Seven

One day late, again! Apparently laying on of hands won´t help Ashmael fighting his inner disease. He has already figured by himself that something is very wrong with his innards and constantly cries for technical help. This weekend oldest son of mine will do a checkup on him and replace what´s wrong with his entrails. That´s the way it is with my generals: they get dismembered, gutted, or, in the worst case, blown up.
So while I gently coaxed Ashmael into doing some of his duties, daughter mine provoked another incident on the fire front. Instead of heating the milk for cocoa she set ablaze one of my dishtowels. Yes, its really hard to operate a ceramic hob: four control knobs, one for each cooking zone, how is a girl of fifteen supposed to keep track? After half an hour huddled together in front of the TV, buried under blankets and waiting for the house to get aired once again (it´s really cold outside during night now!) I sent daughter mine to the bathroom for body care. You have to send her, but once she is in she won´t come out for donkey´s years, so I went up to my studio, to tidy my working place. Ten minutes later all hell broke loose. Apparently son no. 4 had switched off all the lights downstairs, to wait for his sister and give her the best fright ever. I was impressed and wondered if Huns would have left behind the same devastation. Killing five out of six bulbs of the bathroom lamp at a single stroke of a towel is a rather impressive score, only the valiant little taylor would have done better! For the first time I think the next months might be supportive for my nervous system, when only one teenager instead of two will stretch my patience!