, when the chairmen of both the Senate Budget Committee (Democrat Kent Conrad) and the Senate Banking Committee (Democrat Christopher Dodd) received "special treatment" from the former CEO of the worst-offending lending institution in the entire country that included ridiculously favorable terms (not to mention the fact that Countrywide as a corporate institution has contributed more than $20,000 to Dodd's campaigns which, if I'm not mistaken, is against campaign finance laws), it's hard to have much faith in the government to do anything of merit to fix the problem.
• And, finally…may God bless each and every one of you.